Diarmaid MacCulloch: evaluation

Transcript context

…Which pieces? I would say the Trio Sonatas, but what’s your nomination? I find them intimidating, frankly, because I find them very difficult to play. I look rather to the chorale prelude tradition, which can be extraordinarily intimidatingly difficult, but has some staggeringly beautiful and devotionally heart-rending music because, of course, it is the Lutheran chorale. Bach was working from a musical tradition he knew very well, which was very specifically Lutheran, though he, of course, did other things too. He did the great B Minor Mass, which has nothing, really, to do with Lutheranism at all. The chorale prelude is a wonderful vehicle of Christian sentiment. I think of chorale preludes, one I played a week ago at Evensong, In my hour of need I cry to thee, O God. It’s a Lutheran chorale, but he most gently plays with the melody over a tune which he has invented for himself, and they interact. So Bach, of course, and the fugues and the preludes with which they are prefaced are extraordinary. It’s a wonderful way of losing yourself amid the miseries of the present world. You may remember that, in the days of the communist regime in Eastern Europe, organ recitals were crowded out because of the way that the general public could connect with the transcendent in a regime which denied the transcendent. There’s a lovely phrase from an English bishop of the 20th century, Bishop Charles Gore, great theologian. He went to hear a Brandenburg concerto in the concert hall. He was a gruff man. As he walked out, he was heard to mutter, “If that’s true, everything must be all right.” That’s true with Bach. He is a symbol of the transcendency beyond our human idiocy and frequent evil towards something which connects us to the divine. To me, there’s something unique and special and lasting about C. S. Lewis. He writes fiction and nonfiction with success. Extremely smart, a tremendous writer. He’s both deep and very popular. Can the contemporary world produce another C. S. Lewis, or has that somehow become impossible?…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.