Maybe I was always emo but just didn't know it. A local radio station just did a week-long air of Bach's complete works last week, and it got me addicted to listening to the cantatas once again.
These songs or "cantatas" were written to be performed during church services. I was curious about the lyrics since I can't understand German, so I looked up some translations online:
Fantasizing about death in a church! Never heard such lyrics sung when I used to attend church services as a kid. The music at our church was never really that good to say the least. At least it was better than the other churches I've been to. One time we went to another family's church which was really, incredibly bad. Imagine some guy strumming an acoustic guitar singing a pop-style song about holding hands with Jesus or something. Wish churches played emo music like this still. I would totally make friends with some goth kids and go listen to Bach on Sundays together.
Let's take a look at one of the arias from the "Saint Matthew's Passion":
This is based on a part of the Bible. Jesus tells his posse that he has been betrayed by someone in his own crew (*cough* Judas *cough*). Peter goes emo, telling Jesus he would die before betraying him. So Jesus is like, "Look bitch, I already know you're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows at dawn, so save your breath and piss off." Peter is like "Nuh-uh". Then Jesus gets captured, put on trial and is humiliated and stuff. Some dudes go up to Peter and ask "Hey, aren't you one of those crazies who were walking around with Jesus?" "Nah, never heard of the guy" responds Peter. After third time this happens, the rooster crows and Peter realizes he fucked up exactly how Jesus predicted. So, this aria is that emo part of the Bible where he then throws himself down on the floor and starts weeping bitterly, crying out to God for mercy.
Okay, if you need more proof that Bach music is emo, how about the BWV 8:
"What makes you so alarmed, my spirit, if my last hour should strike? My body everyday inclines to the earth; and there must become my resting place, where so many thousands are carried."
I mean, to some it probably sounds like he should've been searching for a shrink rather than God. But then we might never have had music like this. My Chemical Romance got nothing on this shit.
P.S. this thread was just an excuse to post music of Bach because Bach is awesome so here is more Bach:
I'm sorry. I really am. Truly very sorry. One night I had a bit too much to drink, was having a good time with friends, somebody started playing dubstep SOMEWHERE idk where... Bachstep was mentioned as a joke... it exists.
I love classical music but I can't listen to Bach without hearing it anymore... lol
The entire point of religion is preparing yourself for death and what comes after. A lot of the Church focused on death. Remember, at the time, life sucked. It sucked for most people a lot. So of course they would think of death, and how great it will be when they finally enter the afterlife, which has GOT to be better than life.
Religion today is not what it once was. Churches are not what they once were. And don't get me started on the "strict Bible interpretation" study groups and fringe whackjobs that wouldn't know a true piece of Jesus' Word if it walked up and slapped them in the head with a bloody nail.
Then again, I haven't been to a church service in years, so I could be wrong.
Not going to write a long history on this, but to give some context about why Bach is "emo".
Bach was writing while the Reformation was going on, and the Catholic Church was split from in Germany. There was a lot of corruption in the Catholic Church at the time. People were just forced to pay money and the priests would absolve them of their sins or guarantee their salvation to heaven. Basically there was a lot of greed and corruption going on, and it heavily favored the wealthy and people in power. After Martin Luther was the catalyst for the Reformation, the church had split and the Protestant/Anglican Church was formed. This religion put a lot more fear of heaven/hell into its believers, because there was no "pay money, get out of hell free" card. Thus people were much more god fearing, and it is very much reflected in the music of the German composers, Bach being at the forefront. This is also because at the time most of the composers were employed by the church, and most of their music was written for church services, so it would reflect the change in tone of the music between Catholicism and Protestant/Anglicans. If you want to explore any further... check out some of the music written in France at the same time as Bach. France was pretty much all Catholic at this time still. Its like a party in comparison lol.
On April 05 2013 17:39 felisconcolori wrote: The entire point of religion is preparing yourself for death and what comes after.
Notwithstanding that "religion" is a meaningless term, I wonder what Orthodox Jews would have to say for that (who have only minor semblances of an afterlife and primarily focus on the importance of experiencing this life piously).
On April 05 2013 22:00 Irre wrote: Not going to write a long history on this, but to give some context about why Bach is "emo".
Bach was writing while the Reformation was going on, and the Catholic Church was split from in Germany. There was a lot of corruption in the Catholic Church at the time. People were just forced to pay money and the priests would absolve them of their sins or guarantee their salvation to heaven. Basically there was a lot of greed and corruption going on, and it heavily favored the wealthy and people in power. After Martin Luther was the catalyst for the Reformation, the church had split and the Protestant/Anglican Church was formed. This religion put a lot more fear of heaven/hell into its believers, because there was no "pay money, get out of hell free" card. Thus people were much more god fearing, and it is very much reflected in the music of the German composers, Bach being at the forefront. This is also because at the time most of the composers were employed by the church, and most of their music was written for church services, so it would reflect the change in tone of the music between Catholicism and Protestant/Anglicans. If you want to explore any further... check out some of the music written in France at the same time as Bach. France was pretty much all Catholic at this time still. Its like a party in comparison lol.
The mainstream understanding of the events, yes. In actuality there's no real way to determine "how much corruption" was going on because there was only about three confirmed historical cases of simony in the early 1500s (and really the problem wasn't the "selling of indulgences", but moreso Johann Tetzel's claims about what indulgences are, which was in his own day and still is erroneous); Martin Luther was just using it as his excuse because he had already formulated his anti-Catholic doctrines a decade prior to his dissonance in Wittenberg.
Also, Bach was not "writing while the Reformation was going on". He was born over a 100 years after the schisms had begun. May as well say that Nirvana was performing during the Reformation as well.
But all that's pretty much irrelevant since your thesis is appealing to Bach's Lutheranism, when he himself composed a ton of plentifully depressing music for German and Polish Catholics as well as for other Lutherans. By all accounts too, Bach was a jolly guy that had a wholly optimistic view of life and death. The best explanation for the bleakness of his lyrics is to examine Saxon baroque aesthetics, but that's probably too complicated and uninteresting a subject for many people here.
Hate to stick forks in eyes here, but Bach did not write the words for his cantatas. He only set texts to music, and rather famously used the Lutheran (as in written by Martin Luther) chorales in very inventive ways. Also, "emo" seems a fairly oblique way to describe masterpiece after masterpiece.
The title of the blog is "Bach is Goth, Christianity is Emo", of course his descriptions of the music are somewhat oblique, that seems to be his point!
And yeah, it is rather disingenuous to say that Bach lived "while the Reformation was going on". It certainly hadn't "finished" by the early 1700s, but that has more to do with how protracted and expansive the process of religious schism can be. Much of the "legwork" of the Reformation had already been done by the time Bach came to popularity.
EPT
even many modern songs talk about suffering and looking to death and what have you.
