Bach’s Chaconne, performed by violinist Nathan Milstein
October 20, 2009
On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind. –Brahms on Bach’s Chaconne
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Wow.
Many scholars believe that the Chaconne was written as a response to the death of Bach’s first wife Maria Barbara at 35. They had seven children together.
The Chaconne played a role in my conversion from atheism. It was inconcievable to me that something so beautiful could exist in a universe without God.
ben,
Your personal story is very interesting. I think that variants of ‘arguments from beauty’ play a central role in the conversion of many Christians. Not that everyone reasons it out explicitly… many, I think, just make intuitive leaps from worldly instances of beauty to He who is Beauty or Glory in himself.
I know that as a young 20 year old I myself was overwhelmed by the beauty in the music of Bach (particularly, his Mass in B minor), and that–in some convolluted (sic?) but very real way– played a major part in my giving my existential assent to the personal God who is Jesus Christ.
Thank you for sharing.