Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Carl Jung on Johann Sebastian Bach




After a lecture in Munich, two non-Jungian women came up to Jung and told him that great artists surely don’t have a shadow.

“What about Johann Sebastian Bach?” they asked.

Jung replied “You should be very thankful you were not married to Johann Sebastian Bach.

Jazz and all that sort of stuff is silly and stultifying. But it is even worse when they play classics in such a place. Bach, for instance. Bach talks to God. I am gripped by Bach. But I could slay a man who plays Bach in banal surroundings. Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 249.

Jaffe reports "a penchant for Negro spirituals" along with Bach, Handel Mozart, and early music. A string quartet of Schubert had to be turned off because "it moved him too much," while Beethoven’s late quartets "churned him up almost beyond endurance." C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 249.

The book [Answer to Job] "came to me" during the fever of an illness. It was as if accompanied by the great music of a Bach or a Handel. I don’t belong to the auditory type. So I did not hear anything, I just had the feeling of listening to a great composition, or rather of being at a concert. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 115-116.

one of five music renditions played at Dr. Jung’s Funeral: https://carljungdepthpsychology.wordpress.com/.../one-of.../
Many an old craftsman who produced a marvelous piece of art was utterly unconscious of the fact.

I am rather convinced that the great composer Bach was such a fellow. He did not know what he was really producing.
He composed nice chants for the church and other things, but I am very doubtful if he knew that he was the composer Bach. Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 668.

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