Saturday, November 10, 2012

Bach's Music with Antonio Machado's Poetry


There was such a great happiness in Antonio Machado's poem "Last Night, As I Was Sleeping," that I was inspired to look for some music which had the same emotional tone for me.  The music is an instrumental version of the song "Sheep May Safely Graze" by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The original version is a song from Cantata #208 (BWV 208), known by some as the "Hunting Cantata."  It was composed for the birthday of Duke Christian of Saxe-Weisenfels on February 23, 1713.  Apparently the Duke was fond of hunting.


This music was a song in one of Bach's secular cantatas.  But for me, the instrumental version speaks of Jesus from beginning to end.  There's a bit in the first major section which sounds a lot to me like the hymn "O Come, All Ye Faithful."  When I hear the minor section in the middle, I recall the sufferings of Christ.  Then there is a section where a minor figure gets repeated multiple times finally ending in a major flourish as Christ rises from the dead in triumph.  And the final major section puts the exclamation point on the happy ending.




I had never heard of Rick Foster before yesterday.  Rick Foster is a classical guitarist who has created many arrangements of Christian hymns and sacred classical music.  He created an arrangement of this Bach song for classical guitar.  World-famous classical guitarist Christopher Parkening recorded it, making it The classical guitar arrangement for this song.

In the 1970's, a young man named David Franzen heard Christopher Parkening play this song, and love was stirred and awakened.



I've been told that a holy place is a place where people have given their love.  David Franzen went on to become a well-known classical guitarist in the Pacific Northwest.

What gratitude I have for this long chain!  What gratitude I have for this heavenly bucket brigade!

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What's Going On Here?

Pretty much what the tagline says. I'm reciting poems I like, and making mashups of poems I like with the music for which my ear hungers when I read and think of these poems. It is my sincere hope that other lovers of these poems will do likewise.