Rustom Mody wrote:
There are two voices I hear here vis-a-vis Bach:
1. Art for art's sake -- the romantic idea
Bach lived well before the Romantic era. I don't think the ideas of the
Romantic era even came into his head.
2. Art for money's sake -- the distinction of commercial vs commisioned
being a fine semantic distinction.
Bach himself expressed a view however which does not fit in with either:
/
Anything done other than for the service of God is vanity/
[I read this 30 years ago and google is not finding me a suitable quote
-- sorry if its off the mark]
It does sound like something Bach would say. He was even for his time a
very devout Christian, there are stories about him that indicate he
experienced a very personal one-on-one relationship with God. So he did
his music composition for the service of God.
Still, he did what he had to do so make a living and support his large
family, including working to obtain better-paying positions at other
churches.
There's a verse from one of the letters of Paul: "The workman is worthy
of his hire." Bach's expression fits in with that and (I think) art for
money's sake (being paid for writing music). I don't think it fits in
with the art for art's sake idea, or the ideas of the Romantic period.
--
David
gnome@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
authenticity, honesty, community
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