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Welcome to my Blog! Music and God coming together

These regular weekly blogs are giving me an opportunity to share my life-long passion of discoving how the great themes of Music and Theology can come together, and I want to express my deep appreciation of my good friend Dr Paul Kybird for his encouragement, wisdom and deep insight in this adventure.
I have found that the telling of a story by a violin – through its many years of varied experiences – has created a fascinating way of engaging with these ultimate concerns of life.
So here goes –
I am a Violin, with a great story to tell, and on this platform I want to present and play the events of my long life –
By telling about my origins, how I was made, and where I feel my unique sound comes from, engaging with my whole body – mind & heart, violin and bow – in the pursuit of beauty, truth and goodness;
By including the historical soundscapes of the different places I have lived in, and sharing how it feels to be touched and embraced by the rich variety and diversity of musicians who have owned and played me over these many years;
By giving a voice to my emotions at times of suffering, when I was broken, and when I was ‘stolen’, sharing my feelings about the damage inflicted on my body, the permanent blemishes and unexpected ‘growths’;
By sounding out clearly, not supressing or muting, times of rejection, isolation and abuse;
But most importantly, by playing my story for the sheer joy and delight of it, and daring to hope that echoes and whispers of the mystery of God might be caught.
1940-44 World War 2 – Internment with Hans Keller, and others
Young Walter Harrison had looked after me for about 6 years, and he had progressed with his violin playing to such an extent that his parents James &…
4 min read
A Polyphonic Interlude with Bonhoeffer – sounds around WW2
In his final days, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was pursued by technical musical theories of counterpoint, polyphony and ‘cantus firmus’ while pondering ultimate concerns about God and the Christian religion.…
4 min read
1933-39 Anti-Nazi Years
We had to leave Africa for good, rather hurriedly and rather unexpectedly. We were in Rhodesia, it was early 1933, and Raymond was caught up in some rather…
4 min read
1928-1933 Into Africa
You will hardly believe the next thing that happened to me! It was 1928, and I was enjoying an evening of ‘new music’ in one of Frankfurt’s night…
4 min read
1920s – Frankfurt and post-war decadence
I now changed hands yet again, when Nelly Barth decided to lend me to one of her cousins, Fritz Hoffman, a member of ‘das Frankfurter Rundfunk-Symphonie-Orchester’. I was…
4 min read
1919 onwards – a ‘bombshell’ from Karl Barth
We now need to go to the historic German town of Marburg, the place from where my rescuer Hans came. Soon after the devastating attack which caused my…
4 min read