Back to Bach (Lynn Kerstan)

That’s him in the picture–Johann Sebastian Bach–famous for wearing really bad wigs and siring 20 children. Guess he didn’t spend all his time writing music. And back in the day (early 18th Century), he was best known as a gifted organist. No pun intended.

For a musical genius, J. S. was remarkably humble. Unlike, say, Beethoven or Mozart. Not that he lacked a temper. He once got into a sword fight with a member of his orchestra who jumped him after being called a nanny-goat bassoonist. Apparently them be fightin’ words in Leipzig.

But despite composing more than 1000 works, including some of the greatest masterpieces in all of music, Bach insisted that anyone with a little talent who worked as hard as he did could do as well. Not bloody likely.

He knew from rejection though, which is why all authors and teenagers without prom dates should identify with him. Once, when applying to the Elector of Saxony (Augustus the Corpulent) for a position, he submitted the equivalent of an audition tape–a performance of the Kyrie and Gloria from what would eventually become the Mass in B-Minor. This is probably the greatest work for chorus, orchestra, and soloists in the history of the world.

He didn’t get the job.

I’m just back from my third rehearsal this week of the B-Minor, the first with the orchestra. How is it I always wind up standing practically in the middle of the trumpet section? My ears are still ringing. Anyway, there’s a full dress rehearsal tomorrow, followed by performances on Sunday and Monday evenings. I’m already Bached into a corner. This sucker is well over two hours long, not counting an intermission, and most of it is scored for the chorus. We’ve been ridden hard and put away wet.

But what a glorious experience it has been. In all the years I’ve sung with choruses, this is the first time any of them has taken on the daunting B-Minor. And now I know why. For one thing, it costs a fortune to mount the production, especially if you bring in the San Diego Symphony to play.

And the music is harrrrrrd. It takes a long time for a non-professional chorus to wrestle it into submission. If not for the miracles of technology, which lets me sit at my computer and sing along with the alto part on cyberbass.com, I’d never come close to learning it at all. I must have stumbled through the "Pleni Sunt Coeli" a hundred times. One thing I know for sure: my neighbors will be glad when this is over.

What’s sad, really, is that Bach himself never got to hear the entire work performed. Nor did he expect to. He lived and worked within the Lutheran tradition, where a Latin Mass would not be welcomed. For him, the B-Minor was a personal offering to God, in thanks for the musical talents given him. Indeed, at the end of his compositions, Bach wrote S.D.G, meaning Soli Deo Gloria. For the Glory of God Alone.

He finished the Mass in the last years of his life, by which time he was all but blind. And he died at age 65, not long after experiencing complications from cataract surgery. Cataract surgery in 1750! Who knew?

Isn’t it strange that so many great composers were afflicted in so many ways? Beethoven went deaf. Mozart died at age 35, coincidentally on my birth date, December 5th. Not the same year, of course. Chopin died at 39. John Lennon . . . well, he died too young as well.

It’s astonishing to me that Bach’s genius was all but buried with him. It took another composer, Felix Mendelssohn, to resurrect his greatest works and introduce them to a welcoming world.

I think, often, how lucky we are to live in a time when music of every kind is so accessible. I even have the B-Minor on my Ipod Shuffle. Yes, I am obsessed with this masterpiece. It makes me happy. Especially the Gloria, which dances and shimmers and shimmies like faeries tipsy on fermented nectar.

Just lately, people walking past me on the beach have been giving me odd looks. Maybe because I can’t help singing along.

Gloria in excelsis! Et in terra, pax!

Cat Update: Lymond has been doing much better. Virtually back to normal. Then again, he’s pulled that on me before. But these last few days, I’m much encouraged.