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Can any composer equal Bach?

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Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#61

Post by DEbCB »

HN types think they're the smartest of the smart, yet judging from these comments and from other music-related posts I've seen here, most of you listen to popular music (including rock and rap) near exclusively. The comments seriously offering up pop stars as equals of Bach are just sad.

Go on a pop diet. Cut back on it the way you might sugar or processed foods. Try to spend a year listening to classical music only. These resources will help you get started:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/music

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNezhx8YiGIV8...

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#62

Post by mikeash »

trendia wrote: post #12
bobthechef wrote: post #10

"It’s hard to think of a more refined brain than Albert Einstein’s," What an absolutely silly remark. There were things Einstein was good at, and things he was not. This silly popular image of Einstein as the genius among geniuses is just that: silly and popular. And this appeal to his supposed authority (more like piggybacking off his popular reputation) is just tawdry. "“writing about music is like dancing about ar…

> This silly popular image of Einstein as the genius among geniuses is just that: silly and popular. Uh, Einstein published four papers that revolutionized four areas of physics in one year : * The photoelectric effect * Brownian Motion * Special Relativity * Mass-Energy Equivalence Sure, he didn't do it alone. But even publishing one of those papers as part of a group would be an extraordinary feat for a physicist o…

It should be noted that his explanation for the photoelectric proved that photons we’re discrete objects, paving the way for quantum mechanics, and his explanation for Brownian motion was the first definitive proof that matter was made up of atoms.

I point this out just because someone unfamiliar with these topics might think that those two papers were some esoteric things that physicists appreciate but most people wouldn’t.

Einstein always gets associated with relativity and e=mc^2, but I’d argue those were not his top accomplishments. The Nobel Prize committee seemed to agree. (He won for his work on the photoelectric effect i.e. quantum mechanics.)

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#63

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

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.

Adams also wrote: "The familiarity of the Brandenburgs should not blind us to their magnitude. I’m convinced that Bach is the greater genius who ever walked among us, and the Brandenburgs are what he wrote when he was happy."

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#64

Post by paulcole »

DEbCB wrote: post #61

HN types think they're the smartest of the smart, yet judging from these comments and from other music-related posts I've seen here, most of you listen to popular music (including rock and rap) near exclusively. The comments seriously offering up pop stars as equals of Bach are just sad. Go on a pop diet. Cut back on it the way you might sugar or processed foods. Try to spend a year listening to classical music only.…

>Go on a pop diet. Cut back on it the way you might sugar or processed foods. Try to spend a year listening to classical music only.

Why would anyone do any of these things? Besides the nebulous benefits of realizing how wrong we were for enjoying rap?

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#65

Post by ianai »

DEbCB wrote: post #61

HN types think they're the smartest of the smart, yet judging from these comments and from other music-related posts I've seen here, most of you listen to popular music (including rock and rap) near exclusively. The comments seriously offering up pop stars as equals of Bach are just sad. Go on a pop diet. Cut back on it the way you might sugar or processed foods. Try to spend a year listening to classical music only.…

I listen to many things. I would liken popular music to your 30 minute sitcom. Whereas a concerto or a symphony i would liken to the entire Star Wars movie series or similar. It can take a composer 10 minutes to set up a “scene” and pop songs are lucky to be 4 minutes long and sometimes as short as 2.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#66

Post by madhadron »

bratsche wrote: post #60
username223 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

Incidentally one of his lute suites is the same as the c minor cello suite. Except I think on lute it's in either a or e minor, I forget now. I don't know whether the cello suite came first or the lute suite though. But as a violist I found this interesting. I like to play his violin sonatas and partitas but on viola but people have discouraged me from this because it means changing the key and everyone insists that…

The people telling you that Bach is specific about his key are talking about his work on temperament...none of which applies to the cello suites or sonatas and partitas for solo violin. The violin family isn't tempered, and wasn't played tempered unless it was playing with a keyboard.

On the violin family his choice of keys was driven by the technical requirements of the instrument, what open strings were available, what chords were natural.

Transpose them a fifth down and play them with no worries. I certainly transpose the cello suites up an octave and a fifth and play them on violin with no qualms.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#67

Post by madhadron »

siglesias wrote: post #19

If anyone is interested in Bach's keyboard literature, it's hard to top the interpretations of Glenn Gould, a fascinating musician in his own right. Here, for example, is a seminal performance of the D minor concerto, conducted by Leonard Bernstein: https://youtu.be/9ZX_XCYokQo?t=5m9s

But note that it may not be to your taste if you do try them. I specialized in early music, and I hate Gould's playing. There are places in the two part inventions where it feels to me like he chose his tempo to see how much he could screw up the piece.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#68

Post by madhadron »

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

Whenever someone in my life has died, I have picked up my violin and played the Chaconne.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#69

Post by creatornator »

No one equals Bach, but some come close enough to make the answer unclear. My favorite trivia about Boston's Symphony Hall is that there are dozens of empty plaques along the balconies, where composer's names were going to be engraved when the hall was built. The only name the trustees could agree on was Beethoven. Not Bach, Mozart, Haydn, etc., only Beethoven, and his name is front and center, above the stage. [0]

[0]: https://www.bso.org/brands/symphony-hall/about-us/historyarc...

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#70

Post by maxerickson »

DEbCB wrote: post #61

HN types think they're the smartest of the smart, yet judging from these comments and from other music-related posts I've seen here, most of you listen to popular music (including rock and rap) near exclusively. The comments seriously offering up pop stars as equals of Bach are just sad. Go on a pop diet. Cut back on it the way you might sugar or processed foods. Try to spend a year listening to classical music only.…

I'm curious, are you hating on Beethoven and Mozart or did you just not read the comments that you presume to summarize?
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