“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!

Simply mention the hit video game Tetris to someone who has played it, and they will instantly think about the catchy music that accompanies the game. In this game, the player organizes blocks into (hopefully) organized stacks. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach is similar, in that he often takes a small musical idea (motif) and turns it into a building block out of which he builds an entire piece – much like building a house entirely out of tiny Legos.

Anyone who has played Tetris knows the main theme music (Music A), but for those more adventurous types who chose the B or C music, you might recognize the Minuet (jump to 11:35) from Bach’s French Suite in b minor. Many of the movements of this suite are built on small motivic ideas, which, when stacked correctly on top of each other, can create magnificent structures.