# Perplexingly Modern Sounding - Bach pieces BWV 1072, 1076, 1077, 1078



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Does anyone else here find

BWV 1072





and 
BWV 1076, 1077, and 1078





 (starts at 4:16)

to sound perplexingly modern against the backdrop of much of his work?

Perhaps it is a subjective thing. I have only recently come to know these in particular.

Just wondering if anyone else felt the same way, and whether anyone has a theory (as regards something specifically about these pieces) as to why they might "sound" "modern".


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

It may sound "modern" but it is in fact *timeless*. Yet again, someone finds this so.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Hmm, you're right does sound quite modern, the first part of BWV 1072 and that last clip sound minimalistic. Thanks for posting, never heard these before.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

They are riddle canons, of BWV 1072 Bach wrote: "Trias harmonica, the harmonic triad, for no other harmony than this is contained therein."






BWV 1076 is the piece he is holding in the famous Haussmann portrait, there are a number of different theories on hidden meanings in that one.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Hans Abrahamson dressed these canons up in the style of American Minimalism, on this (recommendable) CD









Canons form the basis of the processes in Reich, Tenney etc. Hence the link to more recent music. Canons by Scheidt in the Tabluatura Nova, for example, could be be made to sound like 20th century minimal music if you played them on glockenspiel, at least if you cut some of the cadences at the end!


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

AvidListener said:


> Just wondering if anyone else felt the same way, and whether anyone has a theory (as regards something specifically about these pieces) as to why they might "sound" "modern".


I have a theory. I'd agree with ArtMusic: more than modern they sound timeless. Most likely Bach (and the canon genre in general) influenced modern composers. In fact, contemporary composers like Max Richter have recomposed baroque works and they are used a lot for TV shows and movies. A famous example is Max Richter's recomposition of Vivaldi's Four Season: 



 which sounds similar to the canons you put, I think in some parts expecially the first, Richter tried to recompose the seasons using the structure of a canon, and in fact you posted canons with strings, also Bach was inspired by Vivaldi and used similar chords. You probably heard this piece recomposed by Richter in movies and made a connection. Anyway, Bach is considered "the father of european music" for his work and influence. It's a similar reason to why the Beatles sound "modern" even today: because they're still copied!


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## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

@ArtMusic and @Amadea



ArtMusic said:


> It may sound "modern" but it is in fact *timeless*. Yet again, someone finds this so.





Amadea said:


> I have a theory. I'd agree with ArtMusic: more than modern they sound timeless. Most likely Bach (and the canon genre in general) influenced modern composers. In fact, contemporary composers like Max Richter have recomposed baroque works and they are used a lot for TV shows and movies. A famous example is Max Richter's recomposition of Vivaldi's Four Season:
> 
> 
> 
> which sounds similar to the canons you put, I think in some parts expecially the first, Richter tried to recompose the seasons using the structure of a canon, and in fact you posted canons with strings, also Bach was inspired by Vivaldi and used similar chords. You probably heard this piece recomposed by Richter in movies and made a connection. Anyway, Bach is considered "the father of european music" for his work and influence. It's a similar reason to why the Beatles sound "modern" even today: because they're still copied!


Perhaps there is something timeless in Bach's work, and yes perhaps also he is one of the founding fathers of modern western music, I still find it fascinating that through much of 172 CDs of my Hanssler's Complete works I am not so surprised or perplexed and interested, as I am about these pieces.

It is as though I recognize something in the sound of modern music which is already in these pieces, and not related by some kind of generational evolution. The relationship is more direct, whereas there does not seem to be as much of a direct similarity between modern work and Bach's other works.

It is as though, being somewhat familiar with people currently walking about the village, I am looking through some family tree, and in general seeing faces which no doubt could and did lead to the faces I am familiar with, but upon seeing a particular pair of portraits am hit in the face with a couple of doppelgangers for some friends of mine I had greeted upon the street just that morning.

I wish I knew more about the technical musical properties or attributes of these pieces which makes this doppelganger type connection for me. In the field of musical theory I am but a babbling toddler.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Hans Abrahamson dressed these canons up in the style of American Minimalism, on this (recommendable) CD
> 
> View attachment 154522


As you may suppose, I think this is one of those arrangements which it is most interesting to have heard.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Here is something even older that also sounds modern in this particular account:


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## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Enthusiast said:


> Here is something even older that also sounds modern in this particular account:


lol

Sounds like the musicians are improvising... and they can't completely hide their 20th century brains.

Found this:
"We have added an improvisation, stylistically free in character, on the cornett and recorder."

Perhaps it is no mystery from where the modernity comes in for this one.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I remember this interesting (but unrelated) video:


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

AvidListener said:


> lol
> 
> Sounds like the musicians are improvising... and they can't completely hide their 20th century brains.
> 
> ...


Very likely .... but within the album's programme it works well and doesn't sound so modern somehow.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> Here is something even older that also sounds modern in this particular account:


The original composition (for organ) also sounds somewhat modern (minimalistic):


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> @ArtMusic and @Amadea
> 
> Perhaps there is something timeless in Bach's work, and yes perhaps also he is one of the founding fathers of modern western music, I still find it fascinating that through much of 172 CDs of my Hanssler's Complete works I am not so surprised or perplexed and interested, as I am about these pieces.
> 
> ...


It is often said that _Art of Fugue_ exhibits a similar timeless quality. Here is a timeless interpretation if I may put it that way:


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

premont said:


> The original composition (for organ) also sounds somewhat modern (minimalistic):


That could be because so much modern music draws on medieval and Renaissance styles. Maybe a lot of modern music sounds medieval rather than the other way around.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Amadea said:


> I have a theory. I'd agree with ArtMusic: more than modern they sound timeless. Most likely Bach (and the canon genre in general) influenced modern composers.


Take a look at:



hammeredklavier said:


> "In the second of his 1931 essays on 'National Music', *Schoenberg acknowledged Bach and Mozart as his principal teachers* and told his readers why." <PA124>
> Schoenberg: *"My teachers were primarily Bach and Mozart*, and secondarily Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner." <PA173>
> 
> 
> ...


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

consuono said:


> That could be because so much modern music draws on medieval and Renaissance styles. Maybe a lot of modern music sounds medieval rather than the other way around.


I see your point, but I am not sure that medieval music generally was that minimalistic in our sense when performed. But it may look in that way because most of it has survived only in the shape of one musical line notated in a kind of shorthand. What I think is that the older systems of notation were more minimalistic than the music actually was.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

consuono said:


> much modern music draws on medieval and Renaissance styles.


What?

Am,cnsnsnsc, s ,syncs,m.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> What?
> 
> Am,cnsnsnsc, s ,syncs,m.


Modal music, for one thing. Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, Henryk Gorecki, Alan Hovhannes, Terry Riley, John Tavener, Sofia Gubaidulina etc


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

consuono said:


> Modal music, for one thing. Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, Henryk Gorecki, Alan Hovhannes, Terry Riley, John Tavener, Sofia Gubaidulina etc


There certainly is quite a bit of music which sounds modal, that's true.


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