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78-623: On June 12, 1899, ground was broken and construction began on Symphony Hall after the Orchestra's original home (the Old Boston Music Hall ) was threatened by road-building and subway construction. The building was completed 17 months later at a cost of $ 771,000. The hall was inaugurated on October 15, 1900, Architects McKim, Mead and White engaged Wallace Clement Sabine , a young assistant professor of physics at Harvard University , as their acoustical consultant, and Symphony Hall became one of

156-411: A 4,800-pipe Aeolian-Skinner (Opus 1134) was designed by G. Donald Harrison , installed in 1949, and autographed by Albert Schweitzer . It replaced the hall's first organ, built in 1900 by George S. Hutchings of Boston, which was electrically keyed, with 62 ranks of nearly 4,000 pipes set in a chamber 12 feet (3.7 m) deep and 40 feet (12 m) high. The Hutchings organ had fallen out of fashion by

234-522: A PhD dissertation on The Religious Philosophy of Kant at the Sorbonne , and to study in earnest with Widor. Here he often met with the elderly Aristide Cavaillé-Coll . He also studied piano at that time with Marie Jaëll . In 1899, Schweitzer spent the summer semester at the University of Berlin and eventually obtained his theology degree at the University of Strasbourg . He published his PhD thesis at

312-587: A mockery before those poor people. The name of Jesus has become a curse, and our Christianity—yours and mine—has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity in Jesus' name, someone must step in to help in Jesus' name; for every person who robbed, someone must bring a replacement; for everyone who cursed, someone must bless. And now, when you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all

390-724: A music scholar and organist, he studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and influenced the Organ Reform Movement ( Orgelbewegung ). Schweitzer was born on 14 January 1875 in Kaysersberg in Alsace, in what had less than four years previously become the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine in the German Empire ; he later became a citizen of France after World War I, when Alsace became French territory again. He

468-889: A path leading to the boat landing. The Schweitzers had their own bungalow and employed as their assistant Joseph, a French-speaking Mpongwe , who first came to Lambaréné as a patient. After World War I broke out in July 1914, Schweitzer and his wife, German citizens in a French colony when the countries were at war, were put under supervision by the French military at Lambaréné, where Schweitzer continued his work. In 1917, exhausted by over four years' work and by tropical anaemia , they were taken to Bordeaux and interned first in Garaison and then from March 1918 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence . In July 1918, after being transferred to his home in Alsace, he

546-723: A questionnaire among players and organ-builders in several European countries, he produced a very considered report. This provided the basis for the International Regulations for Organ Building . He envisaged instruments in which the French late-romantic full-organ sound should work integrally with the English and German romantic reed pipes , and with the classical Alsace Silbermann organ resources and baroque flue pipes , all in registers regulated (by stops ) to access distinct voices in fugue or counterpoint capable of combination without loss of distinctness: different voices singing

624-532: A rectangular "shoebox" shape like Amsterdam 's Concertgebouw and Vienna 's Musikverein . It is 18.6 metres (61 ft) high, 22.9 metres (75 ft) wide, and 38.1 metres (125 ft) long from the lower back wall to the front of the stage. Stage walls slope inward to help focus the sound. With the exception of its wooden floors, the Hall is built of brick, steel, and plaster, with modest decoration. Side balconies are very shallow to avoid trapping or muffling sound, and

702-476: A tragic poet with the head of Euripides (Vatican); Diana of Versailles (Paris); On the left, starting near the stage: Resting Satyr ( Praxiteles , Rome); Wounded Amazon ( Polycleitus , Berlin); Hermes Logios (Paris); Lemnian Athena (Dresden, with head in Bologna); The Lateran Sophocles (Vatican); Standing Anacreon (Copenhagen); Aeschines (Naples); Apollo Belvedere (Rome). The Symphony Hall organ,

780-409: A ward for white patients, so that the site became like a village. The onset of famine and a dysentery epidemic created fresh problems. Much of the building work was carried out with the help of local people and patients. Drug advances for sleeping sickness included Germanin and tryparsamide  [ de ; fi ; it ] . Trensz conducted experiments showing that the non-amoebic strain of dysentery

858-846: Is more intellectual and can be found "among the Brahmans and in the Buddha , in Platonism , in Stoicism , in Spinoza , Schopenhauer , and Hegel ". Next, Schweitzer poses the question: "Of what precise kind then is the mysticism of Paul?" He locates Paul between the two extremes of primitive mysticism and developed mysticism. Paul stands high above primitive mysticism, due to his intellectual writings, but never speaks of being one with God or being in God. Instead, he conceives of sonship to God as "mediated and effected by means of

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936-505: Is the only theologian who does not claim that Christians can have an experience of "being-in-God". Rather, Paul uses the phrase "being-in-Christ" to illustrate how Jesus is a mediator between the Christian community and God. Additionally, Schweitzer explains how the experience of "being-in-Christ" is not a "static partaking in the spiritual being of Christ, but as the real co-experiencing of His dying and rising again". The "realistic" partaking in

1014-459: The Mbahouin . Schweitzer's wife, Helene Schweitzer , served as an anaesthetist for surgical operations. After briefly occupying a shed formerly used as a chicken hut, in late 1913 they built their first hospital of corrugated iron , with a consulting room and operating theatre and with a dispensary and sterilising room. The waiting room and dormitory were built, like native huts, of unhewn logs along

1092-620: The Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years' War . Schweitzer, the pastor's son, grew up in this exceptional environment of religious tolerance, and developed the belief that true Christianity should always work towards a unity of faith and purpose. Schweitzer's first language was the Alsatian dialect of German. At the Mulhouse gymnasium he received his " Abitur " (the certificate at

1170-765: The Serlo Organ Hall in Methuen, Massachusetts , which was built to house the organ. The organ was later rebuilt again and augmented by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company. Today Serlo Organ Hall is known as the Methuen Memorial Music Hall and concerts are regularly presented on the organ, still considered one of the leading instruments in the US. When the Boston Symphony moved to Symphony Hall in 1900,

1248-705: The University of Tübingen in 1899. In 1905, Schweitzer began his study of medicine at the University of Strasbourg, culminating in the degree of M.D. in 1913. Schweitzer rapidly gained prominence as a musical scholar and organist, dedicated also to the rescue, restoration and study of historic pipe organs . With theological insight, he interpreted the use of pictorial and symbolical representation in J. S. Bach's religious music. In 1899, he astonished Widor by explaining figures and motifs in Bach's Chorale Preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery illustrating themes from

1326-460: The 1940s when lighter, clearer tones became preferred. E. Power Biggs , often a featured organist for the orchestra, lobbied hard for a thinner bass sound and accentuated treble. The 1949 Aeolian-Skinner reused and modified more than 60% of the existing Hutchings pipes and added 600 new pipes in a Positive division. The original diapason pipes, 32 feet (9.8 m) in length, were reportedly sawed into manageable pieces for disposal in 1948. In 2003,

1404-500: The Apostle ); a second edition was published in 1953. In The Quest , Schweitzer criticised the liberal view put forward by liberal and romantic scholars during the first quest for the historical Jesus . Schweitzer maintained that the life of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of Jesus' own convictions, which reflected late Jewish eschatology and apocalypticism . Schweitzer writes: The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as

1482-434: The Apostle , Schweitzer first distinguishes between two categories of mysticism : primitive and developed. Primitive mysticism "has not yet risen to a conception of the universal, and is still confined to naive views of earthly and super-earthly, temporal and eternal". Additionally, he argues that this view of a "union with the divinity, brought about by efficacious ceremonies, is found even in quite primitive religions". On

1560-962: The Boston Music Hall closed. It was converted for use as a vaudeville theater in 1900 and operated under a number of different names, including the Music Hall and the Empire Theatre. In 1906, it was renamed the Orpheum Theatre . In 1915, the theater was acquired by the Loew's Theatres chain and reopened again in 1916, rebuilt with a completely new interior, designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb . 42°21′22.4″N 71°3′39″W  /  42.356222°N 71.06083°W  / 42.356222; -71.06083 Albert Schweitzer Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer OM ( German: [ˈalbɛʁt ˈʃvaɪtsɐ] ; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965)

1638-604: The Dale Memorial Lectures in the University of Oxford , and from these in the following year appeared Volumes I and II of his great work, The Decay and Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics . The two remaining volumes, on The World-View of Reverence for Life and a fourth on the Civilized State, were never completed. In 1924, Schweitzer returned to Africa without his wife, but with an Oxford undergraduate, Noel Gillespie, as his assistant. Everything

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1716-637: The Jewish pan-Germanist historian Harry Bresslau . In 1912, now armed with a medical degree, Schweitzer made a definite proposal to go as a physician to work at his own expense in the Paris Missionary Society's mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué river, in what is now Gabon, in Africa (then a French colony). He refused to attend a committee to inquire into his doctrine, but met each committee member personally and

1794-520: The Messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of heaven upon earth and died to give his work its final consecration never existed. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in a historical garb. This image has not been destroyed from outside; it has fallen to pieces... Instead of these liberal and romantic views, Schweitzer wrote that Jesus and his followers expected

1872-480: The Music Hall was replaced as the home of the Boston Symphony in 1900, by Symphony Hall . In addition to concerts, the hall presented important speakers of the time. Theodore Parker preached here, and his congregation, the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, worshiped here from 1852 to 1863. Methodist minister Henry Morgan lectured in the hall c.  1859 . On December 31, 1862,

1950-508: The Orféo Català at Barcelona , Spain, and often travelled there for that purpose. He and Widor collaborated on a new edition of Bach's organ works , with detailed analysis of each work in three languages (English, French, German). Schweitzer, who insisted that the score should show Bach's notation with no additional markings, wrote the commentaries for the Preludes and Fugues, and Widor those for

2028-617: The Sonatas and Concertos: six volumes were published in 1912–14. Three more, to contain the Chorale Preludes with Schweitzer's analyses, were to be worked on in Africa , but these were never completed, perhaps because for him they were inseparable from his evolving theological thought. On departure for Lambaréné in 1913, he was presented with a pedal piano , a piano with pedal attachments to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard. Built especially for

2106-573: The United States. It was commissioned in 1857 and built in Germany by E.F. Walcker and Company of Ludwigsburg. It was the largest in the US at the time, containing 5,474 pipes and 84 registers. The organ was removed from the Music Hall in 1884 to provide more performing space for the Boston Symphony. Initially put into storage, the organ was rebuilt and installed by the Methuen Organ Company in

2184-539: The call of The Society of the Evangelist Missions of Paris, which was looking for a physician. The committee of this missionary society was not ready to accept his offer, considering his Lutheran theology to be "incorrect". He could easily have obtained a place in a German evangelical mission, but wished to follow the original call despite the doctrinal difficulties. Amid a hail of protests from his friends, family and colleagues, he resigned from his post and re-entered

2262-491: The coffered ceiling and statue-filled niches along three sides help provide excellent acoustics to essentially every seat. Conductor Herbert von Karajan , in comparing it to the Musikverein , stated that "for much music, it is even better... because of its slightly lower reverberation time." In 2006, due to years of wear and tear, the original concert stage floor was replaced at a cost of $ 250,000. In order to avoid any change to

2340-537: The conductor when the organ and orchestra play together. Boston Music Hall The Boston Music Hall was a concert hall located on Winter Street in Boston , Massachusetts , with an additional entrance on Hamilton Place. One of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States, it was built in 1852 and was the original home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra . The hall closed in 1900 and

2418-489: The course of centuries they [the coloured peoples] have suffered at the hands of Europeans?... If a record could be compiled of all that has happened between the white and the coloured races, it would make a book containing numbers of pages which the reader would have to turn over unread because their contents would be too horrible. Schweitzer was one of colonialism's harshest critics. In a sermon that he preached on 6 January 1905, before he had told anyone of his plans to dedicate

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2496-564: The days before the germ theory of disease came into being." Schweitzer's biographer Edgar Berman, who was a volunteer surgeon at Lambarene for several months and had extended conversations with Schweitzer, has a different perspective. Schweitzer felt that patients were better off, and the hospital functioned better given the severe lack of funding, if patients' families lived on the hospital grounds during treatment. Surgical survival rates were, Berman asserts, as high as in many fully-equipped western hospitals. The volume of patients needing care,

2574-434: The difficulty of obtaining materials and supplies, and the scarcity of trained medical staff willing to work long hours in the remote setting for almost no pay all argued for a spartan setting with an emphasis on high medical standards nevertheless. Schweitzer considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus' call to become "fishers of men". Who can describe the injustice and cruelties that in

2652-539: The dying and rising with Christ (most notably through the Sacraments ). On the other hand, the Hellenist "lives on the store of experience which he acquired in the initiation" and is not continually affected by a shared communal experience. Another major difference between Paul's "realism" and Hellenistic "symbolism" is the exclusive nature of the former and the inclusive nature of the latter. Schweitzer unabashedly emphasizes

2730-513: The end of secondary education) in 1893. He studied organ in Mulhouse from 1885 to 1893 with Eugène Munch, organist at the Protestant cathedral, who inspired Schweitzer with his enthusiasm for the music of German composer Richard Wagner . In 1893, he played for the French organist Charles-Marie Widor (at Saint-Sulpice, Paris ), for whom Johann Sebastian Bach 's organ music contained a mystic sense of

2808-562: The eternal. Widor, deeply impressed, agreed to teach Schweitzer without fee, and a great and influential friendship thus began. From 1893 Schweitzer studied Protestant theology at the Kaiser Wilhelm University in Strasbourg . There he also received instruction in piano and counterpoint from professor Gustav Jacobsthal, and associated closely with Ernest Munch, the brother of his former teacher, organist of St William church, who

2886-483: The eve of the day the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, Northern abolitionists gathered at the Music Hall to celebrate as the clock struck midnight. Frederick Douglass , Wendell Phillips , Harriet Beecher Stowe , William Lloyd Garrison , and Harriet Tubman attended. Oscar Wilde lectured here in 1882. The Boston Music Hall Organ , installed in 1862, was the first concert pipe organ installed in

2964-412: The fact that "Paul's thought follows predestinarian lines". He explains, "only the man who is elected thereto can enter into relation with God". Although every human being is invited to become a Christian, only those who have undergone the initiation into the Christian community through baptism can share in the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ. At the age of 30, in 1905, Schweitzer answered

3042-521: The first auditoria designed in accordance with scientifically derived acoustical principles. Admired for its lively acoustics from the time of its opening, the hall is often cited as one of the best sounding classical concert venues in the world. The hall is modeled on the second Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig , which was later destroyed in World War II . The Hall is relatively long, narrow, and high, in

3120-575: The first nine months, he and his wife had about 2,000 patients to examine, some travelling many days and hundreds of kilometres to reach him. In addition to injuries, he was often treating severe sandflea and crawcraw infections, yaws , tropical eating sores , heart disease, tropical dysentery , tropical malaria , sleeping sickness , leprosy , fevers, strangulated hernias , necrosis , abdominal tumours and chronic constipation and nicotine poisoning , while also attempting to deal with deliberate poisonings, fetishism and fear of cannibalism among

3198-482: The hospital in Lambaréné were also famously criticized by Nigerian professor and novelist Chinua Achebe in his essay on Joseph Conrad 's novel Heart of Darkness : "In a comment which has often been quoted Schweitzer says: 'The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother.' And so he proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to the needs of junior brothers with standards of hygiene reminiscent of medical practice in

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3276-567: The ideal of the philosopher-scientist. By extreme application and hard work, he completed his studies successfully at the end of 1911. His medical degree dissertation was another work on the historical Jesus, Die psychiatrische Beurteilung Jesu. Darstellung und Kritik [The psychiatric evaluation of Jesus. Description and criticism] (published in English in 1948 as The Psychiatric Study of Jesus. Exposition and Criticism ). He defended Jesus' mental health in it. In June 1912, he married Helene Bresslau , municipal inspector for orphans and daughter of

3354-685: The imminent end of the world. Schweitzer cross-referenced the many New Testament verses declaring imminent fulfilment of the promise of the World's ending within the lifetime of Jesus's original followers. He wrote that in his view, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus speaks of a "tribulation", with his "coming in the clouds with great power and glory" (St. Mark), and states that it will happen but it has not: "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" (St. Matthew, 24:34) or, "have taken place" (Luke 21:32). Similarly, in 1st Peter 1:20, "Christ, who verily

3432-511: The lake-side, He came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: 'Follow thou me' and sets us to the task which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is." In The Mysticism of Paul

3510-709: The main floor. Sixteen casts of notable Greek and Roman statues line the upper level of the hall's walls. Ten are of mythical subjects, and six of historical figures. All were produced by P. P. Caproni and Brother . The casts, as one faces the stage are: On the right, starting near the stage: Faun carrying the boy Bacchus (Roman copy of an original from the Hellenistic Period. Naples); Apollo Citharoedus (Roman artist. Excavated from Cassius' Villa near Tivoli in 1774. Vatican); Young Woman of (Excavated from Herculaneum in 1711. Dresden); Dancing Faun (Rome); Demosthenes (Rome); Seated Anacreon (Copenhagen); Statue of

3588-521: The major Chorale Preludes for her at the Temple Neuf . Schweitzer's interpretative approach greatly influenced the modern understanding of Bach's music. He became a welcome guest at the Wagners' home, Wahnfried . He also corresponded with composer Clara Faisst , who became a good friend. His pamphlet "The Art of Organ Building and Organ Playing in Germany and France" (1906, republished with an appendix on

3666-628: The mystery of Jesus is only possible within the solidarity of the Christian community. One of Schweitzer's major arguments in The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle is that Paul's mysticism, marked by his phrase "being in Christ", gives the clue to the whole of Pauline theology. Rather than reading justification by faith as the main topic of Pauline thought, which has been the most popular argument set forward by Martin Luther , Schweitzer argues that Paul's emphasis

3744-501: The mystical union with Christ". He summarizes Pauline mysticism as "being in Christ" rather than "being in God". Paul's imminent eschatology (from his background in Jewish eschatology ) causes him to believe that the kingdom of God has not yet come and that Christians are now living in the time of Christ. Christ-mysticism holds the field until God-mysticism becomes possible, which is in the near future. Therefore, Schweitzer argues that Paul

3822-464: The organ was thoroughly overhauled by Foley-Baker Inc., reusing its chassis and many pipes, but enclosing the Bombarde and adding to it the long-desired Principal (diapason) pipes, adding a new Solo division, and reworking its chamber for better sound projection. The original 1949 four-manual console was replaced with a low-profile three-manual console, to allow a better line of sight between the organist and

3900-488: The originals and the back channeling on the original maple top boards was replicated as well. Beethoven 's name is inscribed over the stage, the only musician's name that appears in the hall since the original directors could agree on no other name but his. The hall's leather seats are the originals installed in 1900. The hall seats 2,625 people during Symphony season and 2,371 during the Pops season, including 800 seats at tables on

3978-473: The other hand, a more developed form of mysticism can be found in the Greek mystery-cults that were popular in first-century A.D. society. These included the cults of Attis , Osiris , and Mithras . A developed form of mysticism is attained when the "conception of the universal is reached and a man reflects upon his relation to the totality of being and to Being in itself". Schweitzer claims that this form of mysticism

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4056-568: The particular refraction which he requires. Schweitzer contrasts Paul's "realistic" dying and rising with Christ to the "symbolism" of Hellenism . Although Paul is widely influenced by Hellenistic thought, he is not controlled by it. Schweitzer explains that Paul focused on the idea of fellowship with the divine being through the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ rather than the "symbolic" Hellenistic act of becoming like Christ through deification . After baptism, Christians are continually renewed throughout their lifetimes due to participation in

4134-731: The rest of his life to work as a physician in Africa, he said: Our culture divides people into two classes: civilized men, a title bestowed on the persons who do the classifying; and others, who have only the human form, who may perish or go to the dogs for all the 'civilized men' care. Oh, this 'noble' culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of different colour or because they cannot help themselves. This culture does not know how hollow and miserable and full of glib talk it is, how common it looks to those who follow it across

4212-567: The role of Paul 's mysticism of "being in Christ" as primary and the doctrine of justification by faith as secondary. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of " Reverence for Life ", becoming the eighth Frenchman to be awarded that prize. His philosophy was expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné , French Equatorial Africa (now Gabon ). As

4290-595: The same music together. Schweitzer also studied piano under Isidor Philipp , head of the piano department at the Paris Conservatory . In 1905, Widor and Schweitzer were among the six musicians who founded the Paris Bach Society , a choir dedicated to performing J. S. Bach 's music, for whose concerts Schweitzer took the organ part regularly until 1913. He was also appointed organist for the Bach Concerts of

4368-538: The seas and see what it has done there, and this culture has no right to speak of personal dignity and human rights... I will not enumerate all the crimes that have been committed under the pretext of justice. People robbed native inhabitants of their land, made slaves of them, let loose the scum of mankind upon them. Think of the atrocities that were perpetrated upon people made subservient to us, how systematically we have ruined them with our alcoholic 'gifts', and everything else we have done... We decimate them, and then, by

4446-424: The sound of the hall, the new floor was built using same methods and materials as the original. These included tongue-in-groove, three-quarter inch, hard maple boards, a compressed wool underlayment and hardened steel cut nails, hammered in by hand. The vertical grain fir subfloor from 1899 was in excellent shape and was left in place. The nails used in the new floor were hand cut using the same size and construction as

4524-541: The state of the organ-building industry in 1927) effectively launched the 20th-century Orgelbewegung , which turned away from romantic extremes and rediscovered baroque principles—although this sweeping reform movement in organ building eventually went further than Schweitzer had intended. In 1909, he addressed the Third Congress of the International Society of Music at Vienna on the subject. Having circulated

4602-636: The stroke of a pen, we take their land so they have nothing left at all... If all this oppression and all this sin and shame are perpetrated under the eye of the German God, or the American God, or the British God, and if our states do not feel obliged first to lay aside their claim to be 'Christian'—then the name of Jesus is blasphemed and made a mockery. And the Christianity of our states is blasphemed and made

4680-448: The tropics, it was delivered by river in a huge dug-out canoe to Lambaréné, packed in a zinc-lined case. At first, he regarded his new life as a renunciation of his art, and fell out of practice, but after some time he resolved to study and learn by heart the works of Bach, Mendelssohn , Widor, César Franck , and Max Reger systematically. It became his custom to play during the lunch hour and on Sunday afternoons. Schweitzer's pedal piano

4758-525: The university as a student in a three-year course towards the degree of Doctorate in Medicine, a subject in which he had little knowledge or previous aptitude. He planned to spread the Gospel by the example of his Christian labour of healing, rather than through the verbal process of preaching, and believed that this service should be acceptable within any branch of Christian teaching. Even in his study of medicine, and through his clinical course, Schweitzer pursued

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4836-450: The words of the hymns on which they were based. They were works of devotional contemplation in which the musical design corresponded to literary ideas, conceived visually. Widor had not grown up with knowledge of the old Lutheran hymns. The exposition of these ideas, encouraged by Widor and Munch, became Schweitzer's last task, and appeared in the masterly study J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète , written in French and published in 1905. There

4914-476: Was 78) and found significant flaws in the practices and attitudes of Schweitzer and his staff. The hospital suffered from squalor and was without modern amenities, and Schweitzer had little contact with the local people. Cameron did not make public what he had seen at the time: according to a BBC dramatisation, he made the unusual journalistic decision to withhold the story, and resisted the expressed wish of his employers to publish an exposé. The poor conditions of

4992-430: Was a German-born French polymath from Alsace . He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. As a Lutheran minister , Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of the historical Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view . His contributions to the interpretation of Pauline Christianity concern

5070-514: Was a free man again. At this time Schweitzer, born a German citizen, had his parents' former (pre-1871) French citizenship reinstated and became a French citizen. Then, working as a medical assistant and assistant-pastor in Strasbourg , he advanced his project on the philosophy of civilization, which had occupied his mind since 1900. By 1920, his health recovering, he was giving organ recitals and doing other fund-raising work to repay borrowings and raise funds for returning to Gabon. In 1922, he delivered

5148-514: Was also a passionate admirer of J. S. Bach's music. Schweitzer served his one-year compulsory military service in 1894. Schweitzer saw many operas of Richard Wagner in Strasbourg (under Otto Lohse ) and in 1896 he managed to afford a visit to the Bayreuth Festival to see Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal , both of which impressed him. In 1898, he returned to Paris to write

5226-513: Was at last accepted. Through concerts and other fund-raising, he was ready to equip a small hospital. In early 1913, he and his wife set off to establish a hospital (the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer ) near an existing mission post. The site was nearly 200 miles (14 days by raft ) upstream from the mouth of the Ogooué at Port Gentil ( Cape Lopez ) (and so accessible to external communications), but downstream of most tributaries, so that internal communications within Gabon converged towards Lambaréné. In

5304-577: Was caused by a paracholera vibrion (facultative anaerobic bacteria). With the new hospital built and the medical team established, Schweitzer returned to Europe in 1927, this time leaving a functioning hospital at work. He was there again from 1929 to 1932. Gradually his opinions and concepts became acknowledged, not only in Europe, but worldwide. There was a further period of work in 1935. In January 1937, he returned again to Lambaréné and continued working there throughout World War II . The journalist James Cameron visited Lambaréné in 1953 (when Schweitzer

5382-440: Was conductor and composer Hans Münch . In 1899, Schweitzer became a deacon at the church of Saint Nicholas in Strasbourg. In 1900, with the completion of his licentiate in theology, he was ordained as curate , and that year he witnessed the Oberammergau Passion Play . In the following year, he became provisional Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas , from which he had just graduated, and in 1903 his appointment

5460-494: Was converted into a vaudeville theater named the Orpheum Theatre . The Orpheum, which still stands today, was substantially rebuilt in 1915 by architect Thomas W. Lamb as a movie theater. The hall has no connection with Boston's "Music Hall", a theater which is now known as the Wang Theatre . The Boston Music Hall was built in 1852, thanks to a donation of $ 100,000, made by the Harvard Musical Association , for its construction. George Snell , assisted by Alpheus C. Morse ,

5538-401: Was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you", as well as "But the end of all things is at hand" (1 Peter 4:7) and "Surely, I come quickly." (Revelation 22:20). Schweitzer concluded his treatment of Jesus with what has been called the most famous words of twentieth-century theology: "He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by

5616-556: Was great demand for a German edition, but, instead of translating it, he decided to rewrite it. The result was two volumes ( J. S. Bach ), which were published in 1908 and translated into English by Ernest Newman in 1911. Ernst Cassirer , a contemporaneous German philosopher, called it "one of the best interpretations" of Bach. During its preparation Schweitzer became a friend of Cosima Wagner , then resident in Strasbourg, with whom he had many theological and musical conversations, exploring his view of Bach's descriptive music, and playing

5694-507: Was heavily decayed, and building and doctoring progressed together for months. He now had salvarsan for treating syphilitic ulcers and framboesia . Additional medical staff, nurse (Miss) Kottmann and Dr. Victor Nessmann, joined him in 1924, and Dr. Mark Lauterberg in 1925; the growing hospital was staffed by native orderlies. Later Dr. Trensz replaced Nessmann, and Martha Lauterberg and Hans Muggenstorm joined them. Joseph also returned. In 1925–6, new hospital buildings were constructed, and also

5772-678: Was made permanent. In 1906, he published Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung [History of Life-of-Jesus research]. This book, which established his reputation, was first published in English in 1910 as The Quest of the Historical Jesus . Under this title the book became famous in the English-speaking world. A second German edition was published in 1913, containing theologically significant revisions and expansions: this revised edition did not appear in English until 2001. In 1931, he published Mystik des Apostels Paulus ( The Mysticism of Paul

5850-429: Was on the mystical union with God by "being in Christ". Jaroslav Pelikan , in his foreword to The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle , points out that: the relation between the two doctrines was quite the other way around: 'The doctrine of the redemption, which is mentally appropriated through faith, is only a fragment from the more comprehensive mystical redemption-doctrine, which Paul has broken off and polished to give him

5928-513: Was still in use at Lambaréné in 1946. According to a visitor, Dr. Gaine Cannon, of Balsam Grove, N.C., the old, dilapidated piano-organ was still being played by Dr. Schweitzer in 1962, and stories told that "his fingers were still lively" on the old instrument at 88 years of age. Sir Donald Tovey dedicated his conjectural completion of Bach's The Art of Fugue to Schweitzer. Schweitzer's recordings of organ music, and his innovative recording technique, are described below . One of his pupils

6006-532: Was the architect. The Handel and Haydn Society performed at the hall's inaugural concert. The world premiere of the Piano Concerto No. 1 , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky took place here. The hall was the first home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra , founded in 1881 and was also the birthplace of the New England Conservatory of Music . After being threatened by road building and subway construction,

6084-713: Was the son of Adèle (née Schillinger) and Louis Théophile Schweitzer. He spent his childhood in Gunsbach , also in Alsace, where his father, the local Lutheran-Evangelical pastor of the EPCAAL , taught him how to play music. The tiny village would become home to the Association Internationale Albert Schweitzer (AIAS). The medieval parish church of Gunsbach was shared by the Protestant and Catholic congregations, which held their prayers in different areas at different times on Sundays. This compromise arose after

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