In the church, it's sometimes hard to know whose words are whose. Can there be plagiarism when it is all God's Word, given by the Holy Spirit, for the edification of the body of Christ? Do the collects belong to the Church or to the translator? Does a person have to pay for quoting the catechism in a book?
Last week we were at the Paul Gerhardt symposium held in St Catharines, Ontario. One of the sessions I attended was about Bach and Gerhardt. There was that period of Bach's life when he was expected to come up with a cantata per week. Now, that's a tall order. The speaker showed us how Bach would borrow Gerhardt's words and lines. One cantata was entirely based on a Gerhardt hymn, Bach's additions to Gerhardt's text expounding upon the words that were engraved in the people's minds and hearts. I thought it was a wonderful thing ... but you couldn't get by with it today.
Monday, May 14, 2007
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