In a 2014 bracket quirk, Celebrity Blogger Heidi Shott is shepherding her "Killer B's" through the Saintly Sixteen this week. Bach, Bedell, and Brooks are all doing battle over the next few days. Today we begin Heidi Week with J.S. Bach taking on Anna Cooper in a contest between an activist and a musician. One key to this contest will be the critical bassoonist vote. Will they rally behind a fellow musician or take umbrage with one of their own once being called a "nanny-goat bassoonist?"
Yesterday, in a tight race, Harriet Beecher Stowe managed to hold off Alcuin 53% to 47% and will face the winner of Harriet Bedell vs. Thomas Gallaudet in the Elate Eight.
Don't forget, you can always find links to the match-ups of the previous rounds on the Bracket page. Can't remember where Anna Cooper grew up? Need a reminder about the number of children J.S. Bach sired? Go look it up and become a better informed Lent Madness voter.
PS. Your shoelaces are untied.
Anna Cooper
Anna Julia Cooper -- the daughter of an enslaved women and a white slave master – was an educator and tireless advocate for the rights, dignity, and opportunities of women and people of color during the early twentieth century. Anna's cause was not only about empowering women, it was also about ensuring the dignity of the entire human race as a reflection of God’s likeness. Nevertheless, she recognized that black women had a unique perspective on the matter because of their sex and race. As she explained,
The colored woman feels that woman's cause is one and universal; and that not till the image of God, whether in parian or ebony, is sacred and inviolable; not till race, color, sex, and condition are seen as the accidents, and not the substance of life; not till the universal title of humanity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is conceded to be inalienable to all; not till then is woman's lesson taught and woman's cause won -- not the white woman's, nor the black woman's, nor the red woman's, but the cause of every man and of every woman who has writhed silently under a mighty wrong.
She fearlessly chastised Christians for being complacent about injustice and advocated for greater recognition of the immeasurable value of women. In her well-known work, A Voice from the South, she wrote:
The earnest well-trained Christian young woman, as a teacher, as a home-maker, as wife, mother, or silent influence even, is as potent a missionary agency among our people as is the theologian; and I claim that at the present stage of our development in the South she is even more important and necessary.
Never one to back down from a challenge, she had pursued the “gentlemen’s” course of study at Oberlin College over the more genteel program for women. After many years as a teacher, principal, and advocate, at the age of 57, she adopted her nephew’s five children while simultaneously working toward her PhD. (So, yes, we know you just celebrated your 80th birthday Gloria Steinem, but Anna Cooper could run circles around you. Did you get a PhD at 67? I don’t think so).
In a time when women were expected to be quiet and people of color were threatened with violence, Anna refused to succumb to fear or comfort. Instead, she relied upon education and Christian compassion over violence, a lesson from which the short-tempered, bassoon-fighting Bach could have benefited. (So much for turning the other cheek, eh?)
Anna died in 1964 at the age of 105. In 2009, the Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School in Richmond, Virginia, opened in her honor and provides a faith-based education to students of limited means.
-- Maria Kane
Johann Sebastian Bach
Over the years I’ve known many 18 year-old males and, indeed, felt a great fondness for a number of them, but I can assure you that I don’t recall one -- even the musicians among them -- ever saying anything like this: “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."
Still, despite the odds, such were the words uttered by Johann Sebastian Bach, a young church organist in Arnstadt, Germany, in 1703. Indeed, Bach signed hundreds of his church compositions and some of his secular works with the initials S.D.G., an abbreviation for the Latin term Soli Deo Gloria meaning “Glory to God alone.”
While many of the saints who find their way into the bracket have left behind theological treatises, sermons, devotional poetry, and other writings, Bach left behind little written work to demonstrate his faithfulness. David Mendel argues in The Bach Reader, “For the expression of emotion, however, Bach hardly needed to resort to words. The focus of his emotional life was undoubtedly in religion, and in the service of religion through music...That his church music was designed to deepen the worship of God and to embellish His service need not be emphasized.”
It is not just Bach’s many biographers who see the hand of God in how Bach offered his gifts to the world. Words of praise from other composers, contemporary through the present day, abound. Claude Debussy said famously, “And if we look at the works of J.S. Bach — a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity — on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered.”
Faithful Christian and musical genius though he was, Bach seems to have admitted to a few human foibles. His short comic opera on the pleasures of coffee-drinking, Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Be still, stop chattering), was performed regularly at a coffee house in Leipzig. We have record of two other of his habits -- a penchant for smoking tobacco and writing poetry -- in a collection he dedicated to his second wife, Anna Magdalena, in "The Second Little Clavier Book.” One verse reads:
How oft it happens when one’s smoking:
The stopper’s missing from its shelf,
And one goes with one’s finger poking
Into the bowl and burns oneself.
If in the pipe such pain doth dwell,
How hot must be the pains of Hell.
A bit of a wag, Bach once said, “It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.” But he also said, “Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.”
Well-played.
-- Heidi Shot
Vote!
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179 comments on “Anna Cooper vs. J.S. Bach”
The hardest decision thus far! Bach is my favorite classical musician & I have much affection for any man who was energetic enough to write as much as he did & still lusty enough to have 22 children! However, Bach is well-known enough already that he can step aside to have people learn more about Anna (not Alice) Cooper who provided so much for those who most needed it. Thanks be for Anna & her commitment to women & to her race.
Really, really tough choice today! Thank you all for your thoughtful comments. Although I honor Bach immensely and voted for Ancient Alcuin yesterday, today I must cast my vote for Ms. Contemporary Anna Cooper.
Anybody else find it ironic that what we are being asked to do by assigning a greater value to one of these saints, i.e., valuing one more than the other, is what Anna Cooper tried to teach us not to do. These two "saints" are literally incomparable, (the proverbial apples and oranges scenario) and we have the audacity and arrogance to try to delineate between and quantify, so to speak, the value of their spiritual contributions? Ridiculous -- as has been this whole process. We justify doing this on the basis of "lightening" Lent, but doing so is irreverent to those "saints" we've been learning about and to God and Jesus who, by their grace, don't keep score on us. Thank God and Jesus for that! Jesus certainly didn't have a lightened spiritual experience in his 40 days prior to His crucifixion. Making Lent a competition of saints seems to me to be off the mark of what Jesus ultimate sacrifice for us is all about. For what it's worth, my wife and I split our votes because the results should be 50-50. Plain and simple. No more, no less. No competition. Only respect, acceptance, love, awe and thanks to the saints for their gifts and contributions.
Thank you for posting this, Mr. Alexander -- I've been feeling the same about Lent Madness lately but couldn't express it as well as you did.
Nicely said. I find Lent Madness is a great way for me to meet new saints from the great cloud of witnesses, and learn something new about others. I learn about the church and myself as well due to my preferences, what people share, etc. Such is the case with your last statement: "No competition. Only respect, acceptance, love, awe and thanks to the saints for their gifts and contributions." Beautiful and something to surely think about. I jokingly root for one over the other, but you are right. There really is no contest.
Finally decided that Anna needs to be better known. Bach is an icon already. Let's help Anna become more of one!
They are both saints. -not in higher or lower leagues, but in different leagues. I am drawn to voting for Cooper who appears to have exercised her ministry at much greater personal risk.
Had to go with JS Bach. We are studing St Matthew's Passion in our Adult Class and am fascinated by the depth of Bach's knowledge of the Bible. He wrote a cantata every week, taught in the school, and played for 2 churches for 27 years. So he had lots of children and two wives -- not that unusual in that time!!!
Nooooo!!!!!! Please don't make me choose between them! ;(
Tireless advocate...nuff said.
I love the music and poems by Bach, but Anna gets my vote this time!!!! She brought a great deal of courage and faith with her and helped so my women and continues to do so even now. After all that is said it was still a tough one!!
Since I was about 10 years old and first sang "Here Yet Awhile" from the "St. Matthew Passion" my soul has been blessed and fed by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and the inspiration of his life. He is still a powerful evangelist. I vote for him.
Seems to me voters prefer doers. Go Anna!
We all have different ways of doing, according to our gifts. Go J.S. Bach (but indeed, well done, Anna)!
How is Bach not a "doer"?
Oh please put Bach in! We need some glorious relief.
The AB's have declared themselves "Just commentators," but whoever is responsible for this paring is ein ubel tater. Apologies, JSB my keyboard has no u umlaut! Bach's Passion of St. John will turn every human heart that is blessed with ears. Thank you, God for the gift of such a universal language and for the human who used the gift to reveal your glory.
I very very very carefully voted for Bach. Yesterday, while checking to see who was ahead, my fat finger accidentally tapped the vote button on my iPhone. My iPhone is my link to the internet. Screen's a bit small you see. The sec put me wise to this. I promptly got in touch with them. Apologized profusely, groveled, begged, pleaded, kissed butt, none of which I am used to doing but hey, a little humility never hurt anyone.
So. To the sec, thank you for giving old fat-fingers here another chance!!!
Gratefully yours,
Madeleine Baier 🙂
JSB had me when out of nowhere (nowhere--isn't that were the wind that is the Spirit comes from?) the "Misericordia" of his "Magnificat" started playing in my mind. Worth a hundred sermons on the nature of mercy.
add this to the collection of contemporary Bachiana:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjqimOkQuz4
takin' it to the streets
Phil, thank you for posting the lovely Bach piece! The choir I am part of has performed his genius, and while it's undoubtedly hard work, I can almost feel the man and his faith working through me.
I would post lots more, but I get the feeling that the only ones paying attention are those of us who already know Bach's music and its tremendous impact. It makes me sad, because I know that Bach has impacted even those who don't know his music and don't understand -- it is impossible to be a member of any church and not be impacted by his music, because of his influence on even more contemporary musicians!
Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit!! Only a Saint could have composed the opening Sonatina.
Anna may be a worthy individual and I know that there are many women in the church who are truly unknown and yet important. That being said, I might comment that many years from now they will still be unknown but the glorious music of Bach will continue as long as there is life on this planet "this fragile earth, our island home. Perhaps beyond as Voyager continues its journey into space. What can compare with the St Matthew or St.John Passion, the Mass in B minor or the Magnificat. This music will continue to inspire individuals for many centuries to come. Soli Deo Gloria
Well said!
Hi George, in english please? My german is pretty sketchy.
Danke Schoen(spelling?),
Madeleine
Cooper is certainly a powerful spiritual worker, but for me as a professional church musician, this is a no-brainer. If I had to take the works of only one composer with me on a desert island, it would be "da Man" (as I call him; "da" a weak, de-emphasized syllable, as in "the'). Among the hundreds of composers who have written for the church, few have combined his mastery of technique with so profound a spirituality. I look forward to working with him when I meet him (I hope).
Precisely, even if I didn't do a solo, I would love to sing in a heavenly chorus with Bach directing one day!
God's Time is always the best time!
Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit
going with Anna, although it is a hard decision, as I am a musician
I had to vote for Bach, as his beloved and guiding music will probably be with the Church universal for the next 1000 years. Anna Cooper certainly belongs in the Saintly 16, but I am concerned that there is an emphasis right now towards those people whose service was during one period (albeit a significant one most certainly) in our relatively recent history. I like to see a spread over the entire life of the Church.
I'm wondering if Lent Madness has become too big for its own good. The comments have become very serious and judgmental this year and I'm not finding this as enjoyable as I have in the past. I'm pretty sure Maria did not mean anything disrespectful by her comment. I thought this is supposed to be fun and joyful, not a litmus test of my spirituality. As I read the comments, I sometimes feel like I'm in the midst of a contemplative vs. social justice smackdown and I've been there too many times to want to visit it again. Can we just like the "saint" we like without dissing the one for whom we choose not to vote?
I soooo agree with you Linda T. What I like most about Lent Madness is getting to learn about the saints. I have a list of books that I want to read after this year and the resources that we are given are great and helpful. Let's keep this a positive, upbeat and fun Lent Madness, PLEASE!!
It had to be Bach, my musical companion for many decades. But thank you for introducing me to Anna Cooper.
almost no reason to vote, a woman wins every time.
much as I hate to agree, I do...after today, not going to bother,,
I became a professional oboist after being inspired by Bach's Cantata 140...the aria in which the soul sings a duet with Jesus...only realizing later that it was a spiritual experience I was having. Some days I've tried to vote more objectively (if there is such a thing!), and Julia is admirable, but I have to to go with J.S.
On behalf of all the saintly students at Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School, I appreciate the encouragement and support of people voting for AJC, a saint that still inspires our community and personal lives.
Another day, another tough choice . . . .