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This week saw the 225th anniversary of the death of German composer and organist Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach died on July 28, 1750.

As the day unfolded, I found myself reading Uncommon Measure a remarkable memoir by Natalie Hodges. Hodges reflects in one of the last chapters on one of the great pinnacles of violin playing, the Chaconne from the Partita in D minor, BWV 1004.

Hodges points out the discrepancy between this single movement, and the rest of the Partita. The other movements are dance movements; the Chaconne is not. Furthermore, the Chaconne is longer than all of the other movements of the Partita combined. This has led to some theories about the reason for this movement's composition, and what it might mean. Perhaps it is a memorial to Bach's first wife, Maria Barbara Bach, but there does not seem to be much concensus about this theory. If Bach conceived of the six solo violin pieces as having some hidden liturgical or theological meaning, the Chaconne could represent the crucifixion.

Without deciding on the memorial theory, Hodges offers an exploration of this music in the context of grief. The opening and ending phrases of this enormous solo work are identical. The substance of the sections within could be understood variously as different "stages" of grief (perhaps even approaching acceptance when the music turns to major?), but Hodges points out the reality of the nature of grief: it never leaves. The opening theme comes back unchanged at the very end to drive this point home.

In searching for a recording to listen to, I came across this album by Ingrid Matthews of the complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin.

I was privileged to have Ingrid Matthews as a chamber music coach earlier this summer at the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin, but I didn't realize at the time that she had made this recording twenty-five years ago (the same year I matriculated as an undergraduate at Oberlin in fact).

Oberlin and Bach, in fact, go hand in hand for me. I still vividly remember my audition, which included a major Bach work. And I studied many Bach organ works over my four years there, many of them on the 1974 Flentrop organ which suits this music beautifully.

But whether it's a complex organ in a concert hall, or a beautifully made violin in a practice room, Bach in particular is a master at creating a sound world. The preludes and fugues for organ are impressive. But no less wonderful and miraculous are the universes that Bach unfolds with a single melody instrument: a violin, or a cello.

Here is a composer who was able to bring his tremendous craftsmanship to the instrument at hand, and create works that reach out through the centuries and continue to challenge, inform, and inspire generations of musicians on nearly every instrument imaginable. And with an endlessly inventive combination of a stylized set of materials, Bach finds an emotional expressivity that feels clear and authentic to those of us who perform and listen 225 years after his death.

Is it right that we bestow such a composer with "sainthood"? I can think of no more deserving composer for this honor, so perhaps it is right, in a sense. Bach was given his own feast day in 2022 when he was added the calendar for July 28, the day of his death, and he is included in the current Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2024. In the calendar revisions of 2009, Bach was previously honored alongside George Frideric Handel and Henry Purcell (the latter two riding Bach's coattails: Handel died on April 14; Purcell, November 21). Handel and Purcell do not appear on the current sanctoral calendar.

Particularly because Bach paid such close attention to every textual detail in crafting his soundworlds, I was struck with the unpleasant incongruity of the mistake in his Rite II (contemporary language) collect: the word "thy" appears just as it does in the Rite I (traditional language) collect.

I also note that the Rite II collects for Iranaeus of Lyon (June 28), Edith Stein (August 9), and Frances Joseph Gaudet (December 31) have the same error.

Sound out your majesty, O God, and call us to your work; that, like thy [sic] servant Johann Sebastian Bach, we might present our lives and our works to your glory alone; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The collect is a strong one. Bach signed all of his sacred compositions with the Latin "Soli Deo Gloria," ("To God alone be the glory"). It's so good, in fact, it's worth a correction.

Sound out your majesty, O God, and call us to your work; that, like your servant Johann Sebastian Bach, we might present our lives and our works to your glory alone; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Labels: Bach, Ingrid Matthews, Lesser Feasts and Fasts