Bach, Johann Sebastian

Tova Leigh-Choate on the roots of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio

Music can be likened to a cathedral, says professional guitarist Gordon Kreplin, when it creates through silence and sound a meditative space into which one may enter and encounter God. (14 minutes)

FROM VOL. 67 David Bentley Hart describes how the Christian understanding of Creation as beauty and gift, as the outward expression of the delight the Trinity has in itself, reveals a vision of reality different from the pagan or fatalist vision of reality. (12 minutes)

For Good Friday, Ken Myers tells the history of the text and music behind the popular hymn, “O Sacred Head, now wounded.” (27 minutes)

In light of Passiontide and Holy Week, Ken Myers revisits three interviews — with Calvin Stapert, Robin Leaver, and Christoph Wolff — that provide an illustrative background for listeners to appreciate J. S. Bach’s theological attentiveness and scholarly genius. (36 minutes)

Jaroslav Pelikan on the radical differences between Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Passions

Calvin Stapert on the experience of joyous order in Bach’s music

David Bentley Hart on why Johann Sebastian Bach is the greatest of Christian theologians

Ken Myers encourages an understanding of the Church as a particular culture that should be nourished and sustained, and then describes the history of an Advent hymn written by St. Ambrose. (27 minutes)

In preparation for Holy Week, Ken Myers presents a whirlwind music history lesson with musical examples from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. (22 minutes)

Calvin Stapert on the evolution of an ancient musical-liturgical tradition

A conversation with Marcus Rathey and Michael Marissen about Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion. (12 minutes)

Divine glory and human suffering

FEATURED GUESTS: Gilbert Meilaender, James L. Nolan, Joel Salatin, Michael Di Fuccia, Robin Leaver, and Michael Marissen

FEATURED GUESTS: Bob Cutillo, Hans Boersma, Dana Gioia, Matthew Levering, Bruce Gordon, and Markus Rathey

FEATURED GUESTS: Douglas Rushkoff, Phillip Thompson, Jonathan Wilson, James Bratt, D. C. Schindler, and Paul Elie