felt reminded painfully of the earlier question of Pietists and the present-day question of theological existentialists. Nevertheless, this does not alter the fact that in its own way and its own place this, too, is a serious question. I will try to answer it with the necessary brevity.
How can I do so, of course, without saying at once and consistently, in a way that determines and controls everything from A to Z, that Jesus Christ is for me precisely—no more, no less, and no other than—what he was, is, and will be, always and everywhere, for the church which he has called together and commissioned in all its forms, and for the whole world according to the message which he has entrusted to the church? If I were to single out something special that he is for me, I should be missing what in fact he is specifically for me. He is for me in particular precisely what before me, outside me, and alongside me, he is for all Christians and indeed for the whole world and for all men. He is this specifically for me too.
Jesus Christ is the basis of the covenant, the fellowship, the unbreakable relationship between God and man. I, too, am a man. Hence he is the basis of this covenant for me too.
Jesus Christ in the uniqueness of his existence has made himself known to Christians as the free gift of this covenant proffered to all men. I, too, may be a Christian. Hence he is obviously for me, too, the demonstration of God’s grace at work in this covenant—the grace which is free in relation to me but which also frees me.
Jesus Christ in his life and death has borne and borne away the sin of the world and the church. I, too, belong to the world which has been reconciled to God. I, too, am a member of the church which is called together by him. Hence I, too, may live and die in the light of the righteousness and holiness of God which defies all the faults of the world and the church.
Jesus Christ has done his work in the form of the history of his reconciling life and death which took place on behalf of the world and the church. Since I, too, belong to the world and am a member of the church, the history of my life as a man and a Christian may become the history of my own justification and my own sanctification by God in spite of all opposition.
Jesus Christ as the first to rise from the dead is the promise that the victory of his life and death will one day be generally and definitively manifested in him. As I may believe in the victory that he has already won, living and dying in this faith I may hope for this coming manifestation as the manifestation also of my justification and sanctification accomplished in him.
Jesus Christ is the Word of God spoken to all. As I, too, am one of the all, and as I too, believing and hoping in his promise, may see myself as one who is addressed by his Word, I am empowered, commissioned, and liberated with heart and hand and voice to bear witness to him as this Word of the love of God. As he has made himself responsible for me before God, I, too, am destined for an active response to the Word of God which is directed to all.
This is what Jesus Christ is for me—for me too.
MUSIC FOR A GUEST—A RADIO BROADCAST
INTERVIEWER. IN A LETTER OF THANKS TO MOZART1 we read: “What I thank you for is simply this, that whenever I hear you I find myself set on the threshold of a good and orderly world both in rain and sunshine and by day and night, and as a twentieth-century man I find myself gifted each time with courage (not pride), with tempo (not exaggerated tempo), with purity (not tedious purity), and with peace (not indolent peace). With your musical dialectic in his ear a man can be young and grow old, can work and rest, can be content and sad, in short, can live.”
Karl Barth wrote this letter to Mozart on Mozart’s 200th birthday in 1956. It need not surprise us, then, that our guest today, Professor Karl Barth, has asked that only Mozart’s music be heard on our broadcast. To begin with we shall hear the fourth movement, the allegro, from the little G-minor symphony [K. 183], and no one will find it odd that we are beginning this broadcast with music even though Professor Barth is not a musician but a theologian.
Professor Barth, you have written an article “An Appreciation of Mozart”2 in which you refer to him somewhere as “this one and no other.” In your address on “The Freedom of Mozart”3 you even quote a saying of his father in which he calls Mozart a prodigy. Now I want to ask you what Mozart really means to you as a non-musician, as a theologian.
Barth. Before answering I want to put a question to you, Frau Schmalenbach. How is it that you are putting this particular question to me? As you have pointed out, I have written about Mozart. But that was a very little book. I have also written, as you know, a whole row of bulky volumes on what are apparently very different subjects. I have also said and done many things besides, some of them in the area of politics. How is it that you are interested in me in the specific field denoted by your question?
I. There are various reasons for this, Professor. As our guest you are one of the subjects of our broadcast but the other subject is music. And I think that if anything is known about you by people who are not theologians and not versed in theology, it is that Mozart is for you the epitome of all things musical. (Happily Mozart is the most requested composer in my program.) Again, although you have written Romans and the Barmen Declaration and the massive Church Dogmatics, and many other books that I know nothing about, you have also written the little work on Mozart. So you have something specific to say on this subject too.
B. Well, I am pleased to hear what you have just said, that I am not the only one to ask for Mozart, that it is not just a fad of mine, but, as I said in the book, there are many good folk who have found what I think I find in Mozart and who thus put in requests for him. Now what is it that we find? I might put it this way. What I hear in Mozart is a final word about life insofar as this can be spoken by man. Perhaps it is no accident that a musician spoke this word. But I hear a final word which holds up, as I stated in the extract you read, a final word which lasts, a final word to which one can always return and with which one can always begin afresh. For ultimately we must all begin afresh each day—and I make this new beginning best when I listen to Mozart. Right!
I. You also wrote, Professor, that Mozart meets the very human need for play.
B. Yes, I was very serious when I said that. But I think that in the last resort one can understand what play is only when one also knows what work is. My own life has been filled with a good deal of work. And it is only in relation to work that I have been able to see what it was in Mozart that rested on work but was in effect play.
I. You do not see Mozart, then, as a facile, outmoded, or even rococo composer?
B. Not at all. What we hear in him is play against a background of work, pleasure against a background of life—of life even in its suffering and the bearing of personal and other troubles, of which Mozart had plenty.
I. A whole heap …
B. Yes indeed. For me it works out this way. I could not understand Mozart as I do if I myself in another way did not know something about the seriousness of life. I am not speaking now of the pressures of writing the Dogmatics and preaching and so on. I am thinking of the place from which I drew and heard and received all this. From this place I have heard a harmony which Mozart obviously heard first before he composed it, and for me this has always agreed with what I have heard from a very different place than he did.
I. From a very different place, Professor?
B. From a very different place … yes, for now you are asking me as a theologian.
I.
