'O man, bewail thy sin so great'

 As a boy, I wasn't much of a reader, and what reading I did was unguided and haphazard. Now and then, however, I would come across a book that grabbed me with such force that I read it again and again, and one of these was, improbably enough, a life of Albert Schweitzer (born on this day in 1875), the 'theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher and physician', as Wikipedia puts it, or 'polymath', as other sources more succinctly describe him. I don't know what it was about Schweitzer's life or work that so excited me at that early age (maybe nine or ten) – perhaps it was the leper colony he established at Lambarene in Gabon – but much later I became interested in his theology, as expounded by Don Cupitt in that great TV series, The Sea of Faith (the kind of thing the BBC – or, to be fair, any other broadcaster – would never make now). He certainly did much to rescue the figure of Jesus from romantic, liberal and rationalist interpretations and place him in a Jewish prophetic context, and against the backdrop of the apocalyptic end of days that he and his disciples clearly believed to be imminent. Schweitzer could not believe in the divine nature of Jesus, and he even joined the Unitarian Association towards the end of his life. His conclusions about Jesus were highly controversial at the time and seemed to point away from Christianity as traditionally conceived, yet Schweitzer continued, in his practice and certainly in the Christian teaching he offered at Lambarene, to tread a more or less traditional path, and he certainly, and obviously, believed in good works. I seem to remember Cupitt describing his position as 'tragic Christianity', a kind of carrying on 'as if', without the dogmatic baggage, without any certitude, ploughing a lonely furrow, but hoping to at least do good along the way. 
  More straightforwardly, Schweitzer worshipped Bach, playing and studying his works for most of his life. He published a two-volume study of Bach, collaborated on a new edition of the organ works, and co-founded the Paris Bach Society. Here he is playing 'O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross' (BWV622). In the photograph he is playing the hybrid organ-piano that was built specially for him and shipped out to him at Lambarene...