Many Christians celebrate Trinity Sunday on the first Sunday after Pentecost. What is interesting about this is that it is the only Christian feast that celebrates a doctrine as opposed to an event or person. This doctrine – the Holy Trinity: One God in three Persons – has been discussed and argued throughout history and is regarded as a holy mystery. And like many mysteries, people have tried to wrap their brains around it and explain it using our limited, logical speech.

This is where, perhaps, a mind like Johann Sebastian Bach could help out the philosophers and theologians. His Clavierubung III is a marvelous piece of music, but it’s practically a work of theology as well. It will be impossible to unpack this volume in one blog post. In this book of music, one of the few that Bach managed to publish in his lifetime, Bach shows his heartfelt devotion to God and gives an homage to Martin Luther, who was seen as the liberator of Protestant Christians and in many ways, the founder of modern Germany.

The Prelude & Fugue in Eb are the first and last pieces in the Clavierubung III. Besides the less subtle use of Eb – a key with three flats – the prelude can be divided into three distinct themes. Each theme, however, can not stand alone; they require the other two themes to complete the work. The fugue is actually three different fugues. Despite the uniqueness of each fugue, the subject of the first fugue finds its way (unsurprisingly) into the second and third; so, what seems like three fugues is actually one.

“What is this? Now there is something one can learn from!” That’s a huge compliment, especially as it was uttered by the arrogant Mozart when he heard the music of J. S. Bach.

The six motets of Johann Sebastian Bach are beautiful beyond measure, perfectly composed, and fiendishly difficult to sing. “Der Geist hilf unser Schwachheit auf” (The Spirit gives aid to our weakness) was composed for a funeral, but the text is equally perfect for the Christian day of Pentecost – the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples and the birthday of the Church. The piece begins with the double-chorus singing back and forth to each other, like the biblical “rush of wind” that occurred on the first Pentecost. A fugue follows, as a sort of response to the fiery opening section – listen for the constant hissing of different s’s, again, giving the effect of rushing wind, or perhaps speaking in tongues. The motet closes with a sweet setting of a hymn which Martin Luther wrote for Pentecost, and would have been well known by any 18th century German Protestant.

0:00 – double-chorus singing in dialogue
The Spirit gives aid to our weakness, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

I recently stumbled across a friend’s performance on youtube, and immediately though “wow, this is great – time to put this on the blog!” Any Art Music video (that isn’t designed to be click bait) with over 20,000 views is quite an accomplishment.

Now it’s common knowledge that if you want to lose your faith in humanity, all you need to do is read through the comments on any youtube video, news feed, or basically anything on reddit. Unfortunately, and against my better judgment, I scrolled down and found that many of the comments were complaints about my friend’s facial expressions – not the music. Here was a flawless performance with good sound & video quality, offered for FREE to anyone, anytime – but clearly, this generous offering of beautiful music at no cost isn’t as important as making the right facial expression.

The world is full of Philistines and Trolls. We’re all told to ignore the Philistines and not feed the Trolls, but their words still can hurt – and some of us are unable to forget cruel words, regardless of the circumstances under which they were said or written. So as a public service message to all, please think before you speak or write, and remember that beauty is a thing that needs to be protected and defended. And DON’T FEED THE TROLLS!