On this day, in 1945, the first nuclear weapon, codenamed “Trinity“, was detonated in Alamogordo NM, as part of The Manhattan Project. The project’s leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer, lived a wild life as magical and worthy of any ancient Norse saga. It’s hard not to read about him without invoking an air of mysticism. For one, the codename “Trinity” came from a devotional poem by John Donne: “As West and East / In all flatt Maps—and I am one—are one, / So death doth touch the Resurrection.” and “Batter my heart, three person’d God.” More than that, Oppenheimer said the bomb test brought to mind words from the Hindu poem, Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

American composer John Adams was commissioned to write an opera titled Doctor Atomic, in which Oppenheimer was to be portrayed as a modern-day Faust. The opera’s text was taken from declassified military and scientific documents, and sacred poetry. This politically edgy opera made quite a scene when it premiered in 2005, and was later performed at the Met (which is a HUGE deal for any contemporary opera.) Adams later adapted a “Dr. Atomic Symphony” for orchestral concert use. Musically, its style incorporates elements of neo-romanticism, film music, and post-minimalism (ok, I admit, I just made up that last word!)

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.