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Rustom Mody wrote:

quoted text
> There are two voices I hear here vis-a-vis Bach:

> 1. Art for art's sake -- the romantic idea

Bach lived well before the Romantic era. I don't think the ideas of the

Romantic era even came into his head.
> 2. Art for money's sake -- the distinction of commercial vs commisioned

quoted text
> being a fine semantic distinction.

>

> Bach himself expressed a view however which does not fit in with either:

> /

> Anything done other than for the service of God is vanity/

>

> [I read this 30 years ago and google is not finding me a suitable quote

> -- sorry if its off the mark]

It does sound like something Bach would say. He was even for his time a

very devout Christian, there are stories about him that indicate he

experienced a very personal one-on-one relationship with God. So he did

his music composition for the service of God.
Still, he did what he had to do so make a living and support his large

family, including working to obtain better-paying positions at other

churches.
There's a verse from one of the letters of Paul: "The workman is worthy

of his hire." Bach's expression fits in with that and (I think) art for

money's sake (being paid for writing music). I don't think it fits in

with the art for art's sake idea, or the ideas of the Romantic period.
--

David

gnome@hawaii.rr.com

authenticity, honesty, community

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