Da Vinci's Madonna & Child with St. Anne, and Bach's St. Anne Prelude & Fugue

Today is the feast day of St. Anne, and what better way to celebrate than through art!  To commemorate the day, I am posting the masterpieces of two of the most prominent names in both the art world and at large: Leonardo da Vinci and Johann Sebastian Bach!

Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci presents portrays in the sketch below the Blessed Mother and the Infant Christ Child alongside St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin. This detail is part of a larger sketch which also portrays the infant St. John the Baptist. For this reason, I find it rather odd that the other woman is designated as St. Anne rather than St. Elizabeth, the mother of St. John. But perhaps there is a significant detail I am missing that reveals her to be St. Anne, or perhaps da Vinci himself designated her as St. Anne to avoid the confusion of future generations.

Detail of Madonna and Child with St. Anne and the Young St. John by Leonardo da Vinci

This second piece of art is Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major, also known as the St. Anne Prelude and Fugue. The title of St. Anne comes from the melody of the same name, which appears as the fugue subject -- the principal melody upon which the piece is built -- in the second movement of this baroque masterpiece. The first movement consists of three parts and is meant to reflect the three persons of the Holy Trinity. Of course, in my opinion, listening to "Our Holy Father Bach" (in the words of French Romantic organist Charles-Marie Widor) is a perfect way to celebrate any occasion, but today especially he seems appropriate!

Getting to Know Franck and Vierne

Happy New Year to all! It promises to be an adventurous year, full of many challenges, changes, and decisions.  My strategy is to take them one step at a time. I go back to school on Sunday to complete the last semester of my senior year, giving my senior recital in April and graduating in May -- most certainly an idea that takes some getting used to.
I'm currently beginning work on my music history research paper (yes, one week before school starts the books for my research, which I ordered through interlibrary loan, finally decided to come in, haha). Nevertheless, already I am becoming intrigued. It's fascinating getting to know the character and personalities of the composers whose music I have been learning and performing over the past year -- Louise Vierne, Cesar Franck, Charles-Marie Widor. My paper is going to focus mainly on the work of the heavily influential Romantic organ-builder, Aristide Cavaille-Coll, a Frenchman who revived the art of organ-building and had a major impact on the compositions of the Romantic period. I'm just beginning to learn about him.

Cesar Franck,
French Romantic organist and composer

Meanwhile I am becoming acquainted with Vierne, Widor, and Franck. Franck and Widor both taught at the Paris Conservatory, and both were teachers of Louis Vierne, a late Romantic period composer and the organist at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Vierne idolized Cesar Franck from a very young age. He began studying composition with the organ professor prior to entering the Conservatory. No sooner had Vierne entered the Conservatory then Franck passed away, devastating the young Vierne. It was Widor who was selected to assume Franck's position after his death. Widor was a major contrast to the personality of his predecessor, though his skills as a teacher and his care and concern for his students were equal. Franck was challenging but very sweet, nurturing the individuality of each student and placing a great deal of emphasis on the art of improvisation. Widor, on the other hand, was much stricter, focusing on technique before even considering improvisation. Vierne grew to appreciate and love Widor, but Franck always held a special place in his heart. Here are some passages on the relationship between Vierne and Franck that I found particularly sweet. Vierne's uncle and aunt also worked at the Conservatory and had extolled Franck's virtues to their young nephew, while also keeping Franck posted on the progress of the budding musician. Vierne gives an account of his first meeting with Franck at age fifteen.


"How pale you are, my dear child. Do I frighten you so very much?" (Vierne had been born legally blind and was an extremely sensitive child).
"Oh yes, Monsieur Franck."
"Why?"
"Because you are a genius."
"Genius? Who told you that?"
"My Uncle Charles and everybody here. I heard you at Saint Clotilde when I was ten, and I nearly died from happiness."
"Why?"
"Because it was too beautiful. I wanted it never to end."
"As beautiful as that? And why did you think it beautiful?"
"Because it sang. It took hold of my heart. It hurt me and made me feel good at the same time. It transported me to a place filled with such music."
"In that place, my dear child, the music is better. Here, we learn. There, we shall know how. . . . Next year you will begin studying the organ. Apply yourself with all your might, and when the time is ripe I shall take you into my class at the Conservatory."

Louis Vierne, late Romantic composer
and organist at Notre Dame Cathedral

Uncle Charles had told Vierne of the beauteous music Franck made upon the organ, but even he could not prepare Vierne for the pain and rapture he felt when hearing the organist play at St. Clotilde. "Certain melodic turns, certain harmonies made me feel a kind of nervous malaise that was at the same time voluptuous pleasure. I could not keep back the tears." Vierne felt "A vague presentiment of the true purpose of music." At age 10 Vierne told his Uncle Charles, "It is beautiful because it is beautiful. . . . I do not know why. It is so beautiful that I would like to do as much and then die just after." (Vierne's words eventually came true, as he died moments after giving his last organ recital).


Upon Franck's death, Vierne struggled with the prospect of studying at the Conservatory without his beloved mentor. However, Vierne remembered, "To serve- [Cesar] Franck had once said, after an especially happy lesson- to serve always, in spite of everything, no matter what might happen, to love God, and next the love of God to love one's art, mindful of the good it could achieve, this Franck announced as his creed, which Vierne was to hand down in turn. 'These thoughts gave me courage. I was filled with elation at the idea of joining battle with routine, officialdom, the powers that be, of avenging the lack of appreciation, the jeers of which he had been the object.' To do less was cowardly betrayal."
This courage was tried and found true under the direction of Widor, Franck's successor. But Widor shall be left for another post. 


In the meantime, some exciting news -- I think I may be organistically related to J.S. Bach! I was doing a little digging, and some of my research demonstrates that I may be able to trace my line of organ teachers to Marcel Dupre and on to Vierne, Franck, and Widor, who if you follow his line of organ teachers far enough, reaches all the way to J.S. Bach! Oh joy! Rapture! 

J.S. Bach: The Orthodox Composer

As a budding organist, Bach is definitely one of my favorite composers. But not just as an organist do I say that. Having listened to an extensive amount of his music, I have found that I can honestly say that he is one of my favorite composers, whether organ, instrumental, or vocal. He is also my favorite composer because of the manner in which he conducted his life. Although there are many dedicated, disciplined musicians who composed beautiful music, not all of them showed that discipline in other areas of their lives. Bach, however, did. He has even been called the Fifth Evangelist because of his desire to compose his music for the glory of God, for the spreading of His Word, for the evangelization of the faithful. He was also a devout Lutheran, and a good father and husband. Thus, I hold him in special regard. Here is a small excerpt from  this wonderful speech by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev at the Catholic University of America, February 9, 2011. 

Bach is a universal Christian phenomenon. His music transcends confessional boundaries; it is ecumenical in the original sense of the word, for it belongs to the world as a whole and to each citizen separately. We may call Bach an ‘orthodox’ composer in the original, literal sense of the Greek word ortho-doxos for throughout his life he learnt how to glorify God rightly. Invariably he adorned his musical manuscripts with the words Soli Deo Gloria (‘Glory to the One God’) or Jesu, juva (‘Help, O Jesus’). These expressions were for him not merely verbal formulae but a confession of faith that ran through all of his compositions. For Bach, music was worship of God. He was truly ‘catholic,’ again in the original understanding of the Greek word katholikos, meaning ‘universal,’ or ‘all-embracing,’ for he perceived the Church as a universal organism, as a common doxology directed towards God. Furthermore, he believed his music to be but a single voice in the cosmic choir that praises God’s glory. And of course, throughout his life Bach remained a true son of his native Lutheran Church. Albeit, as Albert Schweitzer noted, Bach’s true religion was not even orthodox Lutheranism but mysticism. His music is deeply mystical because it is based on an experience of prayer and ministry to God which transcends confessional boundaries and is the heritage of all humanity.

Bach’s personal religious experience was embodied in all of his works which, like holy icons, reflect the reality of human life but reveal it in an illumined and transfigured form.

Bach may have lived during the Baroque era, but his music did not succumb to the stylistic peculiarities of the time. As a composer, moreover, Bach developed in an antithetical direction to that taken by art in his day. His was an epoch characterized by culture’s headlong progression towards worldliness and humanism. Center stage became ever more occupied by the human person with his passions and vices, while less artistic space was reserved for God. Bach’s art was not ‘art’ in the conventional meaning of the word; it was not art for art’s sake. The cardinal difference between the art of antiquity and the Middle Ages on the one hand and modern art on the other is in the direction it takes: pre-Renaissance art was directed towards God, while modern art is orientated towards the human person. Bach stood at the frontier of these two inclinations, two world-views, two opposing concepts of art. And, of course, he remained a part of that culture which was rooted in tradition, in cult, in worship, in religion.

O Sleeper, Awake

Taken from a friend's former status on Facebook. This reminds me of the J.S. Bach Cantata Wachet Auf, Ruft Uns Die Stimme, which is based on Jesus' parable of the Ten Virgins from Matthew 25:1-13.

"I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated."

-Jesus speaking to Adam, an Ancient Easter Homily.

J.S. Bach

"I thought this art was dead, but I see that in you it still lives." - Johann Adam Reinken to Johann Sebastian Bach after his audition in Hamburg at St. Jacobi's Church in 1720.