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J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

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Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#61
post #56
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You kind of miss the variation in volume. I think Bach used harpischords partly for technical reasons - the piano hadn't been invented - and preferred the clavichord but that was too quiet for performing to many people.

Bach knew about pianos, he even worked as a “piano salesman” for a period of time > Bach went on to become an agent for Silbermann, selling his pianos in Leipzig. There’s even a receipt signed by Bach on May 9, 1749, selling a “Piano et Forte” to a Polish count, Jan Casimir von Branitzky. From https://notanothermusichistorycliche.blogspot.com/2016/07/di...

Ah ok I got that a bit wrong. Though he would have been 64 at the time of sale and died a year after so I guess they were around in the later part of his life.

Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#62

Bach is my favorite artist & composer. There are times when I listen to a cantata of his and I feel as if I am in possession of a total understanding of life that departs me as soon as the music ends. It's a mystical and intellectual pleasure that has been among the chief joys of my adult life.

Beautifully put.

Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#63

Seems tendentious to secularize Bach. There's something to be said for deistic awe for creating great art. If you were just getting interested, here are some contemporary performances: BWV 1006 by Nigel Kennedy: https://youtu.be/nWx4pIe7FoE?t=179 BWV 988 (goldberg variations) Glenn Gould https://youtu.be/p4yAB37wG5s?t=169 from BWV 816, Gigue, Andreas Schiff: https://youtu.be/f_U0lm6HZMk?t=777

a few hours earlier, I was listening to the Bach's Concerto No.1 by Bernstein and Gould:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nx09pigZRI

in the first few minutes, Bernstein explains that it is hard to play Bach because there aren't many clues left in the score, leaving interpretation of the music on the conductor / musicians.

Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every thread.... Absolutely. I'll have to set aside some extra time, but if that's what you want, every thread. Coming right up.

You better not.

Why not? It's been stated I do this on every thread, why should I not then do it? Judge, jury and executioner, all present and accounted for here on HN.

Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#65
post #7

Seems tendentious to secularize Bach. There's something to be said for deistic awe for creating great art. If you were just getting interested, here are some contemporary performances: BWV 1006 by Nigel Kennedy: https://youtu.be/nWx4pIe7FoE?t=179 BWV 988 (goldberg variations) Glenn Gould https://youtu.be/p4yAB37wG5s?t=169 from BWV 816, Gigue, Andreas Schiff: https://youtu.be/f_U0lm6HZMk?t=777

Do you have any good links for performances in the period style and instruments? THese are great in their own right, but I'd love to know how this music might have sounded in Bach's day.

Anything by the group Tafelmusik.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafelmusik_Baroque_Orchestra

Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You better not.

Why not? It's been stated I do this on every thread, why should I not then do it? Judge, jury and executioner, all present and accounted for here on HN.

Because it is a jerk thing to do.

Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And at the time much safer to drink than water.

I think it was also weaker than modern beer.

I've read that people in the past often did not drink alcohol (e.g., beer, wine) straight as we do now. Rather they diluted it with water, but if the water was unsafe, the alcohol killed the bad stuff.

I have no idea how accurate this is.

Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#68

> take, for example, the B minor fugue in Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, whose theme employs all twelve notes of the chromatic sequence, defying traditional notions of what constituted a beautiful melody. Chromaticism doesn't defy traditional notions of melody. For example, Purcell's got all kinds of chromatic noodles in his melodies and people love to sing them. What's melodically defiant is how disjunct that…

The Nancarrow is truly demented. Thanks for sharing. Starts out as "drunk guy at frat house banging on the piano" and ends as something otherworldly!

Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#69

> take, for example, the B minor fugue in Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, whose theme employs all twelve notes of the chromatic sequence, defying traditional notions of what constituted a beautiful melody. Chromaticism doesn't defy traditional notions of melody. For example, Purcell's got all kinds of chromatic noodles in his melodies and people love to sing them. What's melodically defiant is how disjunct that…

Hey, nice to see you here! Thanks for that link! Today I happen to have a live performance with a player piano ensemble controlled with Pd.

Hey, that's awesome!

Re: J.S. Bach the Rebel: The subversive practice of a canonical composer

#70

Seems tendentious to secularize Bach. There's something to be said for deistic awe for creating great art. If you were just getting interested, here are some contemporary performances: BWV 1006 by Nigel Kennedy: https://youtu.be/nWx4pIe7FoE?t=179 BWV 988 (goldberg variations) Glenn Gould https://youtu.be/p4yAB37wG5s?t=169 from BWV 816, Gigue, Andreas Schiff: https://youtu.be/f_U0lm6HZMk?t=777

a few hours earlier, I was listening to the Bach's Concerto No.1 by Bernstein and Gould: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nx09pigZRI in the first few minutes, Bernstein explains that it is hard to play Bach because there aren't many clues left in the score, leaving interpretation of the music on the conductor / musicians.

At this point, after a century of work, we have what seems to be a compelling performance practice that matches the evidence we can infer from the period.

I wouldn't pay much attention to either Bernstein or Gould on the question of Bach performance practice. I spent years studying this, and Bach recordings by either man sound bizarrely wrong, like someone weeping, emoting, and shouting their way through a recitation of Frost's 'The Road Not Taken'.

> there aren't many clues left in the score, leaving interpretation of the music on the conductor / musicians.

That's both true and false. It's true in that there are few explicit markings like you find on a modern score, and there was an expectation that the performer would take the score and improvise and ornament it according to a commonly shared performance practice. Think of it more like how a really skilled rock band will take a song as a base structure and fill in solos, bridges, ornaments and the like.

It's false in that the musical language was so full of idiom and convention that, if you know how to read it, the clues are all over the place. Especially in Bach where the idioms interlock in an almost crystalline way. There are only a few passages in Bach where I know of two quite different overall interpretations that are both reasonable. Compare Anthony Newman and Wanda Landowska playing the first variation of the Goldberg Variations, about halfway through, the cascading down and up. Newman follows the base line in making it a series of repeats, Landowska carries it through as dips in the same long line. Both work, but it's hard to imagine a third that doesn't fight the structure. Gould's is a ragtime disaster.

Look up "Baroque performance practice" and you'll find a mass of material.

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