• Boulder Bach Festival Website
  • Join Us on Facebook
  • ColoradoGives.org Profile
  • Boulder Bach Newsletter

Boulder Bach Beat

~ Boulder Bach Beat hopes to stimulate conversations about the ways Bach’s music succeeds in building bridges between populations separated by language, culture, geography and time.

Boulder Bach Beat

Tag Archives: tea

A Farewell to Bach

15 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Life, Bach's Successors, Bach's Works

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Arthur Rubenstein, autograph manuscript, Bösendorfer, Bible, Bist du bei mir, bust, cantor, CD, compact disc, Eliane Gerrits, Elias Gottlob Haussmann, funeral, Holtkamp Organ Company, Johannes Gutenberg, Judith Scheide, Leipzig, long-playing record, Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, organ, painting, Pia de Jong, piano, portrait, Princeton, Schubert, St. Thomas Church, String Quintet in C Major, tea, The Huffington Post

A drawing by Eliane Gerrits

A drawing by Eliane Gerrits

My friend’s husband recently died, so on a foggy February morning, I ask her over for a cup of tea. “Oh, no, please come to my house instead,” she says, “and you can still see Bach’s portrait before it goes forever to Leipzig.”

Bach’s portrait in her house?

Bach sat for only two portraits in his lifetime. One is in poor condition. The other, painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann in 1746, is in excellent condition just a few blocks away from me in Princeton.

An elderly gentleman who introduces himself as the “house manager” lets me into my friend’s house. “Madame is still getting ready,” he says. “Make yourself at home.” Curious, I look around the crowded living room, which is a cross between a church and a library.

Half of the room is occupied by a gleaming Holtkamp organ. Under a glass plate is a handwritten musical score with the name: Johann Sebastian Bach, signed with a flourish. On a lectern is an open Gutenberg Bible.

Suddenly, I am standing face-to-face with perhaps the greatest composer who ever lived. I know the famous portrait from the jackets of the old record albums my father used while preparing music for his church, and then later on from CD covers and busts sitting on pianos around the world.

Bach was sixty-one when his portrait was done. He is a stout man with a double chin and an unhealthily ruddy skin. He wears a white blouse with sleeves puffed at the wrists; over it is a black jacket with hard buttons. On his head, like a weird hat, is a white wig. In his right hand he holds a tiny piece of sheet music. On it is written, “Canon triplex á 6 Voc.”

Then Judith enters, the widow of musicologist and philanthropist Bill Scheide, who died in November at the age of one hundred. She is momentarily distracted, shuffling around the room, but when she sees me in front of the painting, she brightens.

“Ah,” she says, “you’ve already met him.”

The house manager brings in a tray of tea, and Judith takes a sip. “Bill bought this painting sixty-two years ago,” she says. “It was his most prized possession. Our mornings always started here, in this room, with the music of Schubert. Bill said that listening to Schubert first gave him permission to listen the rest of the day to Bach.”

I had heard about the wave of emotion in church during Bill Scheide’s funeral when Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major was played. Arthur Rubinstein called this composition “the gateway to heaven” and wished to have it played at his own funeral.

“He looks very serious, huh?” Judith says, with a glance at Bach, “but he was a gentle man.” She then sits at a Bösendorfer piano which I had completely overlooked.

“Whoever makes music, makes something of love,” she says as she opens the Notebook for Anna Magdelena Bach. As we listen to Bach’s Bist du bei mir (BWV 508) playing in the background, Judith seems to turn into a girl. Bach, who watches from the wall, is suddenly no longer the pompous man with the quizzical look that Haussmann gave him but a distant third husband watching his much younger wife.

I listen to the song’s words and think of my father, who died three years ago today: “Be thou with me, and I will go gladly to my death and my rest.”

“It is time that the cantor of St. Thomas Church return to Leipzig,” Judith says, looking softly at the painting. “But how I will miss him.”

Pia de Jong – The Huffington Post

Re: Generation

22 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Successors, Bach's Works, Other Artists, Video Recordings

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

biscuit, British Empire, curtain, DJ Premier, Dom Pérignon, dress, drums, hip-hop, kick drum, Nas, Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, popular music, Rap Genius, Regeneration Music Project, rhyme, shirt, sky, snare drum, tea, The Simpsons, tie

Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones

Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones

Yeah
Nas in the building
Premier‘s in the building
Yeah
This is how we redefine, the music
Let’s go

Yeah, ya’ll know I gets it on, sip on Dom
Clear the throat, wet the palate
Compose a ballet, then expose a rare talent
The kick drum will have you numb, the snare‘s valid
That’s how Premier styles it
Yeah ya’ll know he gets it on, that’s a given
Every song I’ve written, make the sky clear blue
Like the beginning scenes of The Simpsons
Dominions of the British Empire
We’ll listen to Bach, with tea and biscuits
Preem revisits, songs centuries old
Hip-Hop; symphony’s orchestras out cold with it
You know the flow’s administered
By the deputy, rhyme prime-minister
Sir Nas, I’m certified
Please be seated and your shirt and tie, dresses on
Arrive early, when the curtains rise, bet it’s on
A certain etiquette involved with this
Unlike any other music genre is, bring the drama in

Rap Genius – Regeneration Music Project

Archives

  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011

Categories

  • Audio Recordings
  • Bach Excursions
  • Bach's Life
  • Bach's Predecessors
  • Bach's Successors
  • Bach's Works
  • Books
  • Festival Events
  • Films
  • Interviews
  • Memorials
  • Music Education
  • Organology
  • Other Artists
  • Uncategorized
  • Video Recordings
  • World View

Bach Resources

  • A Bach Chronology
  • About Boulder Bach Beat
  • BWV Catalogue
  • The Liturgical Calendar at Leipzig

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy