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Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

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Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#71

Post by atombender »

throw0101b wrote: post #8

Around the year 2000, amongst the other things that were going on, it was also the 250th anniversary of Bach's death. Someone at the record label Teldec got the bright idea to release the entirely of Bach's work, and so a 153-disc box set was produced: * https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/the-complete-b... * https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2013/Apr13/B... * https://www.amazon.com/Bach-2000-…

The Netherlands Bach Society (which sounds like an organization for people who are into Bach, but it's an ensemble, though one that has been in existence for more than 100 years) is fantastic. Some of my favourite Bach performances are by them [1].

Another Dutch "complete Bach" project from recent years that I enjoyed: Leusink's complete set of recordings of Bach's sacred cantatas with the Holland Boy's Choir and Netherlands Bach Collegium (1999-2000), recorded over the span of just 15 months. A year ago I listened to the entire thing, which took me three months.

(It's quite good. But in my opinion, this haste is reflected in the performances a little bit; they are very competent, to be sure, but they lack some nuance, perhaps especially in the sound mix. For whatever reason, I much prefer the NBS recordings of most of these cantatas. (I don't really like Sytse Buwalda's voice, either.) Compare their BWV 21 [2] with NBS [3]. The beautiful interplay between first violin and oboe in the NBS recording is rather lost in the Leusink version, and the sound muddier. Admittedly the NBS version appears to replace the organ with some extra strings, but to me it just sounds crisper and more carefully performed. This really extends to everything. I hope NBS will one day release a complete cantata box set.)

[1] https://youtu.be/N6sUlZa-IrU?si=0Ls7CTQ4UiMyDB0b

[2] https://youtu.be/JGT0iPpU9is?si=qVMJTYhANI8adHop

[3] https://open.spotify.com/track/6MLmB5GDhAJr3cxMKKXUzs?si=xcV...

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#73

Post by jll29 »

I think I can agree with this. He was as prolific as Euler was in mathematics, but perhaps a tad more of a genius (hard to compare music and maths).

> He seems to have been entirely internally driven by his genius and his commitment to the eternal and divine.

That's probably the only way to go strong for that long.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#75

Post by genman »

Jensson wrote: post #24
gmuslera wrote: post #19

History is written by the victors. The greatest achiever of which work reached us, by the criteria that we pick, of the things we know today, and the "we" changes from culture to culture. Without dismissing Bach's work (or the others named in the discussion, I would had picked Leonardo with my shallow default knowledge on the topic) we should acknowledge how biased is what we know. Not just because how we select what…

> History is written by the victors No it isn't, history is written by people looking at old documents. Losers write a lot of history as well since it isn't like the victors go and kill all the losers or burn down all their documents. > The greatest achiever of which work reached us, by the criteria that we pick, of the things we know today, and the "we" changes from culture to culture. Yes, the history taught to us…

>> History is written by the victors

> No it isn't, history is written by people looking at old documents.

Perhaps in very recent history but the old documents have been written by contemporary and there are many clear cases when the history has been rewritten by a tyrants e.g. politicians. I even know at least one large country based on multiple historical lies they tell to themselves and try to force upon others.

Defacing old sculptures and paintings to erase people from the history is another clearest example of this practice.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#76

Post by spicymaki »

mistercheph wrote: post #63
thih9 wrote: post #54

> 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

That is total BS. How would we even know that if it were true? Do you remember being instructed not to cite wikipedia as a source?

Here is another story: https://saskatoonsymphony.org/the-nearly-lost-brandenburg-co...

The Brandenburg Concerti were ignored until around 1849 and nearly lost again during WWII. How ridiculous is that?

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#77

Post by zozbot234 »

motohagiography wrote: post #66

Bach's work would have been lost to obscurity were it not for Mendelssohns rediscovery and promotion of his work about 50y after J.S. Bach's death, and causing a revival that kept the work alive. I'm trying to find good sources for the story as it's part of an example how someone trying to assimilate into european society (Mendelssohn was a jewish convert to christianity, likely to find work) was responsible for defn…

The obscure Baroque composer Christoph Graupner possibly has more compositions surviving to the present day than his contemporary Bach, though admittedly a lot of Bach's work is now lost. Another notable composer from the same period was Georg Philip Telemann.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#78

Post by Jensson »

atoav wrote: post #65
Jensson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comparison is the thief of joy Comparing others is a source of joy, people love gossiping or just talking about who is better etc. Comparison is only a thief of joy when you compare yourself to others, but comparing Newton to Einstein etc is an endless source of fun, many people have enjoyed these discussions over the years.

Yeah, but those are people who are nowhere near that level of excellence at all. Gossip for those people is often just a mechanism to increase their self esteem in front of bigger than life artists who truly changed the world. It is a bit like music lovers who have strong opinions about everything, while not being able to play a single note on any instrument. For them comparing the great musicians on that level makes…

> Yeah, but those are people who are nowhere near that level of excellence at all.

Why does this matter?

> That would be like comparing a masterfully built modern bridge to gothic cathedral.

That sounds really fun! Those two are both massive structures that need to support a lot of weight, they are more similar than you might think. I can see a video looking into that getting many millions of views.

I think you really underestimate how much fun people derive just from learning things from these discussions. It isn't about feeling superior to Bach or Gauss or Newton etc, its just fun discussions about the world.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#80

Post by quonn »

mistercheph wrote: post #63
thih9 wrote: post #54

> 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

That is total BS. How would we even know that if it were true? Do you remember being instructed not to cite wikipedia as a source?

This kind of „analysis“ also gets written i. sources that are not wikipedia. And that‘s better?
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