little bets, allowed him to explore new styles and forms with audiences. His surviving manuscripts are riddled with pockmarks, corrections, changes, and cross-outs, some so deep that he would even puncture the manuscript paper with his quill. Over time, Beethoven arrived at a highly distinct style, helping to usher in a new period of classical musi

I walk around the church, wondering whether Bach ever felt discouraged. However brilliant he was, his fellow parishioners probably took him for granted. Week in and week out, Bach wrote anyway, his way of glorifying God. Sometimes it was a joy. Sometimes it probably felt like a sacrifice.

It is so big that Bonhoeffer is willing to assert that with this “placing in the midst” Jesus becomes the inventor of childhood.

Baldwin pushed himself beyond mere description into a higher literary region of sounds and rhythms, of shared faith and shared emotions: The church was very exciting. It took a long time for me to disengage myself from this excitement, and on the blindest, most visceral level, I never really have, and never will. There is no music like that music,