This past couple of weeks, partly because I can’t bear listening to the Mariners lose anymore (it’s been a horrific couple of weeks for we Mariner fans), I have been obsessed with a podcast called (CLICK TO SEE PODCAST): “30 Bach: The Goldberg Variations Project”! In this podcast, Lowry Yankwich unpacks each of Bach’s Goldberg Variations through an amazing list of guest interpreters including Simone Dinnerstein, the Borromeo String Quartet, Imani Winds, Hai-Yann Choi, and Mahan Esfahani. I mean this is an absolute game changer! I don't know what it is about this podcast, but it has opened my heart again to the master composer that Bach truly is. Seriously, I can't wait to wake up in the mrning, make my favorite cup of cappuccino, and turn on one of the amazing renditions of the Goldberg Variations! Currently my two favorite versions are Glenn Gould's mind-blowing recording recorded back in 1955 (he has another one in 1988) and Simone Dinnerstein's 2007 recording. Both of these recordings are so so good! And both in their own ways turned the classical music world upside down. Gould for making the Variations sound a little too much like his own, and Dinnerstein for discovering the "inner soul" of Johann Sebastion Bach.
Do me a favor! Humor me! Take 10 minutes tomorrow morning. Make yourself your cup of cappuccino, sit down in your favorite chair, and gently close your eyes as you play just the aria of each of these recordings. (Just click on these and they should play)
Just allow yourself to fall in love with classical music again! Just let your mind lose itself in the simple structure and beauty of this masterpiece! Let that baseline take you to the bottom of your soul, and just let yourself stay there for just a minute or two! This is so good!
Now listen to them again and notice just how different these two recordings are! This is the same piece of music and yet the players play them so differently. Isn't that cool? Each of these musicians is placing their own experiences of their life, right along-side, this masterpiece and making it something new!
What is so interesting about Bach's music is that he rarely writes any directions in it! He gives you the notes and you get to decide the mood, the tempo or pace, and the dynamics. Most music has all sorts of descriptions and instructions for the musician playing the piece, but Bach doesn't put anything! Why? Well, I wonder if by not giving too much, Bach is trying to say: "Here! Make it your own!'
And these two wonderful pianists have...don't you agree! Each of these recordings has an incredible intimacy to it. They are so personal. Oh, don't get me wrong...they are still 100% Johann Sebastion Bach...but because of what Bach has done they are also 100% Gould and Dinnerstein.
In the 3rd podcast in this series, the author of this podcast gives a wonderful metaphor for what he sees these musicians doing. He compares Bach's Goldberg Variations to a majestic mountain Just for our purposes here let's say this piece is Mt. Ranier. And each of these pianists are renowned mountain guides. As guides, they have studied this "mountain" for years not only on a map but by climbing it over and over and over again. They know every deep valley and loose rock. They know where each beautiful vista is and what season, and it is best to be seen. But, because they have come to see this mountain at various times and have had different experiences along the way, they have different stories to tell at each vista, and different flowers to point out.
In a way, this is a great analogy for my ministry as a pastor. Every week I read a certain passage of scripture. And this scripture has become sacred for us. In some ways now, I have climbed this mountain tens of times. But each time I climb it, I bring to it different experiences in my life. And so, on Sunday, when I invite you to come along with me on this journey, I will tell this story just a little differently than I did 3 years ago. And, if you go to another worship service at another church, you may hear the same scripture passage, but an entirely different message. Is this wrong? No! Indeed, it is exactly how God, the creator planned it. Because in creating God's masterpiece, God doesn't give us everything. God trusts us enough to take what God has given us--in this case the scripture--and make it our own. Hopefully, a message that is faithful to what is there on the page, but also alive in a new and refreshing way.
In many ways, this isn't just the job of the pastor...to take scripture and bring oneself beside it order that it might become a "living" word, but for the whole church to do that. For in some senses, the real living word is the word we live out with our hands and feet and witness.
Your pastor and friend, utterly amazed by what happens when the sacred and our lives intertwine, Brook
PS: Here are the full variations of each artist
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