Preparing for Bach...

I would like to encourage all our loyal readers to attend the Bach concert on Saturday evening (details at the end of this post).  

With the help of Dr. Hunt, I have tried to regularly schedule live concerts of classical music for the benefit of our community and our benefactors.  I have done this because I truly believe that the great art which has served the Church throughout the ages provides the kind of reflection and majestic expression of beauty which our culture so desperately needs.

“Sitting through” a concert of sacred music is unlike watching a Netflix video or surfing the internet.  It demands my emotional and intellectual engagement in a way which few other experiences do.

This is why such music means so much to our Holy Father Emeritus, Pope Benedict.  I’ve always been touched by what he once said of a Bach Concert he had attended in Munich many years ago:

"I remember a concert performance of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach –- in Munich in Bavaria – conducted by Leonard Bernstein. At the conclusion of the final selection, one of the Cantate, I felt –- not through reasoning, but in the depths of my heart – that what I had just heard had spoken truth to me, truth about the supreme composer, and it moved me to give thanks to God. Seated next to me was the Lutheran bishop of Munich. I spontaneously said to him: Whoever has listened to this understands that faith is true – and the beauty that irresistibly expresses the presence of God's truth.”

Let us follow the good example of our dear Pope Emeritus and allow these great works of art to lead us closer to the Author of all beauty and life!

Saturday, September 20, 2014 at 7:30 pm

J. S. Bach Aria Concert

Saint John's Seminary Chapel

127 Lake St, Brighton

Vocal soloists and a string quartet join organist and music director Janet Hunt in a concert of sacred arias selected from Bach's cantatas, as well as a performance of his cheerful Concerto for Harpsichord in E Major.