# Pieces Similar to Bach but with Extraordinary/Unique Harmonies



## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

This thread should be entitled *Pieces Similar to Bach but with Fine New Impressions of Harmony*. I feel like there are new harmonic ideas using Bach's structural style that if arranged correctly, can be even more pleasant and interesting than his music: sometimes when I'm listening to Bach, I think 'O but what if it goes there? What if we bring even more spin to some of this?' Bach was still limited in some capacity by his time period. But with newer composers, I'm really struggling to sort the good from the bad.

I thought this could be a popular topic. There are a lot of composers who were inspired by Bach, but there's also been much new harmonic development since Bach's time. What do you think might be some pieces or moments similar to the structures of Bach, but with fine new impressions of harmonic theory?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

do you have any concrete work of Bach in mind?
If you want unique harmonies, try Zelenka for choral music


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Villa-Lobos' "Bachianas Brasileiras", Shostakovich's 24 Preludes & Fugues, are inspired by Bach.

Outside of classical, there's "Blues on Bach" by the Modern Jazz Quarter, known for their use of polyphony in jazz.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Max Reger is the first name I can think of.
He was deeply influenced by Bach and his use of counterpoint and at the same time his harmonies and dissonances were so out that I think he could be considered one of the first atonal composers. The fact that he was admired by Schoenberg probably says something.

Op. 57 "Inferno" (1901)





Fantasie and Fugue Op.135b


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Somehow this piece by Fux (1660-1741) seems very bachian to me:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Ethereality said:


> I thought this could be a popular thread. There are a lot of composers who were inspired by Bach, but there's also been much new harmonic development since Bach's time. What do you think might be some pieces or moments similar to the structures of Bach, but with fine new impressions of harmonic theory?


The Bartok Solo Violin Sonata is inspired by Bach's Chaconne from his D minor violin partita.

You may also be interested in Michael Finnissy's completion of Art of Fugue for string quartet.

There are lots if works which are the systematic exploration of new harmonic ideas, inspired by Well Tempered Clavier. James Tenney's 64 studies for six harps, for example. And indeed Hindemith's Ludus Tonalis.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Just copied this into the OP: I feel like there are new harmonic ideas using Bach's structural style that if arranged correctly, can be even more pleasant and interesting than Bach himself: sometimes when I'm listening to Bach, I think 'O but what if it goes there? What if we bring even more spin to some of this?' Bach was still limited in some capacity by his time period. But with newer composers, I'm really struggling to sort the good from the bad


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

[Structure] 
Pg. 68: "....From this standpoint, let us take yet another look at one of the works which Mozart studied intensively, the six-part Ricercar from Bach's A Musical Offering. Focus on the end of the opening statement (measures 9-11 in Figure 5.4): As the second voice enters, the first voice continues with a sequence of ascending fourths...."
Pg. 69: "....The first movement opens with a simple ascending C minor arpeggio, played forte, followed by a contrasting piano sequence consisting of a descending fifth G-C (inversion of a fourth), and a descending diminished seventh A˛- B˝-the same interval which marks the opening motivic statement of Bach's A Musical Offering (Figure 5.6)..."
"....The first voice descends in half-steps: G-Fˇ-F˝-E˝-E˛-D-again an explicit reference to the descending line in the opening of Bach's A Musical Offering. And, as with Bach's work, it is introduced as a mezzosoprano voice...."
<W.A. Mozart's Fantasy in C minor, K. 475, And the Generalization of the Lydian Principle Through Motivic Thorough-Composition by John Sigerson>

[Harmony]
"In fact, this particular work, the Fantasie and sonata in C minor is one of his most adventurous, revolutionary pieces of all. You can get into a lot of trouble playing this piece. You find yourself in the trouble of, perhaps being in the wrong key, the wrong place at the wrong time. ... Dark scary chords like this one."<A Dark and Stormy C: Mozart Moment with Sara Davis Buechner>






"...Mozart C minor Fantasy KV 475 is a perfect illustration example of what Brahms had in mind when proclaiming Mozart as "a fellow modernist."Extremely controversial, generating doubts and questions from the very first measure, musical ideas far ahead of their time make the adventure of exploring this piece with performance purposes one of the most exciting...
...Through the Fantasy's musical discourse, the confirmation of C minor as the main key is held until the end of the piece, justifying the term "musical plot"; the "mystery" will be solved only at the end, like in his operas..." 
<Mystery and innovation in performances of Mozart's Fantasy KV 475: following the guidance of three great 20th-century masters, By Zélia Chueke>

-----






[Structure]
"The hypothesis that Mozart learned (presumably in 1782) from his study of the Art of Fugue how to combine a fugue subject with its own inversion ignores the composer's earlier experimentation with rectus and inversus combinations in the revision of the K. 173 finale and in the K. 401 keyboard fugue; there is, moreover, no firm evidence linking Mozart to The Art of Fugue. The only item left on this list, the "full exploitation of contrapuntal devices" in K. 426, is the one aspect of this work that is so atypical - for Mozart, his contemporaries and most of his predecessors - as to suggest the influence of J. S. Bach and no one else."
<Engaging Bach: The Keyboard Legacy from Marpurg to Mendelssohn, By Matthew Dirst, Matthew Charles Dirst, Page 78>

[Harmony]
"That Mozart with more care could compose a really good fugue in the manner of Bach is shown by the Fugue in c for Two Pianos, K. 426 (dating from either 1782 or 1783), although it also has some hair-raising dissonance that would not have been allowed in the strict style. It was surely bound to please Swieten and may have been written especially for his concerts. For Swieten, Mozart probably made some arrangements for string quartet of Bach fugues, K.426 with a striking prelude, K. 546. He may also have contributed to Swieten's Sunday concerts by playing violin or viola in these works and others like them." <Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven: 1781-1802: 1781-1802, By Daniel Heartz, Page 64>


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

The coda at 9:00 is to me one of the most touching moments involving series of major second dissonances in keyboard music:





The way this "ascends" (9:35~9:48) and then "descends" (9:49~10:14) with intense chromaticism feels to me like "Bach clothed in operatic drama":





Bach's own second son is also a great descendant of the Bachian practices:


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Ethereality said:


> Just copied this into the OP: I feel like there are new harmonic ideas using Bach's structural style that if arranged correctly, can be even more pleasant and interesting than Bach himself: sometimes when I'm listening to Bach, I think 'O but what if it goes there? What if we bring even more spin to some of this?' Bach was still limited in some capacity by his time period. ...


When listening to Bach I honestly don't get the feeling that it could've been done differently or any better harmonically, and I'm not sure that harmonic composition in its essence has *advanced* with the passage of time. There are works that are obviously Bachian in their conception (like the late Beethoven piano sonatas) but in terms of harmonic "craftsmanship" I wouldn't necessarily call them an "improvement" or "advances" beyond what has already been done. Just individual takes, which are great and worthy in themselves, of course. There can be *more* of something like chromaticism, but even then Bach had already been there. The third and eighth contrapuncti from the Art of Fugue demonstrate that, and they're at least as sophisticated harmonically as anything that came after.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

*Keith Emerson* has inserted some fugues into his work with The Nice and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, like this one titled *HIGH LEVEL FUGUE* from the Five Bridges Suite

It's kind of a jazz idiom harmonically.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> When listening to Bach I honestly don't get the feeling that it could've been done differently or any better harmonically, and I'm not sure that harmonic composition in its essence has *advanced* with the passage of time. There are works that are obviously Bachian in their conception (like the late Beethoven piano sonatas) but in terms of harmonic "craftsmanship" I wouldn't necessarily call them an "improvement" or "advances" beyond what has already been done. Just individual takes, which are great and worthy in themselves, of course. There can be *more* of something like chromaticism, but even then Bach had already been there. The third and eighth contrapuncti from the Art of Fugue demonstrate that, and they're at least as sophisticated harmonically as anything that came after.


I agree that people should be extremely careful when using terms like "improvements" or "advancements" to describe new styles, since I agree with tdc's view that:



tdc said:


> The knowledge is to a degree cumulative. Though certainly some things are lost, such as the original underlying reasons for many voice leading rules, the fact we don't know how performances sounded in the pre-recording age etc.
> The compositional process will always be reductionist, it is unavoidable. Rules will contradict each other and will not be compatible. Even if one attempts to do a bit of everything by being a 'polystylist', by literally being cumulative in the process they will cancel out the aesthetic of all of the original styles.
> Each new musical style is as much a reaction against the previous style as it is an outgrowth of it.


After Gesualdo, Bach, Mozart, there were the Romantics with interesting chromaticism, notably Chopin, Wagner. They may have been inspired by Mozart, (and Bach), but I don't find Mozart's exact kind of winding chromaticism in their work. They may use more modulations to distantly-related keys with mediants, (and moments of tonal ambiguities, in the case of Wagner), but Mozart's intricate sense of balancing diatonicism and chromaticism, and his craftsmanship in subtly using non-harmonic tones in voice-leading are something entirely individual from the Romantics' ways. Even in terms of chromaticism, they went in another direction, and did not necessarily "improve" Mozart's way of expression. Similarly, Mozart did not "improve" Bach, he went in another direction from Bach. They're all interesting in their own respective ways.










"Stylistically Spohr's and Beethoven's development as composers took them in diametrically opposite directions. The op. 18 quartets are the point at which they were closest, but from there their paths diverged. Beethoven moved away from the chromaticism of late Mozart towards a broader harmonic style" (Louis Spohr: A Critical Biography, By Clive Brown, Page 99)


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

I've always found the use of harmony in this work really interesting:


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I've always found the use of harmony in this work really interesting:
> [video]
> 
> 
> ...


"Cannot open because the page's address is not valid"

The first movement fugue of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta is what I thought of first with the OP. Very Bachian in the way the lines subtly dialogue with each other and patiently build to a climax. Superficially at least, there is also Berg's violin concerto with the intricate chorale variations and Sofia Gubaidulina's mind-blowing uber-modernist piece: _Offertorium_ for violin and orchestra, which is essentially a Webernian deconstruction of the king's theme from the _Musical Offering_. What I love about both those pieces is that they show how radically and richly chromatic some of Bach's music was.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

JS Bach is only innovative in some technical senses, but theoretically and aesthetically he was highly retrospective toward his older teachers like Johann Christoph Bach(1642-1703) and Dietrich Buxtehude.Even in his keyboard music, you still can taste the Stylus Phantasticus which means elaborate style of counterpoint. I can not tell which pieces are Bachian discretely, so let me describe the composers in general instead.

Georg Philipp Telemann was similar to JS Bach in melodic style but less elaborate in counterpoint writing, still a highly enjoyable composer. Jean Philippe Rameau is also a giant of similar calibur in many senses, only his main field of creation is the opera.

Religious vocal pieces similar to JS Bach? We must not forget Gottfried Heinrich Stolzel(1690-1749), his cantatas are also of the highest calibur, almost sounds like Bachs cousins, however, I just love JS Bach when he writes some lengthy cantatas, while many of his contemporaries writes shorter ones, so does GH Stolzel.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> "Cannot open because the page's address is not valid"
> 
> The first movement fugue of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta is what I thought of first with the OP. Very Bachian in the way the lines subtly dialogue with each other and patiently build to a climax. Superficially at least, there is also Berg's violin concerto with the intricate chorale variations and Sofia Gubaidulina's mind-blowing uber-modernist piece: _Offertorium_ for violin and orchestra, which is essentially a Webernian deconstruction of the king's theme from the _Musical Offering_. What I love about both those pieces is that they show how radically and richly chromatic some of Bach's music was.


Scratch that last comment. I'll have to check out the piece by Sofia Gubaidulina that you mentioned.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Perhaps look into the music of Anton Reicha. He was a very innovative music theorist who used a lot of counterpoint. He is best known for his winds quintets, but his other music has recently been seeing more light. It's not always first-class as music, but it is both interesting and Bachian in spirit.

Luigi Cherubini is another example from the same period:


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I just wrote this melodic counterpoint in about an hour, as an example. It's pretty messy compared to Bach (needs more time), but harmonically and melodically I feel like Bach's essential 'forward-moving counterpoint' can be a lot more nice or interesting than it already is. Harmony and melody in their unison have advanced a lot.






Maybe I can post something better next time. This is a little bit chaotic.


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

Ethereality said:


> This thread should be entitled *Pieces Similar to Bach but with Fine New Impressions of Harmony*. I feel like there are new harmonic ideas using Bach's structural style that if arranged correctly, can be even more pleasant and interesting than his music: sometimes when I'm listening to Bach, I think 'O but what if it goes there? What if we bring even more spin to some of this?


Is that what are you looking?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Ethereality said:


> I just wrote this melodic counterpoint in about an hour, as an example. It's pretty messy compared to Bach (needs more time), but harmonically and melodically I feel like Bach's essential 'forward-moving counterpoint' can be a lot more nice or interesting than it already is. Harmony and melody in their unison have advanced a lot.
> .


look at Hindemith's Ludus Tonalis. He was influenced by Bach, but was a modernist.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Jacck said:


> look at Hindemith's Ludus Tonalis. He was influenced by Bach, but was a modernist.


I hope you have a pleasant 4,000th post.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Ethereality said:


> I just wrote this melodic counterpoint in about an hour, as an example. It's pretty messy compared to Bach (needs more time), but harmonically and melodically I feel like Bach's essential 'forward-moving counterpoint' can be a lot more nice or interesting than it already is. Harmony and melody in their unison have advanced a lot.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The video doesn't work for me.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

consuono said:


> When listening to Bach I honestly don't get the feeling that it could've been done differently or any better harmonically, and I'm not sure that harmonic composition in its essence has *advanced* with the passage of time.


I have NO IDEA where these types of comments come from. It utterly confuses me down to my bones and leaves me still. Unless you're talking about something entirely different from what I was..."Bach is the epitome of clever, interesting, and emotionally moving harmony." "Harmony and its usages didn't improve with impressionism, early romanticism and Russian music, etc." I must be living on an entirely different planet. I appreciate your opinion though.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

An Hommage to Bach.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I don't hear the quality there personally, but to answer the thread question, I hear many snippets of Bach-style 'with newer, better harmonies' in all kinds of great pieces from later eras, but it simply just seems to happen in _snippets_. Ie. Bach's flowing contrapuntal style is very normative in composition as a whole, it happens so naturally by mistake in many composers' artistic processes. Bach was just a lot more focused into it.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

..is it wrong of me to promote a piece of mine? I hope not. I wouldn't normally do so in this manner, but it does fit the OP perfectly. It was inspired by Bach and uses his suite forms, but not really his harmony and is not meant to _be_ him in any way. 
It's the Partita Concordia in nine movements and is the second movie down on this page.....

https://www.mikehewer.com/page-3/


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mikeh375 said:


> ..is it wrong of me to promote a piece of mine? I hope not. I wouldn't normally do so in this manner, but it does fit the OP perfectly. It was inspired by Bach and uses his suite forms, but not really his harmony.
> It's the Partita Concordia in nine movements and is the second movie down on this page.....
> 
> https://www.mikehewer.com/page-3/


Just letting you know Mike that the video would not play (for me at least).


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

janxharris said:


> Just letting you know Mike that the video would not play (for me at least).


Hi Jan, thanks for that. I just checked and it's all right, but sometimes it can be slow to get going.
You can find the audiofiles for each movement here..
https://www.mikehewer.com/page-2/


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mikeh375 said:


> Hi Jan, thanks for that. I just checked and it's all right, but sometimes it can be slow to get going.
> You can find the audiofile here..
> https://www.mikehewer.com/page-2/


That works fine, ta.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

mikeh375 said:


> ..is it wrong of me to promote a piece of mine? I hope not. I wouldn't normally do so in this manner, but it does fit the OP perfectly. It was inspired by Bach and uses his suite forms, but not really his harmony and is not meant to _be_ him in any way.
> It's the Partita Concordia in nine movements and is the second movie down on this page.....
> 
> https://www.mikehewer.com/page-3/


I hear a lot of nice folkish melodies. Just one criticism is in the Galliard, I feel I heard the 9ths between cello and viola too many times. It's maybe too resonant.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Ethereality said:


> I have NO IDEA where these types of comments come from. It utterly confuses me down to my bones and leaves me still. Unless you're talking about something entirely different from what I was..."Bach is the epitome of clever, interesting, and emotionally moving harmony." "Harmony and its usages didn't improve with impressionism, early romanticism and Russian music, etc." ....


Define "improve". Is Debussy an "improvement" on Bach?


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

consuono said:


> Define "improve". Is Debussy an "improvement" on Bach?


No more than "cyan" being an "improvement" over "blue".


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

pianozach said:


> No more than "cyan" being an "improvement" over "blue".


Well I don't think the analogy is exact unless you're saying that all music is equal in value and craftsmanship...in which case craftsmanship would have to be irrelevant. What I was responding to was the OP:


Ethereality said:


> This thread should be entitled *Pieces Similar to Bach but with Fine New Impressions of Harmony*. I feel like there are new harmonic ideas using Bach's structural style that if arranged correctly, can be even more pleasant and interesting than his music: *sometimes when I'm listening to Bach, I think 'O but what if it goes there? What if we bring even more spin to some of this?' Bach was still limited in some capacity by his time period.* But with newer composers, I'm really struggling to sort the good from the bad.
> 
> I thought this could be a popular topic. There are a lot of composers who were inspired by Bach, but there's also been much new harmonic development since Bach's time. What do you think might be some pieces or moments similar to the structures of Bach, but with fine new impressions of harmonic theory?


Bach was "limited" in that he didn't sound like Igor "Bach On The Wrong Notes" Stravinsky. In other words, Bach wasn't "modern" enough, and the implication is that harmonic theory has "advanced" or "progressed" since his time, which also implies a value judgement. I wonder just how much "improvement" there has been, or whether most composers ever since have just been riffing on Bach without any real "improvement" at all.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

consuono said:


> Well I don't think the analogy is exact unless you're saying that all music is equal in value and craftsmanship...in which case craftsmanship would have to be irrelevant. What I was responding to was the OP:
> 
> Bach was "limited" in that he didn't sound like Igor "Bach On The Wrong Notes" Stravinsky. In other words, Bach wasn't "modern" enough, and the implication is that harmonic theory has "advanced" or "progressed" since his time, which also implies a value judgement. I wonder just how much "improvement" there has been, or whether most composers ever since have just been riffing on Bach without any real "improvement" at all.


I would say there is no improvement, just application with different harmony, which is interesting enough for me. For me Bartok and Ravel were the most interesting in the modern era.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> I would say there is no improvement, just application with different harmony, which is interesting enough for me. For me Bartok and Ravel were the most interesting in the modern era.


I don't know though. I -- a decidedly untalented non-composer -- could probably apply harmony in a different way, or maybe a five year old could, or maybe any person with a tin ear could. I sort of bristle at the oft-seen "music is just music, there really isn't any difference in value or quality, it's just _ different _" line of thinking. What it shows is that a lot of people who disavow certain philosophical outlooks are actually so submerged in them that they don't know it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> For me Bartok and Ravel were the most interesting in the modern era.


You don't think that spectral music is interesting harmonically? It just seems like a major major idea - to take a real sound, analyse its overtones and build a harmonic system out of it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Ethereality said:


> This thread should be entitled *Pieces Similar to Bach but with Fine New Impressions of Harmony*. I feel like there are new harmonic ideas using Bach's structural style that if arranged correctly, can be even more pleasant and interesting than his music: sometimes when I'm listening to Bach, I think 'O but what if it goes there? What if we bring even more spin to some of this?' Bach was still limited in some capacity by his time period. But with newer composers, I'm really struggling to sort the good from the bad.
> 
> I thought this could be a popular topic. There are a lot of composers who were inspired by Bach, but there's also been much new harmonic development since Bach's time. What do you think might be some pieces or moments similar to the structures of Bach, but with fine new impressions of harmonic theory?


James Tenney's 64 Studies for 6 harps.
Ludus Tonalis
Roger Reynolds Kokoro
Brice Pauset Canons
Wolfgang Rihm, Deus Passus
Sofia Gubaidulina, Offertorium


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> You don't think that spectral music is interesting harmonically? It just seems like a major major idea - to take a real sound, analyse its overtones and build a harmonic system out of it.


There's no counterpoint. I was referring to more interesting counterpoint with different harmony than Bach.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Ah yes, I see. I remember vaguely that Grisey talks about timbre counterpoint, like in this piece, périodes (which I like very much) But it's not like a canon!


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Extraordinary and unique harmonies are what Bach's music is all about. 

How about pieces similar to Beethoven, but with extraordinary/unique use of form. Or pieces similar to Chopin but composed for a piano.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Btw, this reminds me of a section in Beethoven hammerklavier sonata 1st movement:


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