Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer OM was an Alsatian polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician.
| Date of Birth | : | 21 Feb, 1844 |
| Date of Death | : | 12 Mar, 1937 |
| Place of Birth | : | Lyon, France |
| Profession | : | Polymath, Musicologist, Organist, Writer, Humanitarian |
| Nationality | : | French |
Albert Schweitzer Alsatian-German theologian, philosopher, organist, and mission doctor in equatorial Africa, who received the 1952 Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts in behalf of “the Brotherhood of Nations.”
The eldest son of a Lutheran pastor, Schweitzer studied philosophy and theology at the University of Strasbourg, where he took the doctor’s degree in philosophy in 1899. At the same time, he was also a lecturer in philosophy and a preacher at St. Nicholas’ Church, and the following year he received a doctorate in theology. His book Von Reimarus zu Wrede (1906; The Quest of the Historical Jesus) established him as a world figure in theological studies. In this and other works he stressed the eschatological views (concerned with the consummation of history) of Jesus and St. Paul, asserting that their attitudes were formed by expectation of the imminent end of the world.
Agathon (centre) greeting guests in Plato's Symposium, oil on canvas by Anselm Feuerbach, 1869; in the Staatliche Kunsthalle,
During these years Schweitzer also became an accomplished musician, beginning his career as an organist in Strasbourg in 1893. Charles-Marie Widor, his organ teacher in Paris, recognized Schweitzer as a Bach interpreter of unique perception and asked him to write a study of the composer’s life and art. The result was J.S. Bach: le musicien-poète (1905). In this work Schweitzer viewed Bach as a religious mystic and likened his music to the impersonal and cosmic forces of the natural world.
In 1905 Schweitzer announced his intention to become a mission doctor in order to devote himself to philanthropic work, and in 1913 he became a doctor of medicine. With his wife, Hélène Bresslau, who had trained as a nurse in order to assist him, he set out for Lambaréné in the Gabon province of French Equatorial Africa. There, on the banks of the Ogooué (Ogowe) River, Schweitzer, with the help of the natives, built his hospital, which he equipped and maintained from his income, later supplemented by gifts from individuals and foundations in many countries. Interned there briefly as an enemy alien (German), and later in France as a prisoner of war during World War I, he turned his attention increasingly to world problems and was moved to write his Kulturphilosophie (1923; “Philosophy of Civilization”), in which he set forth his personal philosophy of “reverence for life,” an ethical principle involving all living things, which he believed essential to the survival of civilization.
Schweitzer returned to Africa in 1924 to rebuild the derelict hospital, which he relocated some two miles up the Ogooué River. A leper colony was added later. By 1963 there were 350 patients with their relatives at the hospital and 150 patients in the leper colony, all served by about 36 white physicians, nurses, and varying numbers of native workers.
Schweitzer never entirely abandoned his musical or scholarly interests. He published Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus (1930; The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle), gave lectures and organ recitals throughout Europe, made recordings, and resumed his editing of Bach’s works, begun with Widor in 1911 (Bachs Orgelwerke, 1912–14). His address upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Das Problem des Friedens in der heutigen Welt (1954; The Problem of Peace in the World of Today), had a worldwide circulation.
Charles-Marie Widor,
The son and grandson of organ builders, Widor began his studies under his father and at the age of 11 became organist at the secondary school of Lyon. After studies in organ and composition in Brussels, he returned to Lyon (1860) to succeed his father as organist at Saint-François, where he remained for a decade. In 1870 the post of organist at Saint-Sulpice in Paris became vacant, and Widor was given the appointment for a year; he left it in 1934. He taught at the Conservatory in Paris, succeeding César Franck as professor of organ in 1890 and Théodore Dubois as professor of composition in 1896.
Among Widor’s students at the Paris Conservatory were many of the most distinguished European organists active around the turn of the century, including Louis Vierne and Marcel Dupré. Albert Schweitzer studied organ under him, and Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud studied composition.
As a composer Widor is best remembered for his 10 symphonies for organ, although he also wrote two operas, a sizable body of ballet music, and various other vocal and orchestral works. Individual movements from many of his organ symphonies have become standard elements in recital repertory, most notably the “Toccata” from the Fifth. With Schweitzer, he edited the first five volumes of a definitive collection of J.S. Bach’s works for organ.
Mission, in Christianity, an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith.
During the early years, Christianity expanded through the communities of the Jewish dispersion. Soon the separate character of Christianity was recognized, and it was freed from the requirements of Hebrew law. St. Paul the Apostle, the greatest and the prototype of all missionaries, evangelized much of Asia Minor and the chief Greek cities and was also active in Rome. Because of his work and that of other missionaries, the new religion spread rapidly along the trade routes of the Roman Empire into all the great centres of population.
By the time of Constantine (reigned 306–337 CE), Christianity had spread to all parts of the Roman Empire, both East and West. Although paganism and local religions lingered, by about 500 CE the population of the Roman Empire was predominantly Christian. During this period, missionary endeavour moved to the empire’s borders and beyond.
The advance of Christianity slowed after 500 as the Roman Empire, with which it had become identified, disintegrated. In the 7th and 8th centuries, Arab invasions established Islam as the dominant religion in about half the area in which Christianity had been dominant. During this time, however, Celtic and British missionaries spread the faith in western and northern Europe, while missionaries of the Greek church in Constantinople worked in eastern Europe and Russia.
From about 950 to 1350 the conversion of Europe was completed, and Russia became Christian. Missions to Islamic areas and to the East were begun.
From 1350 to 1500 Christianity suffered a serious recession. The new empire of the Ottoman Turks replaced the Arab state and destroyed the Byzantine Empire. The old Eastern Christian churches declined, and in addition the Black Death killed hundreds of missionaries, who were not replaced.
Organ
in music, a keyboard instrument, operated by the player’s hands and feet, in which pressurized air produces notes through a series of pipes organized in scalelike rows. The term organ encompasses reed organs and electronic organs but, unless otherwise specified, is usually understood to refer to pipe organs. Although it is one of the most complex of all musical instruments, the organ has the longest and most involved history and the largest and oldest extant repertoire of any instrument in Western music.
In spite of far-ranging technical developments, the organ’s basic principles of operation remain substantially unchanged from when they were discovered more than 2,000 years ago. Conventional pipe organs consist of four main parts: a keyboard or keyboards and other controls, pipes to produce the tone, a device to supply wind under pressure, and a mechanism connected to the keys for admitting wind to the pipes. The most basic instrument consists of a single set, or rank, of pipes with each pipe corresponding to one key on the keyboard, or manual. Organs usually possess several sets of pipes (also known as stops, or registers), however, playable from several keyboards and a pedal board. Under their control are the various ranks of wooden and metal pipes of differing length and shape. These fall into the two distinct categories of flue pipes and reeds.
University of Strasbourg
autonomous state-financed institution of higher learning in Strasbourg, France. The original university was founded by Protestants in 1537 as a German gymnasium (secondary school for the study of the classics) when Strasbourg was under German rule. The gymnasium became an academy in 1566 and a university in 1621. Under France’s 1968 Orientation Act, which reformed higher education, the university was separated into three institutions—the Universities of Strasbourg I, II, and II—in 1971. They were reunited as the University of Strasbourg in January 2009.
The school was influenced from its beginning by the Protestant Reformation and subsequently by the continuing struggle between France and Germany for control of the province of Alsace. Along with Strasbourg itself, the university passed into French hands in 1681. It was suppressed in 1792 during the French Revolution and was succeeded in the early 19th century by various schools and faculties that were loosely consolidated into a new university. After the Franco-German War ended in 1871, France ceded Strasbourg to Germany and the university was reorganized, becoming the Emperor William University of Strasbourg (1872–1918). In 1919 the city again came under French control and the university was reestablished as an autonomous French university. From 1939 to 1945, during the German occupation of World War II, the school’s faculties were moved to Clermont Ferrand University in central France, then back to Strasbourg in 1945.
Johannes Sturm (1507–89), the principal founder, directed the Strasbourg Gymnasium for more than 40 years. His method of graded courses of studies shaped secondary school programs throughout Europe. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe completed law studies at Strasbourg in 1771, and Louis Pasteur was a professor of chemistry there. Albert Schweitzer studied medicine there from 1905 to 1913.
The modern university is composed of a number of teaching and research units. These schools, institutes, and faculties specialize in many areas of study, including medicine, sciences and technology, languages and letters, law, economics, management, political science, and other social sciences.
Nobel Prize
any of the prizes (five in number until 1969, when a sixth was added) that are awarded annually from a fund bequeathed for that purpose by the Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel. The Nobel Prizes are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards given for intellectual achievement in the world. To browse Nobel Prize winners alphabetically, chronologically, and by prize, see below.
In the will he drafted in 1895, Nobel instructed that most of his fortune be set aside as a fund for the awarding of five annual prizes “to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” These prizes as established by his will are the Nobel Prize for Physics, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the Nobel Prize for Peace. The first distribution of the prizes took place on December 10, 1901, the fifth anniversary of Nobel’s death. An additional award, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968 by the Bank of Sweden and was first awarded in 1969. Although not technically a Nobel Prize, it is identified with the award; its winners are announced with the Nobel Prize recipients, and the Prize in Economic Sciences is presented at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.
After Nobel’s death, the Nobel Foundation was set up to carry out the provisions of his will and to administer his funds. In his will, he had stipulated that four different institutions—three Swedish and one Norwegian—should award the prizes. From Stockholm, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences confers the prizes for physics, chemistry, and economics, the Karolinska Institute confers the prize for physiology or medicine, and the Swedish Academy confers the prize for literature. The Norwegian Nobel Committee based in Oslo confers the prize for peace. The Nobel Foundation is the legal owner and functional administrator of the funds and serves as the joint administrative body of the prize-awarding institutions, but it is not concerned with the prize deliberations or decisions, which rest exclusively with the four institutions.
The selection process
The prestige of the Nobel Prize stems in part from the considerable research that goes into the selection of the prizewinners. Although the winners are announced in October and November, the selection process begins in the early autumn of the preceding year, when the prize-awarding institutions invite more than 6,000 individuals to propose, or nominate, candidates for the prizes. Some 1,000 people submit nominations for each prize, and the number of nominees usually ranges from 100 to about 250. Among those nominating are Nobel laureates, members of the prize-awarding institutions themselves; scholars active in the fields of physics, chemistry, economics, and physiology or medicine; and officials and members of diverse universities and learned academies. The respondents must supply a written proposal that details their candidates’ worthiness. Self-nomination automatically disqualifies the nominee. Prize proposals must be submitted to the Nobel Committees on or before January 31 of the award year.
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