Grief is perhaps the most painful of all maladies endured by humanity. It is not time limited. Furthermore, knowing that it is the loss we are all born to offers little consolation. Throughout the ages, there exist religious and secular writings and musical compositions that in large measure bring comfort to the dying and those who grieve for them. One doesn't forget that the dying are filled with sorrow for their loved ones who must go on living without them. We, in our profession, are given the sacred opportunity to help the dying and those who grieve face the unfaceable. We are humbled and mystified by the magnitude of suffering that we witness. Where might we find consolation and courage to fulfill this calling over and over again? -perhaps in the Cantatas of John Sebastian Bach specifically with the guidance of John Eliot Gardiner in his epic book, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven.1*

"The prospect of joining the angelic choir or concert after death was considered to be a privileged entry-point for German musicians of the time. It is a mirror of Bach's own deep faith as well as his strategies, conscious or not, for bridging in music the gulf between this world and the next, and thereby enriching the listener's experience. Such strategies hinge on his use of certain specific sonorities such as the use of high trumpets or drum in the instances just alluded to, but equally on the evocation of certain states of mind-fragility at the point of death, or how to deal with bereavement. It is in this context that Keats' famous formulation of negative capability has special pertinence 'when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.' Keats' rationalization of the subjective allows joy and uncertainties to coexist, and provides an unintended denotation of the effect on the listener of Bach's consoling music. To penetrate to the great riches it offers requires both relaxation and effort, an absence of willful straining but the most lucid attentiveness. It needs the listener both to let go and to be supremely vigilant. Ted Hughes once said that writing was about facing up to what we were too scared to face-about saying what we would prefer not to say, but desperately needed to share. That is also the cathartic function of Bach's cantatas that deal with the art of dying: their effect is that we are enabled to face the unfaceable."1

Gardiner reminds us that Bach confronted death in great measure. He lost both parents when he was 9 years old, a brother and an uncle as a young child, and his first wife in sudden death, and of the 20 children he fathered with 2 wives, 10 died before the age of 3 years. Gardiner suggests Bach's Cantatas for Trinity + 16 (BWV* 161, 27, 8, 95) that deal with parents suffering and infant mortality as consoling balm and hope for the spirit and soul.

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Videos on the Internet for further exploration: Interviews of John Eliot Gardiner and Performances of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra Under the Direction of John Eliot Gardiner

Hay Festival. An interview and discussion with John Eliot Gardiner. Chaired by Clemency Burton-Hall August 8, 2014 (http://www.youtube.com/hay+festival++Clemency+Burton+Hall+John+Eliot+Gardiner). One of the world's leading conductors presents his portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who seems so ordinary, so opaque, and, occasionally, so intemperate?

Jauchzet, Frohlocket! The Start of John Eliot Gardiner's Bach Cantata Pilgrimage (1999). Christmas 1999: English conductor John Eliot Gardiner starts off on an extraordinary musical journey. With his Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, he plans to perform the entire body of Johann Sebastian Bach's church cantatas in the year 2000. Bach wrote special cantatas for each Sunday and festival day in the church calendar. Gardiner's aim is to perform them on precisely these days (EuroArtsChannel, published December 1, 2016, https://ww.youtube.com/watch).

The Internet presents the reader with many performances of John Eliot Gardiner conducting Bach's masterpieces.

References