Quendi: it seems to me that a Bach or other court musician from the Baroque or Classical period would never have written music or even been allowed to compose religious music for Jehovah's Witnesses. This is an organization that believes in stifling creativity or masking its originators with anonymous attributions.
Actually, you're right on the second point but wrong on the first.
I've personally known and worked with some of the composers that have written music for the WTBTS. The two I know best are exceptionally talented and gifted individuals.
That being said, they were both extremely limited by what they could and couldn't do because the various Bethel bigwigs had to have the final say on many of the creative decisions. The people making this "artistic" decisions were not composers themselves. Ironic? Yes. Surprising? No. It just proves your second point.
One of the most delicious ironies I know, and I posted this before, is this:
One of my favorite apostates and a brilliant composer, Frank Kavelin (aka JWN member DNCall), now has MORE songs in the songbook than he did when he was an elder in "good standing." Frank wrote Make The Truth Your Own, as well as many other of the best music JWs ever heard when in KHs, Circuit Assemblies, District Conventions, etc.
The ONLY time I have ever seen Frank get upset was when I asked him why he wrote the build to the chorus in MTTYO the way he did.(I always thought it wasn't quite right somehow). Man, did he go off on that! The point was that he DIDN'T write it that way, some hack at Bethel changed it and totally wrecked it. Frank was sitting at the piano when I asked this question and he showed me how he REALLY wrote it. Not too surprisingly, it was much better the way Frank wrote it.
Again, proving your point #2.
