Bach and Japan

Over at Cyberbrethren, Paul McCain is featuring a fascinating article by Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto on Bach’s music as a servant of the Gospel in Japan. It’s a great read worthy of your consideration. I found it thought provoking to read of a Japanese woman, who probably like many others, found what God’s love means to [...]
LSB Resources: Additional Indexes

For a number of years I’ve had lofty goals to catalog my music library — not just the books, but also the individual pieces within the book, associated hymn tunes, composers, when I used a piece, etc. While I haven’t made much progress on the cataloging, awhile back I did create the underlying structure that [...]
On Texts and Tunes
One of my Sunday afternoon rituals is to listen to Sing for Joy produced by St. Olaf College. It is a half hour weekly program of sacred music based on the three-year Revised Common Lectionary which usually, though not always, meshes with the Lutheran Service Book 3-year lectionary. I was caught off guard when “Hail [...]
Interview Between An Atheist & Unitarian
While I’m taking a slight detour from the standard fare of worship and music with this post, I think you’ll be intrigued by it. This last week, noted atheist Christopher Hitchens lectured in Portland, OR. In preparation for the event, local magazine Portland Monthly had a feature interview between Hitchens and Marilyn Sewell, a retired [...]
A Blessed Epiphany
Blessings to you on this feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord when we commemorate “God in man made manifest.” Lutherans usually associate Phillip Nicolai’s “O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright” (LSB 395) — the queen of the chorales — with this day. It is a hymn full of comfort and devotional thought. Jesus [...]
Another Christmas Season Ending
As the twelfth night of Christmas comes to a close, I’m organizing the Christmas sheet music back into the music filing cabinet and reminded of favorites played, new found friends, and much that will await another year. So many wonderful hymns. So many instrumental pieces that sing these hymns. But more important, I am comforted [...]
Shakespeare and Church Musicians

In Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” we find Juliet in a conundrum. The problem? Romeo, the love of her life, is a Montague — the family that is warring with her family, the Capulets. Juliet determines (in a soliloquy no less) that the name Montague is the issue, not Romeo himself. What’s in a name? that [...]
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