Enough has been said about Bach's genius, and I can add nothing to it. I am no musicologist, nor even an especially knowledgeable amateur. But I was thinking this morning about the universality and transcendence of it, and of the other great works of Christendom. There is good art in many cultures, that speaks to the heart and moves the soul. But there is that something in these works that touches the universal, the infinite, the transcendent, the sublime, that nothing else can match. It is this which gives the works of artists like Bach, Handel, Dante, Shakespeare, Raphael, Donatello, Donne, Hugo, and Tolstoy that aetherial power which moves the human spirit and not just the soul. It is Truth, and not just human truth, but Divine Truth.
Listening to this, the opening of St. John's Passion, is like gazing, with Dante and Beatrice, from the Crystalline Sphere into the High Empyrean. Listen to the music, look deep into this image by Gustav Dore (but don't just see a monochromatic image: bring the glorious pictures of the heavens you've seen from the Hubble telescope to mind, to bring it to life in your mind's eye), and recall the opening words of St. John's Gospel:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."
Soli Deo gloria
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