Karl Barth – born in 1886 – died in 1968 – and – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – born in 1756 – died in 1791.

At first it may seem that this is really a strange pair – one a theologian, composer of words, and the other a composer of music.  It is reported that Barth began each day by listening to the music of Mozart before resuming work on the writing of his monumental Church Dogmatics. 

During my years in seminary I became very fascinated in gaining a better understanding of the relationship between these two giants.  Often I found myself reading, re-reading, and again re-reading a section from the Church Dogmatics and still wondering what the author desired to communicate.  Then one day in class our professor said something like just keep reading – you will find that Barth keeps returning to the same ideas.  The proverbial light finally started to dawn for me.

Barth and Mozart both often wrote in a type of formal construction known to musicians as “sonata-allegro form” – a formal construction made popular by 18th century composers most often providing the structure for the opening movement of a piano sonata, a symphony, or a string quartet.  Overly simplified – this form begins with a section where the main ideas – or themes – generally two of them – are articulated.  This section is known as the exposition.

The exposition is followed by a section known as the development.  Like the body paragraphs of an essay, the development expands on the themes introduced in the exposition. The development section represents the most creative and unstable section of the work. The development section uses material from the first two themes in many different keys as well as in many different styles. The development section sounds somewhat improvised as the composer uses the thematic material from the exposition to invent new ideas. (http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall05/lubarsky/function.html)

The last of the three major sections is the recapitulation where the two main themes – or ideas – are articulated yet another time.

I discovered that Barth seems to most often write in a verbal sonata-allegro formal structure, and when his words seem to go around in circles, or go in multiple directions either in sequence or at the same time, or are offered in fragments or with extended explanation Barth is simply articulating his development section.

Many people find the development section of a work by Mozart to seem fragmented or improvisatory, but if a person continues to listen you always return to a recapitulation of the main themes – and so it is with Barth.  Perhaps that is why Barth needed his daily “fix” of Mozart’s organizations of musical sounds to prepare for his own work with the writing of the Church Dogmatics.

So what – you most likely are asking.  Well that will be the focus of the next post.  Please keep reading and join the conversation.

Grace and peace