Can any composer equal Bach? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#141

Post by username223 » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

bratsche wrote: post #130

username223 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

G minor, I believe. I personally think it works better on the guitar, and can't imagine trying to do justice to polyphonic music on an instrument where it seems hard to play more than one string at a time. Sort of like the Paganini caprices -- I first heard them played by Eliot Fisk on the guitar, and even if he is sloppy sometimes, it sounds better than any violin recording I've heard.

I found the one I'm talking about on Apple Music, John Williams playing them on guitar. It's BWV 995 for lute, and it is in a minor. fwiw on cello it's BWV 1011.

I'll check it out, since Williams is a great guitarist. I have a couple of recordings of BWV 995 at hand, and they both claim to be in G minor.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#142

Post by gshubert17 » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 6:30 PM UTC

Early in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, a math teacher and organist explains to Lawrence Waterhouse how organs worked.

"When Lawrence understood, it was as if the math teacher had suddenly played the good part of Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor [BWV 542] on a pipe organ the size of the Spiral Nebula in Andromeda—the part where Uncle Johann dissects the architecture of the Universe in one merciless escending ever-mutating chord, as if his foot is thrusting through skidding layers of garbage until it finally strikes bedrock. In particular, the final steps of the organist's explanation were like a falcon's dive through layer after layer of pretense and illusion, thrilling or sickening or confusing depending on what you were. The heavens were riven open. Lawrence glimpsed choirs of angels ranking off into geometrical infinity."

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#143

Post by asdffdsa321 » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

Moorcountry wrote: post #133

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…

Beethoven is not at the level of Mozart in terms of the amount of lyricism and pathos infused into each work. Many of this piano sonatas are pretty plain and boring.

"Piano sonatas are plain and boring"

What an asinine and uninformed statement

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#144

Post by ken » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #40

DubiousPusher wrote: post #11

I first should admit that I'm a 100% self taught appreciator of classical music. I don't have any formal musical education. Nor any formal history of music education. I'm the only person of my family and friends that seeks out and listens to classical music. So, my knowledge is very uneven and I'm a total pedestrian in this realm. Over the years, I've found music by references from fiction, films and criticism. I've…

Hi, DubiousPusher. If you could tell me some other classical music that you really like, I could probably better suggest particular Bach recordings you might like. I suggest the vocal music, though, for starters.

I'm not the same person, but I feel similarly -- though I come from a classical family.

My preferences run to Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Brahms, and Wagner. Classical music generally got better as time went on. I mentally group Bach with other 'early music', and as with any art form, I recognize that the early steps were historically significant, but that's about it. I can appreciate the importance of the silent film era, too, even though I'll probably never sit down and watch one for fun.

With Bach in particular, how to put it... When making sound into music, there's all these possible axes upon which to add entropy to make it enjoyable: pitch, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, instrumentation, lyrics, and so on. Most of the Bach that I've heard or played is essentially a study in what happens if you fix the value of every axis except "pitch".

I assume that different people hear music differently, and for me, I find pitch to be one of the least interesting ways to make a piece of music. (Full disclosure: I play in an all-percussion ensemble, and I probably own more than a couple all-percussion albums.) The prelude to Bach's first cello suite is a neat study in what you can do with a single voice playing 16th notes for 2 minutes -- perhaps even the most interesting possible such line -- but it's still 2 minutes of 16th notes. Time (rhythm/tempo) and space (instrument/position) just feel so much more substantial to me than pitch.

I’ve got act 2 of "Die Walküre" playing right now. Which Bach piece is closest to that? :-) I went to a performance of the St Matthew Passion (mentioned elsewhere in this thread) back in college, and my recollection is that the performers did a good job but the piece was nothing special.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#145

Post by nomonomus » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

"Classical music has a lighter, clearer texture than Baroque music and is less complex. It is mainly homophonic — a clear melody above a subordinate chordal accompaniment. Counterpoint was by no means forgotten, especially later in the period."[0]

People, just listen to some music, it doesn't matter, that the music is in decline since the baroque period - the music needs listeners.

[edit] "Since there was a greater emphasis on a single melodic line, there was greater emphasis on notating that line for dynamics and phrasing. This contrasts with the Baroque era, when melodies were typically written with no dynamics, phrasing marks or ornaments, as it was assumed that the performer would improvise these elements on the spot. In the Classical era, it became more common for composers to indicate where they wanted performers to play ornaments such as trills or turns. The simplification of texture made such instrumental detail more important, and also made the use of characteristic rhythms, such as attention-getting opening fanfares, the funeral march rhythm, or the minuet genre, more important in establishing and unifying the tone of a single movement."[0]

So, hello modern music, hello rap/r&b/soul and the likes. It's not worse, it's incomparable. Most people react on rhythm and catchy sounds, hearing no music at all, really. Comparing music is nuts as many here pointed out, and the question was different - can we have the next Bach? For me, the answer is "yes", for sure! Can we hear him/her? - perhaps no, label's target group is different.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_period_(music)

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#146

Post by truculation » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 8:48 PM UTC

On the BBC's Desert Island Discs Douglas Adams chose pieces by Bach for no less than three of his eight permitted musical recordings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0093qxj

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#147

Post by forapurpose » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 8:51 PM UTC

cup-of-tea wrote: post #107

Today I am quitting reddit completely. With some of the time that I will save every day I will listen to a piece of Bach. I've read Gödel, Escher, Bach but never actually listened to Bach.

Yes, as I was reading the article I thought, 'would my time be better spent listening to Bach?' Maybe I should be thinking that now ...

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#148

Post by palimpsests » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

ken wrote: post #144

Bud wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, DubiousPusher. If you could tell me some other classical music that you really like, I could probably better suggest particular Bach recordings you might like. I suggest the vocal music, though, for starters.

I'm not the same person, but I feel similarly -- though I come from a classical family. My preferences run to Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Brahms, and Wagner. Classical music generally got better as time went on. I mentally group Bach with other 'early music', and as with any art form, I recognize that the early steps were historically significant, but that's about it. I can appreciate the importance of the silent fi…

That's why, when I perform Bach's cello suite, I change the rhythms, sometimes quite a bit. I see it as a great sketch in melody and harmony, a springboard to experiment with some more rhythmically sophisticated ideas.

It's so fascinating to me that we've fallen under the very real illusion in these modern times that "classical" music has virtually no concept of improvisation, that most of the primary elements of music are completely fixed, static, dead. That's definitely not how it used to be.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#149

Post by davesque » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

niftilyeerily wrote: post #100

aimeric wrote: post #93

Since we're on this topic: Is Western classical music (typified by Bach) really the zenith in our human understanding of the 'universal' language of music? Certainly, the complex and subtle tunes and harmonies of classical, in particular, give us goosebumps, provoke intense emotional responses. Do the same phenomena occur in other musical cultures? Traditional Japanese, Chinese, Javanese, Indian - their musical expre…

Indian Classical Music is perhaps the most versatile of all kinds of music I have come across. A traditional western scale has 12 notes, in the Indian system (carnatic) there are four further divisions, making it a 48 note octave. Instead of scales, there are raags and they signify different moods. Indian Flute Meditation Music: https://youtu.be/mr8GBzTsWqM

Indian classical is for sure cool and does a lot of interesting stuff rhythmically speaking. Also lots of interesting instruments and corresponding techniques for playing them. But I don't think it's necessarily any more versatile than other musical traditions. If Western classical is less interesting rhythmically, it's more interesting harmonically. It also developed an incredible system of notation. Every kind of music has its thing that makes it stand out I guess.

Re: Can any composer equal Bach?

#150

Post by davesque » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

Bach is one of my favorite composers if not my most favorite. However, as someone with a formal education in Western classical, it's always bothered me how heroic figures are worshipped in the tradition, often while ignoring other great artists. What I find much more interesting about Bach is the story of how he became famous as a composer, which as far as I know had a lot to do with the reputation and advocacy if his sons after his death. During his lifetime, he was known much more as a virtuosic organist.