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Can any composer equal Bach?

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Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#41

Post by K3oT6n »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #17

Douglas Adams once said "Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe." As a musician, I understand this. It's our goal as musicians to channel and convey emotion. Bach channels something much greater than himself or myself or ourselves. It's really incredible. His music sounds vast.

I can feel extreme sublime elevation from form few pieces of music I'm completely familiar with. One is Bach's Goldberg Variations (Glenn Could's first faster recording is my favorite) and another is "He Loved Him Madly" from Miles Davis (there are few others). In all cases it fist happens after I listen nothing but the same piece over and over again maybe 10-15 times in a period of week.

It's amazing feeling. Something just clicks.

But the experience is different from different pieces of music. Miles Davis is expressing something based on humanity. Bach is, like you said, something else that transcends everything.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#43

Post by bane »

Now there is music from which a man can learn something.

- W. A. Mozart (on hearing Bach motets in Leipzig)

In the multiverse I'm supremely happy that I've ended up in one where Bach both existed and created tremendous amounts of music. You can spend a lifetime exploring his oeuvre and find entire corners of delight.

I'm reminded of this thread from 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7720708

Despite appearances to the contrary, I find that one of the powerful things about Bach's work is how it is almost a kind of "abstract" auditory form that just happens to be performed on instruments. What I mean is that many of his pieces can be performed equally well on just about any combination of instruments or voice and still be beautiful. It's not always true, but there's a strange density of his music that seems like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zkPaGnKb5M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BvwM07BYvg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKRj-T4l-e8

Some favorites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLj_gMBqHX8&t=353s (BWV 1048 III Allegro)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWlfmepsUuQ (BWV 1049) - the reason why the Recorder has value as an instrument

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc4kWmxpZGs (BWV 1060) - Every note the Oboe plays is made out of magic and delight here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CexJQ8VWJfY (BWV 1051) - Even Violas can be beautiful, and this is one of the most incredible pieces of music in all of music.

I think the next composer to have captured my attention has been Steve Reich. And for entirely different reasons. I can take or leave his earliest highly experimental works. But when he came into full form later on he created majesty. Some of this music feel like being inside the engines of creation. You'll find his fingerprints all over modern music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Np9yApXD94

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMsYuFrKUQ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLZelvSvh3A

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#44

Post by username223 »

Bud wrote: post #38
stochastic_monk wrote: post #8

A careful analysis of Beethoven's later works shows him to be a worthy contender. In particular, the Große Fugue [0] and the Op. 106 Hammerklavier sonata [1] (ironically so nicknamed, because at Op. 101, Beethoven directed that all sonatas from that time on be named Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, and the nickname only stuck to this) show a profoundly advanced sense of counterpoint and structure. In addition to a…

I think Bach's scope is much, much larger than most listeners are aware. For instance, most are completely unaware of the Bach cantata repertoire, the guitar/lute repertoire, etc. I don't mean you personally, because I of course do not know what you're familiar with. (personal bias: I sing professionally, and a fairly large part of what I sing is Bach.)

The lute suites are crazy. He didn't play the lute, modern guitars didn't exist when he wrote them, the pieces aren't playable on a guitar without some changes, they sound amazing, and they are brutal to even approximate. He wrote many-voiced ("polyphonic") music for an instrument played by beating two hands on six strings. Not content with that, he wrote fugues for the same instrument, which are polyphonic music that obeys a lot of rules.

Take the time to learn the rules of fugues, then try to understand one of Bach's.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#45

Post by darkerside »

wizardforhire wrote: post #39

The Chaconne [1] is the most moving piece of music I've ever heard. (hard stop) The story behind it makes it even more so. When you grok it at full volume you'll understand what Douglas Adams was talking about. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaconne

Listened for the first time, thanks to your comment. Beautiful.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#46

Post by JasonFruit »

stochastic_monk wrote: post #8

A careful analysis of Beethoven's later works shows him to be a worthy contender. In particular, the Große Fugue [0] and the Op. 106 Hammerklavier sonata [1] (ironically so nicknamed, because at Op. 101, Beethoven directed that all sonatas from that time on be named Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, and the nickname only stuck to this) show a profoundly advanced sense of counterpoint and structure. In addition to a…

Brahms and Bach were both in an unusual position: their profound mastery of compositional craft was partly made possible by their position at, even past, the end of the tradition of music they represent. By the time Bach was writing his intricate contrapuntal masterworks, the world had moved on to homophony, and while Brahms was crafting balanced, classically-proportioned works, Wagner and his followers had been boiling Romanticism into Expressionism.

(I have to take issue with your characterization of the late Beethoven quartets as "the pinnacle of chamber music". I prefer the term "dissolution". (And I always enjoy your comments on musical topics.))

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#48

Post by andrepd »

stochastic_monk wrote: post #8

A careful analysis of Beethoven's later works shows him to be a worthy contender. In particular, the Große Fugue [0] and the Op. 106 Hammerklavier sonata [1] (ironically so nicknamed, because at Op. 101, Beethoven directed that all sonatas from that time on be named Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, and the nickname only stuck to this) show a profoundly advanced sense of counterpoint and structure. In addition to a…

The Beethoven late string quartets are a world of their own. 50 years from now I expect I will still be listening to them with the same awe that I did the first times, rediscovering, revealing new things still.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#49

Post by stochastic_monk »

Bud wrote: post #38
stochastic_monk wrote: post #8

A careful analysis of Beethoven's later works shows him to be a worthy contender. In particular, the Große Fugue [0] and the Op. 106 Hammerklavier sonata [1] (ironically so nicknamed, because at Op. 101, Beethoven directed that all sonatas from that time on be named Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, and the nickname only stuck to this) show a profoundly advanced sense of counterpoint and structure. In addition to a…

I think Bach's scope is much, much larger than most listeners are aware. For instance, most are completely unaware of the Bach cantata repertoire, the guitar/lute repertoire, etc. I don't mean you personally, because I of course do not know what you're familiar with. (personal bias: I sing professionally, and a fairly large part of what I sing is Bach.)

I have studied quite a range of Bach, and have performed several cantatas (as a tenor), but as a pianist, I do tend to prefer the keyboard music.

The cello and violin suites are fantastic. In particular, it's worth commenting that when Bach writes for instruments which can only play one or two notes at a time, he still produces counterpoint by suggestion by switching between the lines.

I've seen some excellent guitar performances, but I'll need to listen to some of his lute repertoire.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#50

Post by asaph »

jancsika wrote: post #34

> It’s inconceivable that another composer could take Bach’s place in that slot. Even Mozart or Beethoven wouldn’t cut it. I'd pick Mozart. When listeners hear Bach enumerate what seems like every significant variation technique for a given theme, they can quickly attribute mastery upon hearing that one piece. But someone with Bach's abilities could just as easily have only imagined all those variations as potential…

> It’s inconceivable that another composer could take Bach’s place...

I'd like to put my vote in for Lennon-McCartney.

I know we're talking about classical music here and I'm not trolling. I just think they're the toppermost of the poppermost.

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