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Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

marginalrevolution.com

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Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#51

Post by sbrother »

throw0101b wrote: post #46
sbrother wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deutsche Grammophon produced something similar recently, which I was lucky enough to get for Christmas last year: https://www.bach333.com/en/ It is stunning in every way; I highly recommend it for any Bach fans!

Crikey, they have an unboxing video (and the musical samples they use in it sound so good/atmospheric in my headphones): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8EuGZk74io I am so tempted to get this (even at CA$ 800, per amazon.ca), but I'm not sure I have the actual physical space to store it.

It’s probably my favorite gift I have ever received, even though I did have to rearrange my office to store it properly lol. The curation is incredible, as is the sound quality, the packaging… everything.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#53

Post by throw0101b »

tesdinger wrote: post #42
danielvaughn wrote: post #28

The comment thread on that page gets into Newton and Neumann, but I think artistic/scientific achievements are apples/oranges. Doesn't make sense to compare the two, because the standard of quality is so different. Even within artistic disciplines, how would you compare Bach, Shakespeare, and DaVinci? Shakespeare alone added 1,700 new words to the English language (that we still use today). DaVinci painted so meticul…

How do we know Shakespeare added words and was not the first one to write them down? Or do you mean the latter?

* https://gizmodo.com/no-william-shakespeare-did-not-really-in...

* https://theworld.org/stories/2013-08-19/did-william-shakespe...

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#54

Post by thih9 »

> How much better he was than his contemporaries.

Define better; Bach wasn’t appreciated that much when he was alive. Only later we decided that his works are the bees knees.

“Throughout the 18th century, Bach was primarily valued as an organist, while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was appreciated for its didactic qualities.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#55

Post by Sharlin »

cesaref wrote: post #47
j7ake wrote: post #37

Bach is definitely the greatest achiever in music of all time. His fame also took a long time to establish. He was well known during his life but nothing like the mythical legend he is now today.

I thought Bach was relatively obscure till Mendelssohn promoted his music to a new generation? Anyhow, there are many many great composers from different genres, and if you consider the aim to be communication (rather than the quality of the music itself) who would argue against the Beatles, or Taylor Swift as the greatest achievers of all time in music?

Well, between Bach and Mendelssohn, baroque music had been out of fashion for a century. Mendelssohn revived interest in Bach's music. Doesn't mean Bach wasn't renowned in his own time.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#57

Post by kragen »

a surprising thing i learned about bach is that on november 6, 01717, he was imprisoned due to a dispute with the authorities, so i try to celebrate november 6 as bach day

https://derctuo.github.io/notes/hacker-calendar.html

possibly being among the greatest achievers of all time is not compatible with being perfectly obedient

i'm not sure how tyler cowen doesn't consider this a 'true defeat or setback', except in the sense that today only bach scholars remember the name of the guy who imprisoned him

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#59

Post by notahacker »

Jensson wrote: post #36
kdwikzncba wrote: post #9

[flagged]

> a lot of people on HN talk out of their ass. Most written books are just people talking out of their ass as well, history is full of people publishing bullshit.

Fair

I meam Aristotle is a strong candidate for "greatest achiever of all time", being a true polymath who arguably contributed to or invented every school of intellectual thought in existence at the time his contributions were valued for centuries. But in between the seminal stuff on logic and ethics, his writings on the metabolism were a right load of old nonsense. And I bet his HN account would be an absolute riot!

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#60

Post by FredPret »

dakial1 wrote: post #7
timost wrote: post #3

I'm not affiliated or anything but The Great Courses' "Bach and the High Baroque" [0] course is a great Series on Bach (Robert Greenbert's courses are great overall). 0: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/bach-and-the-high-ba...

Not ready to throw 300usd on audio. Is there any good podcast with the history of music?

Check out Wondrium - CAD20 per month for I think the entire Great Courses catalogue
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