Sure! When I think of why I love Bach, I often think of works where he demonstrates an ability to express often conflicting emotions at the same time. For example, in St. Mathew’s Passion, there’s a famous piece entitled “Mache Dich, Mein Herze” — it’s sung at a part where the followers of Christ are laying his body to rest, and somehow merges genuine despair with hope, representing the promise of resurrection. I think his ability to represent despair and hope at the same time is pretty extraordinary.
Karl Richter’s version is my personal favorite but there’s lots of different recordings. IMO Bach’s St Matthew Passion is the best piece of musical art, maybe art in general too idk.
There were a lot of these components in middle Germany at that time. Basically every reigning dynasty employed one, and there were a lot of those. They aren't famous now, but Bach wasn't famous at that time either. That he is famous now, is due to Mendelsohn.
Jan Dismas Zelenka wrote for the Saxon king, and many of his works were never released as a result.
Then, they burnt to ashes in 1945. The only extant copies were caught in the bombing of Dresden. We tend to think of "lost works" as something that happened in Antiquity. Nope.
I think this is the real long-term harm the Nazis have done. Sure killing and murdering people is very bad, but after a century it amounts all to the same. What you can't bring back is the whole culture they destroyed.
This is also one aspect why they absolutely hated the Jews. The Jewish culture emphasizes education and Christian were forbidden to take interests in the middle ages. So the Jews became the wealthy educated elite. They were the substrate for the German culture. So in some sense that hatred against the Jews was hatred against the educated and "the establishment".
Also the cities and cultures a lot of famous people, like philosophers and also later statesmen, essentially the countries elite, came from is now destroyed and doesn't belong to Germany any more.
The city where I live, Ostrava, had mostly Jewish intelligentsia, as it was otherwise an industrial city with most people working in mines and steel mills.
I don't think it ever came back, intellectually, from the Holocaust.
> I don't think it ever came back, intellectually, from the Holocaust.
I also find that sad, but honestly why would they? There weren't exactly welcomed throughout the history in Europe. While there were phases when they were, the opportunity to have your own state with people just like you certainly sounds convincing. In addition a lot of people simply couldn't, since they were dead or for some deported/"emigrated".
As for my home country, Germany, while we retained the cultures of the rich capital owners, we lost the cultures of the poor philosophers and smart statesmen. I think this is a deep hidden reason, why we suck now-a-days. Another culture, that wasn't as rich for philosophers and state men, but instead for entrepreneurs and competitive societies, didn't lost their landscape, but instead was destroyed by 40 years of socialism.
I think we should stop blaming the social and political landscape on idioticity, but instead recognize it as the successful work of 60 years of dictatorial indoctrination it is.
> The Jewish culture emphasizes education and Christian were forbidden to take interests in the middle ages. So the Jews became the wealthy educated elite.
"Take interests"? If by that you mean in education, then this is false.
If you look at the centers of learning in the Middle Ages and who was contributing the most, these were Christians and it was the Church. The first universities-as-universities were founded then. Scholasticism was intellectually very rigorous and supplied the philosophical foundations for the modern sciences. This was an incredible period.
And not all Jews were rich, either. This is an exaggeration. Those who were were often disproportionately merchants, of course, and because Jews were permitted to issue loans with interest to non-Jews (the Church forbade Catholics from issuing loans with compound interest to anyone, hence why the Medicis, Fuggers, etc. didn't make their fortunes through interest), they were more likely to engage in money lending of that kind.
> That came later, in the 19th century with the so-called emancipation of the Jews. Before that, "secular Jews" were not really a thing.
Yes, I was talking about the German culture from late 19th to 20th century, which was what the Nazis found and were eager to destroy. This did have roots in the middle ages, which I mentioned.
A few rich people are enough to hate a whole group. White men are also not all rich, yet they are displayed as the privileged which need to be disadvantaged by some today.
Other pieces I love are the 3rd and 5th Brandenburg concertos, as well as “Wachet Auf”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgXL_wrSPF0
No shade if he still doesn’t click with you. I’m just particularly ardent on the subject of Bach and baroque music!