# JS Bach



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

In the right hands, he can be so immaculate I feel. Such beauty in his music, I love it.


----------



## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

Wait so you do like baroque music?


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

EvaBaron said:


> Wait so you do like baroque music?


Of course. It is easy to convey this music as mere entertainment, but in the right hands it can be very powerful. Agreed? It's easy to get Baroque and Classical eras wrong imo.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

There are drama films for Beethoven and Mozart, we need one for Bach. I'd appreciate it at least.

edit: In a google search, I see there are more composer films than I knew of! Great.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Which hands are right for Bach and, more importantly, which ones are wrong? I can envisage many different types of reason for liking some performers' Bach and disliking others. For example, some might insist on HIP while others want the fine great voices of the past and a Klemperer conducting a fairly large orchestra. Or for the "choral" works some love a one voice per part while others insist on a big choir. I don't take sides in these disputes but find it very hard to say why I like some performers over others.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> Which hands are right for Bach and, more importantly, which ones are wrong? I can envisage many different types of reason for liking some performers' Bach and disliking others. For example, some might insist on HIP while others want the fine great voices of the past and a Klemperer conducting a fairly large orchestra. Or for the "choral" works some love a one voice per part while others insist on a big choir. I don't take sides in these disputes but find it very hard to say why I like some performers over others.


The depth of nuance in your analysis of classical music is quite evident and reveals I have some way to go. But I can say it is more of a gut feeling for me that Baroque and Classical eras are easy to make feel like mere entertainment and less like immaculate works.

As they say, Mozart is too easy for a child, and too hard for an adult.


----------



## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Of course. It is easy to convey this music as mere entertainment, but in the right hands it can be very powerful. Agreed? It's easy to get Baroque and Classical eras wrong imo.


I get those thoughts too at times while listening.

The history from about 1700 to 1900 seems to me to be generally the way it is with humans and music conceptions. Each generation disliked the new music that was trying to take over. I don’t think JS Bach was enthusiastic toward the new quirky style stuff from CPE Bach. And then Baroque music wasn't Mozart's concept for expressing classicism of his time. Beethoven was too brash for the older generation, those lovers of Haydn and Mozart. 

Schumann and Chopin rebelled against Haydn and Mozart in a very respectful manner. Brahms was later put off by the excesses of the romantic spirit. 
Audiences either loved or hated the whole tone harmony of Debussy. Critics said Wagner used chromaticism to an excess. Composers said Mahler used tonality to an excess, and then came the atonal reaction. Many people disliked that too. Everyone's a critic.

Maybe there's another way to look at the music from 1700 and 1900. ..instead of this piling up of the negatives. Music doesn't seem to change unless there’s negativity and rejection. In my view music changed very little from 1600 to 1700, according to what the audiences experienced.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> In the right hands, he can be so immaculate I feel. Such beauty in his music, I love it.


What do you think of this?


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Of course. It is easy to convey this music as mere entertainment, but in the right hands it can be very powerful. Agreed? It's easy to get Baroque and Classical eras wrong imo.


Well I think that there's a huge amount of pretty glib and trivial late baroque music. And Bach is the outstanding exception that proves the rule. As you go back before 1650 there are other composers -- Denis Gaultier for example. But none of them come close to Bach. See what you think of this


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> What do you think of this?


Stunningly beautiful. Thanks for sharing, your replies are always wonderful!


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Well I think that there's a huge amount of pretty glib and trivial late baroque music. And Bach is the outstanding exception that proves the rule. As you go back before 1650 there are other composers -- Denis Gaultier for example. But none of them come close to Bach. See what you think of this



I know you posted that as an example of poor Baroque music, but I still wanted to enjoy it, but didn't. I found the melody rather boring, and it has too little movement in it to keep interest, I feel.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I know you posted that as an example of poor Baroque music, but I still wanted to enjoy it, but didn't. I found the melody rather boring, and it has too little movement in it to keep interest, I feel.


Yes I like the static quality very much. I think it's a taste which I developed from listening to Feldman and Cage. French baroque music of that time is really subtle I think, demanding. I don't think Denis Gaultier was a poor composer at all, but a challenging one. I have to be in the right mood for it. 

By the way, here's a another historic chaconne which in fact I think I prefer to Segovia's -- it's somehow simpler and I've always responded very positively to Bream,


----------



## SoloYH (8 mo ago)

He's okay I guess, but Justin Bieber is the true father of #muzik.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

While I do appreciate Baroque and Classica eras, my heart is with slower paced music of the Romantic and Impressionist eras.


----------



## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> What do you think of this?


Yes, but Nikolayeva actually had impressive success (IMO) playing the Little Fugue in Gm so slowly and seriously. I play it slowly and it's too light. Grrr. She is so masterful. We can try to study why and imitate her (but the more you know the more realize how difficult it is).


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Luchesi said:


> Yes, but Nikolayeva actually had impressive success (IMO) playing the Little Fugue in Gm so slowly and seriously. I play it slowly and it's too light. Grrr. She is so masterful. We can try to study why and imitate her (but the more you know the more realize how difficult it is).



And I'd say find your own voice within the piece, don't try to imitate.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Luchesi said:


> Yes, but Nikolayeva actually had impressive success (IMO) playing the Little Fugue in Gm so slowly and seriously. I play it slowly and it's too light. Grrr. She is so masterful. We can try to study why and imitate her (but the more you know the more realize how difficult it is).


I agree, I only found it myself a couple of weeks ago - but I remembered that @Captainnumber36 is starting to get interested in guitar so I suddenly thought of the Segovia and Bream. And the Gaultier is a piece I’ve been listening to a lot over the past week so I wanted to see what people made of it.

Here’s the Nikolaeva






re Nikolaeva generally, I’ve been enjoying her second recording of the Diabelli variations recently - surprising because I’d always assumed that her Beethoven sonatas, which date from the same time, weren’t generally successful. I should revise that opinion maybe. This recording


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here’s a Bach recording which @Captainnumber36 may like


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Here’s a Bach recording which @Captainnumber36 may like



I don't care for the Clavichord much. I prefer Bach performed on the modern piano. I've mentioned I enjoy Lang Lang's Goldberg's and it's because he adds a romantic touch to it.

I prefer Bach Romanticized,


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

If _romanticised_ means embellished in a way which makes it expressive, then you can’t really get more romantic than the Vogel. Listen to his rubato!

A clavichord is really a very quiet piano.


----------



## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

SoloYH said:


> Bach's okay I guess, but Justin Bieber is the true father of #muzik.


Imo, Bieber is only #2 of all time history.

Where would such genius like Bieber be, without the original master of _true music _before him_?:_


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

If your cup of tea is dyed-in-the-wool romanticized Bach look no further than the red-blooded playing of Tatiana Nikolayeva. Her lines are legato, her sonorities are lushly colored and balanced between clarity and warmth. Nikolayeva favors a very flexible tempo rubato, especially in slow movements, and her phrasing shapes the music extensively.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> If your cup of tea is dyed-in-the-wool romanticized Bach look no further than the red-blooded playing of Tatiana Nikolayeva. Her lines are legato, her sonorities are lushly colored and balanced between clarity and warmth. Nikolayeva favors a very flexible tempo rubato, especially in slow movements, and her phrasing shapes the music extensively.



Yes, she was introduced earlier in the thread.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Baroque and Classical eras are great in your favored renditions, but even when Romanticized, imo, it feels forced.

The music doesn't call for that.

That's why the work of the Romantics and Impressionists and a few Modernists such as Satie are my favored choices.


----------



## Pjuhasz (5 mo ago)

Captainnumber36 said:


> There are drama films for Beethoven and Mozart, we need one for Bach. I'd appreciate it at least.
> 
> edit: In a google search, I see there are more composer films than I knew of! Great.


Hm...Peter Schaffer certainly has not written a play about Bach. But let me attach here this film written and narrated by John Eliot Gardiner that I saw a couple years ago here on PBS in the US. 



It does have abundant references to Bach's personal life and hardships. What kept me in awe was at how amongst all these hardships Bach could maintain his artistic productivity that is unparalleled in the culture of humanity.


----------



## wormcycle (Oct 14, 2020)

EvaBaron said:


> Wait so you do like baroque music?


JBS stands on its own. I do not really like any other baroque composer, except maybe Buxtehude.


----------



## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> If _romanticised_ means embellished in a way which makes it expressive, then you can’t really get more romantic than the Vogel. Listen to his rubato!
> 
> A clavichord is really a very quiet piano.


It seems to me really hard to judge a clavichord recording based on YouTube. And that grows out of appreciation for the instrument.

As for romantic Bach, I nominate Samuil Feinberg’s WTC.


----------



## hoodjem (Feb 23, 2019)

Beethoven show us what it is to be human. 
Bach shows us what it is to be the universe.


----------



## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> And I'd say find your own voice within the piece, don't try to imitate.


If you imitate everybody, then it's okay.


----------



## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> I agree, I only found it myself a couple of weeks ago - but I remembered that @Captainnumber36 is starting to get interested in guitar so I suddenly thought of the Segovia and Bream. And the Gaultier is a piece I’ve been listening to a lot over the past week so I wanted to see what people made of it.
> 
> Here’s the Nikolaeva
> 
> ...


I hadn't heard that about the sonatas. Thanks. I always want to decide if it's true for me too, when I hear such a phrase.


----------

