A few weeks ago I posted about the “Queen of Chorales”, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern. The tune has been used by many composers – today we’ll hear from Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn is often praised for championing and reintroducing JS Bach’s music to European audiences. Like Bach, he was an absolutely genius of a composer, and wrote in a conservative style for his time. Mendelssohn wrote a number of fantastic oratorios; when he died at the young age of 38, he left an unfinished oratorio, Christus. This chorus tells part of the story of the birth of Christ. It begins with a traditional-sounding recitative, followed by a short section sung by the Three Wise Men, and closes with a chorus – which ends, like many of Bach’s cantatas, with a chorale. The Queen of Chorales, that is.

Compare the end of the two pieces to get a sense of the chorale, and the stylistic difference between 1730 and 1830.

Bach: chorale starts at 20:45
Mendelssohn: chorale starts at 4:49

How can one capture Martin Luther King in a short blog post? Or one piece of music? It’s a daunting task that took me through lots of pieces, many of which I had never heard before.

American jazz musician and composer Dave Brubeck wrote a piece in 1969 called “The Gates of Justice.” It is a religious concert work, taking its text primarily from the Psalms. However, in one movement, Brubeck  incorporates portions of King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, as well as the ancient Jewish leader, Hillel the Elder: “If the time for action is not now, when is it?”

Brubeck had a fascinating life, including a scandalous graduation from a music conservatory without being able to read music, starting one of the US Army’s first interracial bands, and developing strong religious views despite growing up in a non-religious family.

The words of Hillel remain pertinent today, and probably, always: “If the time for action is not now, when is it?”

… Shines the Morning Star.

A friend of mine called the German hymn Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern “the Queen of Chorales.” The hymn was written in the first century after the Protestant Reformation, and remains a staple of Lutheran hymnody to this day (well, sort of.) There’s something about the shape of the melody and the dance rhythms that make it stick.

I adore the cantata that Bach wrote which features this chorale. The spirit of joy is captured perfectly, and is found in every movement, even though the chorale itself is only found in the first and final choruses. The piece speaks for itself, so I’m going to sit back and let you listen:

side note: BWV is a catalog of Bach’s works. BWV 1 doesn’t mean it’s the first piece he wrote – in fact, he was middle-aged when he wrote it – it just happens to be the first piece listed in the catalog.