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Bach’s Cantata Calendar

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Re: Bach’s Cantata Calendar

#11

Post by bowsamic »

gumby wrote: post #10
bowsamic wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the point, they're literally called "church cantatas" Also, it's weird how you make an explicit and positive religious reference and then express distaste at the religious context that Bach composed for and in. In what sense is it divine then, if you dislike the music he wrote for the church?

There are other paths to divinity than christian and perhaps the commenter prefers one of those. A good example would be Plato’s cave metaphor (predating christianity by centuries), arguing that there is an intangible divine world. Mathematics, clearly also beloved to Bach, is a nonreligious tool to appreciate that divine world. One can listen to the intricacies of the Passacaglia und Fuge c-Moll and glimpse an inscr…

I don’t know, I have no sense of the divine. I enjoy the music and hear that Bach was a Christian. I am a huge Bach fan but I don’t know what the divine is and doubt I’ll ever know. I am like a p zombie but for spiritual matters

Re: Bach’s Cantata Calendar

#12

Post by epiccoleman »

bowsamic wrote: post #5
ramesh31 wrote: post #2

His music is divine manna gifted from the heavens, but I just can't stand the cantatas. Too church-y.

That's kind of the point, they're literally called "church cantatas" Also, it's weird how you make an explicit and positive religious reference and then express distaste at the religious context that Bach composed for and in. In what sense is it divine then, if you dislike the music he wrote for the church?

I took the parent comment's "contrast" as a bit of joke, but even if it wasn't intended that way, I think it expresses something very real about the way some of us experience "spirituality" - i.e. that the rituals and "orderliness" of say, the Catholic church, seem to get in the way of spirituality more than they help it. Contrasting this with sacred music can help illuminate what I mean - music seems, in some way, to bypass much of the "logical" aspects of the ritual and hit us somewhere a little bit deeper.

I'm not quite sure where I stand on this, as a lapsed Catholic and also as a lapsed "New Atheist" who's found himself somewhere in the middle (the dreaded and wishy-washy "spiritual but not religious" category).

I share a general... mistrust of heavily ritualized / dogmatized religion. But at the same time, I recently attended a Catholic funeral for my grandma, and was very affected by some of the procedures. In particular, the final funeral blessing at the end of the mass, where the priests swung the censer over the casket, was quite beautiful - the smoke slowly ascending, lit by the stained glass, and the walk out with the casket with light streaming through those windows.

These rituals stick around for a reason - it doesn't have to be a supernatural reason, but it certainly felt, during that service, that the whole mass had been very well designed to hit at some deep-seated and primal feelings within the attendees.

So anyway, as seems to be my pattern on these matters, I find myself somewhere in the middle - able to appreciate both the ritualistic and naturalistic approaches to spirituality. (But never quite able to come down hard for one side or the other!)

Re: Bach’s Cantata Calendar

#14

Post by MengerSponge »

ramesh31 wrote: post #2

His music is divine manna gifted from the heavens, but I just can't stand the cantatas. Too church-y.

The style has endured mostly in sacred music, so I get the association. They aren't all church-y though!

The Coffee Cantata, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nifUBDgPhl4

Re: Bach’s Cantata Calendar

#15

Post by gumby »

bowsamic wrote: post #11
gumby wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other paths to divinity than christian and perhaps the commenter prefers one of those. A good example would be Plato’s cave metaphor (predating christianity by centuries), arguing that there is an intangible divine world. Mathematics, clearly also beloved to Bach, is a nonreligious tool to appreciate that divine world. One can listen to the intricacies of the Passacaglia und Fuge c-Moll and glimpse an inscr…

I don’t know, I have no sense of the divine. I enjoy the music and hear that Bach was a Christian. I am a huge Bach fan but I don’t know what the divine is and doubt I’ll ever know. I am like a p zombie but for spiritual matters

I find when I listen to these fugues my mind is drawn to and becomes lost in the overtones and the mathematical depths and recursion. Being transported to another place that way, out of my body and sense of where I am, I consider divine.

Bach is not the only such, but he is the master.

Re: Bach’s Cantata Calendar

#16

Post by bowsamic »

gumby wrote: post #15
bowsamic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know, I have no sense of the divine. I enjoy the music and hear that Bach was a Christian. I am a huge Bach fan but I don’t know what the divine is and doubt I’ll ever know. I am like a p zombie but for spiritual matters

I find when I listen to these fugues my mind is drawn to and becomes lost in the overtones and the mathematical depths and recursion. Being transported to another place that way, out of my body and sense of where I am, I consider divine. Bach is not the only such, but he is the master.

I can't think of anything more Earthly than enjoying the beauty of mathematics and music

Re: Bach’s Cantata Calendar

#17

Post by matt-attack »

bowsamic wrote: post #16
gumby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find when I listen to these fugues my mind is drawn to and becomes lost in the overtones and the mathematical depths and recursion. Being transported to another place that way, out of my body and sense of where I am, I consider divine. Bach is not the only such, but he is the master.

I can't think of anything more Earthly than enjoying the beauty of mathematics and music

Wouldn’t mathematics transcend our tiny blue dot? Sure topics like geography, biology and history don’t surely math and physics do!

Re: Bach’s Cantata Calendar

#18

Post by swannodette »

ramesh31 wrote: post #2

His music is divine manna gifted from the heavens, but I just can't stand the cantatas. Too church-y.

I felt that way at first, but after getting around to listening to a few of them you start to realize he repurposed a lot his favorite material from these cantatas into his instrumental works. For example, one of Bach's innovations was the keyboard concerto - where the keyboard played the central solo role. The profound Harpsichord Concerto in D minor BWV 1052, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZX_XCYokQo, is actually reworked from the cantatas BWV 146 & 148.

While there's obviously plenty to enjoy w/o dipping into the cantatas, you might miss out on making these kinds of connections which I think really enriches our understanding of the instrumental works.

Re: Bach’s Cantata Calendar

#19

Post by bowsamic »

matt-attack wrote: post #17
bowsamic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of anything more Earthly than enjoying the beauty of mathematics and music

Wouldn’t mathematics transcend our tiny blue dot? Sure topics like geography, biology and history don’t surely math and physics do!

No, I think mathematics and physics are invented by humans in a human form for humans, but then again, I’m a theoretical physicist, so I’m biased

Re: Bach’s Cantata Calendar

#20

Post by gumby »

bowsamic wrote: post #16
gumby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find when I listen to these fugues my mind is drawn to and becomes lost in the overtones and the mathematical depths and recursion. Being transported to another place that way, out of my body and sense of where I am, I consider divine. Bach is not the only such, but he is the master.

I can't think of anything more Earthly than enjoying the beauty of mathematics and music

Wow, for me things that can't be physically represented (at a human scale anyway) such as most of mathematics, physics, and frankly music are fascinating, definitely feel real, can be explored, but yes, are beyond concrete representation.

Could one write a 16-part invention? I doubt it; certainly I think it would be hard to conceive of playing it, but I can "look into" a complex invention as I hear it and see how it could subdivide and get an idea of where that could lead. Certainly anything beyond the physically representative is to me sublime, and still able to trigger synesthesthetic response.

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