# Bach: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde??



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

I love Bach, his Harpsichord works, his Organ Works, his Orchestral, his Choral works to me are sublime. To me, no matter what the recording they are Bach and I love it.

I also hate Bach, sometimes.... recordings of piano works, violin solos, cello solos, very rarely project the sublime genius I associate with Bach, they do not even sound like Bach to my ears, often thick and running with perplexing changes in tempo and/or incomprehensible changes in loudness to sections or individual notes...

It is as though Bach were two composers in one... an austere genius and a melodramatic attention craving wreck... 

(don't get me wrong, I love thick and psychologically tortured melodrama... Barber's Adagio, Mahler's Adagietto (symph 5), etc... I just don't associate them with Bach)


Now, which to assign to Dr. Jekyll and which to Mr. Hyde is not so much the conundrum as how to understand how I can love and hate the same composer and how to come to grips with what I perceive as his expression NOT showing through his work as from a single integrated individual ... 

but as some strange dichotomy expressed by a split personality. Was Bach so split? And why is this split almost nonexistent in his Harpsichord, Organ and Orchestral music?
Is this thing I hear real or am I listening wrong?


Sincerely

AvidListener


----------



## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

It's just a matter of taste I guess. Or perhaps you didn't have much luck with performances of a part of Bach's oeuvre. Personally, I quite enjoy his solo violin and cello pieces and think that some moments of them have a transcendental quality many times not found in some other composers, and his "piano" (actually harpsichord/clavichord) pieces never cease to amuse me.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

If you appreciate the polyphony and complex lines in the organ/keyboard works, listen for the implied polyphony in the solo violin and cello works. It may just click with you.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

> recordings of piano works, violin solos, cello solos, very rarely project the sublime genius


Bach did not write any "piano works" - these are harpsichord works played on the modern grand. So I'm confused when you say you like his harpsichord works but not his "piano works."

It is all about taste, since his choral, chamber, solo violin and cello works are among my favorites, whereas the organ and orchestral works are not. I reject your characterization of Jekyll and Hyde since it is entirely in your subjective response to Bach's music that you have creating this dichotomy.

Welcome to TC.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

The solo violin and cello suites are moody, introspective music that run the entire gamut of human emotion. Listen to each suite/partita as an examination of a particular state of mind and a kind of psychological narrative within that particular “affect.” Bach is concerned with human as well as sublime matters. The D minor chaconne is a great place to hear this; try to hear it performed by James Ehnes. I think that perhaps you are going into these works with preconceptions of what Bach should sound like, but he has a tendency to challenge your assumptions. If you like the cantatas, I’m surprised that you are averse to Bach’s “psychological melodrama.”


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

There is nothing unusual about not liking everything a composer composed.

My favorite composer is Mahler and I can not stand the 'second movement' of his _Eighth Symphony_. So what?


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Bach did not write any "piano works" - these are harpsichord works played on the modern grand. So I'm confused when you say you like his harpsichord works but not his "piano works."


Sorry, I meant "recording of his works played on piano".



SanAntone said:


> It is all about taste, since his choral, chamber, solo violin and cello works are among my favorites, whereas the organ and orchestral works are not. I reject your characterization of Jekyll and Hyde since it is entirely in your subjective response to Bach's music that you have creating this dichotomy.


If there is no such dichotomy in the musical writings of Bach, why would I find his music so different? and why is my taste split by instrumentation?

I absolutely love the violin and the cello in his Concertos, so it cannot be the instruments themselves.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> The solo violin and cello suites are moody, introspective music that run the entire gamut of human emotion. Listen to each suite/partita as an examination of a particular state of mind and a kind of psychological narrative within that particular "affect." Bach is concerned with human as well as sublime matters. The D minor chaconne is a great place to hear this; try to hear it performed by James Ehnes. I think that perhaps you are going into these works with preconceptions of what Bach should sound like, but he has a tendency to challenge your assumptions. If you like the cantatas, I'm surprised that you are averse to Bach's "psychological melodrama."


I can't express it perfectly but even for the Cantatas (mostly?), there is a constant movement, it sets up in my mind like a locomotive, a train going forward, it can be rather lilting in some pieces or dreadfully relentless in others, even thick, but there is always something clicking into place and driving forward, a kind of perfect progression. Maybe melodrama is the wrong word... but its just the jarring departure from the baroque progression... which I find so often perfect in Bach's works...which I notice. Do the cantatas pause for dramatic effect... or have such extreme changes in tempo or loudness within a section or phrase (sorry not a real musician) as do the solo works?

And why would Bach write such perplexing and extreme variations in his music?

I'll take your advice and re-listen to some cantatas. In your opinion which of Bach's cantatas has a good amount of "psychological drama"? (I have all of Bach's cantatas, Hanslers collection with Helmuth Riling).


----------



## FastkeinBrahms (Jan 9, 2021)

Interesting train of thought. I do not quite follow the notion that Bach had something of a split musical personality, dividing his works in categories to be revered and to be detested. However, I am decidedly of the opinion that some of his output was routine, and more fit to purpose (set by his mostly stingy employers) rather than works of outstanding greatness. Some of his cantata output falls in this category. On the other side, a mind-boggling proportion of his work I find truly great.

I agree with Allegro con Brio's admiration of the solo violin and cello works. I recently listened to Johanna Martzy's sublime recordings of the violin sonatas and partitas, and found them deeply engaging. The solo works can sound shallow and even boring when played by soloists who treat them as pieces that exist merely to allow them to show off theirs skills.


----------



## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

There are many sides to Bach's music, but it's all Bach.

FWIW, I don't find any of his music perplexing or incomprehensible. More time spent with Bach will likely alter the OP's views.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

FastkeinBrahms said:


> Interesting train of thought. I do not quite follow the notion that Bach had something of a split musical personality, dividing his works in categories to be revered and to be detested. However, I am decidedly of the opinion that some of his output was routine, and more fit to purpose (set by his mostly stingy employers) rather than works of outstanding greatness. Some of his cantata output falls in this category. On the other side, a mind-boggling proportion of his work I find truly great.
> 
> I agree with Allegro con Brio's admiration of the solo violin and cello works. I recently listened to Johanna Martzy's sublime recordings of the violin sonatas and partitas, and found them deeply engaging. The solo works can sound shallow and even boring when played by soloists who treat them as pieces that exist merely to allow them to show off theirs skills.


Is there more "Bach" in the Harsichord and Pipe Organ recordings (performed by soloists) but somehow more of the "soloist" in the solo Violin and solo Cello recordings?

Does a harsichordist or organist approach the music of Bach in a fundamentally different way?


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

@Allegro Con Brio

Thank you for the recommendation, I have listened to The D minor chaconne performed by James Ehnes on Youtube. It's better than I expected but... I am still a little at a loss as to what I am noticing, how to express it... and what if anything to do about it.


Although I play keyboard and have played pipe organ but I have never performed for people and do not think of myself as a musician, and when I play I am trying to recreate the music... the sounds Bach heard in his brilliant mind when he wrote it...

for some odd reason I feel that that brilliance comes through better in some kinds of performances than in others.


Perhaps it has nothing to do with the music Bach heard and wrote, nothing to do with what is written, and more to do with interpretation and performance.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

The stuff you hate seem to be solo instrumental works. And other than the harpsichord, there are no HIP versions of the cello or violin suites that I'm aware of, and the solo modern instrument players tend to romanticize Bach. Bach also tends to be more virtuosic with the solo stuff, which may be what you don't like.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

OTTMH Podger and Kuijken for HIP violin, Bylsma and ter Linden for cello


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Phil loves classical said:


> The stuff you hate seem to be solo instrumental works. And other than the harpsichord, there are no HIP versions of the cello or violin suites that I'm aware of.


Sorry ... what does HIP mean?



Phil loves classical said:


> Bach also tends to be more virtuosic with the solo stuff, which may be what you don't like.


Bach's Organ works are filled with plenty of viruosity (that a word?) IMHO, and I love it. There is a complex inescapable pattern in the madness of some of those works (to my ears).



Phil loves classical said:


> and the solo modern instrument players tend to romanticize Bach.


This might be the key to the mystery.

Do you know of any non modern or non-"solo" players who might approach Bach's Cello and Violin solos more like a Harpsichordist or an Organist might?

I might love all of Bach's music after all....


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> Sorry ... what does HIP mean?
> 
> Bach's Organ works are filled with plenty of viruosity (that a word?) IMHO, and I love it. There is a complex inescapable pattern in the madness of some of those works (to my ears).
> 
> ...


What about this sort of thing?


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> The stuff you hate seem to be solo instrumental works. And other than the harpsichord, there are no HIP versions of the cello or violin suites that I'm aware of, and the solo modern instrument players tend to romanticize Bach. Bach also tends to be more virtuosic with the solo stuff, which may be what you don't like.

























Here are three interpretations on period instruments.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

I found this searching for HIP, it largely goes above my head but I think some others might find it useful or interesting.

https://books.openedition.org/obp/1861?lang=en


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> OTTMH Podger and Kuijken for HIP violin, Bylsma and ter Linden for cello


Thank you !! I'll check these out.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

I had other replies

to SanAntone and Allegro Con Brio

but they seem to be lost in moderation.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> The solo violin and cello suites are moody, introspective music that run the entire gamut of human emotion. Listen to each suite/partita as an examination of a particular state of mind and a kind of psychological narrative within that particular "affect." Bach is concerned with human as well as sublime matters. The D minor chaconne is a great place to hear this; try to hear it performed by James Ehnes. I think that perhaps you are going into these works with preconceptions of what Bach should sound like, but he has a tendency to challenge your assumptions. If you like the cantatas, I'm surprised that you are averse to Bach's "psychological melodrama."


Thank you! Can you recommend a Cantata which has more "psychological melodrama"?

It's not the tone or emotion that I'm getting at... it's more of the absence of that constant motion, that moving forward, I feel in Bach''s music. Sometimes lilting sometimes unrelenting, but always clicking patterns of perfection.. upward and/or forward ... a progression without interruption or distraction. I find perhaps this is missing in some recordings... now I suspect it is the performance rather than the music as written.

I cannot recreate what I previously tried to post...


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> What about this sort of thing?


Wow. I love this.

I don't understand how or why but this music feels a much more intelligible to me... I can hear the notes and what they are doing ... maybe I have a mental block when music is romanticized with both tempo and loudness...

don't get me wrong I enjoyed the piece played on cello...

I am more confused than ever.

Hopefully this wont get lost in moderation because I might not remember what I wrote and I cont want to write this all over again...

is there a limit to posts per hour or something?


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

ORigel said:


> Here are three interpretations on period instruments.


The Podger's real nice! Going through it myself. To AvidListener: HIP means historically informed performance, which tends to be lighter.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> Wow. I love this.
> 
> I don't understand how or why but this music feels a much more intelligible to me... I can hear the notes and what they are doing ... maybe I have a mental block when music is romanticized with both tempo and loudness...
> 
> ...


You know what you like by the sound of it. There's someone who played keyboard instruments years ago called Gustav Leonhardt, and he made harpsichord transcriptions of many of these pieces, he recorded them himself, and there is another recording by Roberto Loreggian.

Another avenue to explore is this sort of thing






or this


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Wow. The Podgers is great. New love for Bach (don't love anything by Bach previously). Check out how different this sounds from the other versions.


----------



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Phil loves classical said:


> Wow. The Podgers is great. New love for Bach (don't love anything by Bach previously). Check out how different this sounds from the other versions.


This one and Milstein DG are my favorites.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Phil loves classical said:


> The Podger's real nice! Going through it myself. To AvidListener: HIP means historically informed performance, which tends to be lighter.


Thank you!
I do like that one... a bit quick for my taste,

as for how the music is approached I am comparing with






(BWV 29 Which I love... more with full attention)

and also






(Which I also love... more with a glass of wine and a good book)

I'll re-listen to all three and think about this for a bit.

I think there is one Bach in all these three... and it is the Bach which comes through these performances which I adore.

Still forming my thoughts...


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> OTTMH Podger and Kuijken for HIP violin, Bylsma and ter Linden for cello


And 100+ more.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> I love Bach, his Harpsichord works, his Organ Works, his Orchestral, his Choral works to me are sublime. To me, no matter what the recording they are Bach and I love it.
> 
> I also hate Bach, sometimes.... recordings of piano works, violin solos, cello solos, very rarely project the sublime genius I associate with Bach, they do not even sound like Bach to my ears, often thick and running with perplexing changes in tempo and/or incomprehensible changes in loudness to sections or individual notes...
> 
> ...


Welcome.

It may not always be the work but perhaps the performance. Try listening to historically informed performance (HIP) practice, which might help. The modern day grand piano is not for everyone on Bach, so maybe try a harpsichord version. Here are the cello suites beginning with no.1,






Violin Partita no. 1 in B minor BWV 1002,






Great music needs performance justice done to it, give it a try!


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> It is as though Bach were two composers in one... an austere genius and a melodramatic attention craving wreck...


As a composer Bach is very consistent concerning his artistic means. But he can be performed by different musicians in different ways (this is true of all music by all composers), and the performances do not necessary always reflect the spiritual content of the music.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Is it possible for an accomplished soloist to "over-do" it? 

I don't know the proper musical terms, but I'll try... 


Can a well trained musician over emphasize phrasing, and execute the tempo and loudness variations (not explicitly as written) which otherwise properly lend themselves to a piece (in moderation) in an over exaggerated manner? Is that what "romanticizing" Bach would sound like?

Is there a school of music which advocates subtlety or restraint (not lifelessness) in performance in this particular regard, with respect to Baroque Music or Bach specifically?



As a follow up, why don't more chamber orchestras or harpsichordists or organists take the same liberties in romanticizing Bach? (Would synchronizing the exaggerated phrasing among the various instruments playing a Brandenburg Concerto be a challenge?)

I wonder what it would sound like, using digital means to manipulate a recording to make a Brandenburg Concerto sound more like a soloist pushing the envelope... I'm intrigued though it makes me shudder a bit.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> Is it possible for an accomplished soloist to "over-do" it?
> 
> I don't know the proper musical terms, but I'll try...
> 
> ...


Well what one person calls overdoing it and self indulgent another calls expressive and poetic. And what one person calls restrained and sobre is what another person calls unimaginative and uninvolved. It's not a question of value necessarily, more a question of taste, and personally I can appreciate both.

What do you think of this? I like it very much, but it is divisive






By the way, I think ideas like _romantic_ and _romanticising_ are really unhelpful in this context, because they're associated with a style of music from the 19th century. But there's nothing to suggest that 18th century music making was unpoetic or inexpressive, nothing to suggest it was restrained or unemotional. _Romantic_ invites misunderstandings,


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

AvidListener said:


> Thank you! Can you recommend a Cantata which has more "psychological melodrama"?


Especially BWV 13, 60, 56, and 109, but I think that many cantatas are explorations of the human condition in which even the uncomfortable turbulence of a confused mind is not out of the question. IMO, every music lover should try to listen to all of them at some point. I did throughout six months this past year, and I didn't regret a moment of it. Sure, some are less inspired than others but not many compared to the standard. There's none that I would call "bad." And it's absolutely essential to follow with the texts to understand Bach's exceptional gifts of tone-painting. I have previously posted elsewhere my ranking of all the cantatas which I consider "outstanding" and it might be of help to you.

***** (the best of the best, my favorite group of musical works in any genre, of all time)
4, 8, 12, 21, 23, 27, 36, 38, 42, 49, 56, 60, 77, 80, 101, 105, 106, 109, 125, 127, 140, 147, 161

**** 1/2 (astoundingly good)
1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 13, 20, 22, 24, 25, 29, 31, 43, 46, 51, 54, 57, 58, 61, 63, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 82, 95, 115, 135, 137, 139, 157, 167, 170, 172, 180, 197, 198, 199

**** (superb)
2, 7, 10, 11, 14, 19, 26, 30, 33, 34, 39, 40, 41, 50, 52, 55, 64, 65, 67, 70, 73, 84, 88, 93, 96, 99, 103, 104, 110, 113, 123, 129, 132, 146, 155, 159, 171, 177, 178, 179, 186, 207, 211, 214, 215

** 1/2-*** 1/2 - everything else, explore at your own leisure


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I don't quite get the idea. I find Bach to be one of the most consistent composers ever.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Well what one person calls overdoing it and self indulgent another calls expressive and poetic. And what one person calls restrained and sobre is what another person calls unimaginative and uninvolved. It's not a question of valve necessarily, more a question of taste, and personally I can appreciate both.
> 
> What do you think of this? I like it very much, but it is divisive
> 
> ...


Someone else got me onto the word, if non-productive I'll avoid using it.

I would never think Bach's music itself was unpoetic or inexpressive. It is my love of the poetry and the expression IN the music which is why I love Bach the composer so much. Some may find various works remote or inaccessible or both. I find Bach almost impossibly perfect and yet incredibly human. When certain musician's own expression and imagination get too much into the mix, Bach becomes almost literally unrecognizable to me.

I'm starting to realize I have strong(ish) preferences regarding how performers play Bach's music.

Although I appreciate they may wish to express themselves and have imaginations, perhaps I would rather have an order of Bach, but "hold the onions" so to speak. Since there are so many different schools and approaches and musicians, I'm hopeful I can find what I am looking for.

It just turns out that perhaps due to cultural and/or historical or traditional rubric's differences between soloists and say chamber orchestras or between players of various instruments, some Bach performances just will not appeal to me?? I speculate, but is adding your own jam to the music somewhat a part of certain instrumental soloists culture?

I quite like the piece you linked to. I take it this sort of expression is a little outside the norm for Harpsichordist culture. For me, there is expression, but it falls short of "too much". The phrasing and changes in tempo or loudness are below the threshold of tearing apart the pattern of Bach's perfection... moving forwards, in way that's just right. Too much a jarring change in tempo or loudness and the spell ... for me anyway.. is broken, and I cant even "hear the music" anymore, just a bunch of notes.

Well, I'm on the accepting side of divisive. That is surprising.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> I quite like the piece you linked to. I take it this sort of expression is a little outside the norm for Harpsichordist culture. For me, there is expression, but it falls short of "too much". The phrasing and changes in tempo or loudness are below the threshold of tearing apart the pattern of Bach's perfection... moving forwards, in way that's just right. Too much a jarring change in tempo or loudness and the spell ... for me anyway.. is broken, and I cant even "hear the music" anymore, just a bunch of notes.
> 
> Well, I'm on the accepting side of divisive. That is surprising.


No, it's not outside the norms of harpsichord culture.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Especially BWV 13, 60, 59, and 109, but I think that many cantatas are explorations of the human condition in which even the uncomfortable turbulence of a confused mind is not out of the question. IMO, every music lover should try to listen to all of them at some point. I did throughout six months this past year, and I didn't regret a moment of it. Sure, some are less inspired than others but not many compared to the standard. There's none that I would call "bad." And it's absolutely essential to follow with the texts to understand Bach's exceptional gifts of tone-painting. I have previously posted elsewhere my ranking of all the cantatas which I consider "outstanding" and it might be of help to you.
> 
> ***** (the best of the best, my favorite group of musical works in any genre, of all time)
> 4, 8, 12, 21, 23, 27, 36, 38, 42, 49, 56, 77, 80, 101, 105, 106, 109, 125, 127, 140, 147, 161
> ...


Thank you so very much!!


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> No, it's not outside the norms of harpsichord culture.


Heh, sorry. What makes it divisive?


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

It uses lots of rubato and that puts it firmly in a camp, as it were - there's many different approaches to playing Bach on a harpsichord, like there are many different ways of playing Beethoven on a piano.

This is probably outside the norms


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

AvidListener said:


> Thank you so very much!!


Oh, and I meant BWV 56, not 59 in my initial recommendations.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Or completely outside the norms! This is a better example than the Richter even!


----------



## AlexD (Nov 6, 2011)

The split is probably more to do with his publisher than anything else. 

His publisher said, "Folk love this, write more of this." so he wrote some stuff to please his publisher and put food on the table whilst he wrote other stuff. 

Also commissioned work may well resemble what the client wants more than the artist. 

I was struck by this when seeing Andy Warhol's exhibition at Tate UK. Some of the commissioned work had topics or themes that Warhol never covered in his own work. The themes reflected the clients' concerns - the style of the work reflected Warhol's artistry.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Or completely outside the norms! This is a better example than the Richter even!


Oh my word... not sure what how to react to that one. It's not my cup of tea.

Thank you for your feedback it is all very helpful. I've leaned about rubato!

Since anything goes, I'll just own my own particular tastes and leave it at that. That said , I do have ears to feed:

Is there a "camp" ( school or movement) for "subtlety" or "restraint" or "letting the music speak for itself" (whether nor not such an outlook is flawed according to minds not so disposed)??


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> Is there a "camp" ( school or movement) for "subtlety" or "restraint" or "letting the music speak for itself" (whether nor not such an outlook is flawed according to minds not so disposed)??


Not as far as I know, but there was a school which confused the music with the score, and so tried to do what the score said and nothing else - this is the style of Helmut Walcha and the earlier recordings of Ralph Kirkpatrick.

And there were performers who prized poise and sobriety, a sort of classicism in baroque - Leonhardt was one, he was very influential - so also Kenneth Gilbert, Jory Vinikor and in some recordings Jan Peter Belder.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

FastkeinBrahms said:


> The solo works can sound shallow and even boring when played by soloists who treat them as pieces that exist merely to allow them to show off theirs skills.


UGH. Well put. This grinds my gears so much when soloists do this. It's like they let their ego take over the music

EDIT: For example, listening to cellists blaze through subtle reflective Allemandes at Mach V, not allowing the listener to hear the complex harmonies and lyricality and expression of the lines. The listener can't properly build those relations when listening to those specific recordings, which might be part of OP's problem.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Not as far as I know, but there was a school which confused the music with the score, and so tried to do what the score said and nothing else - this is the style of Helmut Walcha and the earlier recordings of Ralph Kirkpatrick.
> 
> And there were performers who prized poise and sobriety, a sort of classicism in baroque - Leonhardt was one, he was very influential - so also Kenneth Gilbert, Jory Vinikor and in some recordings Jan Peter Belder.


I like the sound of poise and sobriety.

Certainly, the music Bach had in mind consisted of more than what he could "transcribe" into a score on paper, and the music he made when he personally played, was indeed more than that which is explicitly recorded as a score on paper. As to whether Helmut really diminished that aspect of Bach's music, rather than simply refraining from injecting his own ego and feelings into Bach's Art is not a conclusion I can reach without listening to him much more.

Now, if Helmut said to me that on one part of the Musical menu is offered

_Music as a Collaboration of Artists - Composer and Brilliant Musician!!_

Consisting of a composer and a performer and the result being a sort of "duo" of artistry, for which music written by X is always paired with and injected with a big dose of flavor and life by Y,

and on the other part of the menu, (which includes him), offered

_Music as Art by a Composer - Thoughtfully Reproduced by Performer!_

Consisting of performance of Art by the Artist, the Composer, by a musician who earnestly seeks as much as possible to only be a performer, which does not count him/herself as Artist but as messenger or voice or medium for the Artist's Music to the best of his ability, a performer to bring the Art of the Composer into being, with as much honesty and accuracy as possible, and with as little injection of himself or his ego.

After asking Helmut, in particular, whether there was more to music than the written score, and whether he could bring that as close to what in his view was intended by Bach, with as little self-artistry or ego from Helmut himself... if he answered in the affirmative I personally would order from the second part of the menu, and be happy to order from Helmut himself.

BTW thank you so much for the recommendations so far I am enjoying Kenneth Gilbert and Jory Vinikor.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> UGH. Well put. This grinds my gears so much when soloists do this. It's like they let their ego take over the music
> 
> EDIT: For example, listening to cellists blaze through subtle reflective Allemandes at Mach V, not allowing the listener to hear the complex harmonies and lyricality and expression of the lines. The listener can't properly build those relations when listening to those specific recordings, which might be part of OP's problem.


As you say speed perhaps may be a problem from time to time.

I find that Bach sets up a certain structure in time and space (note space?) a pattern analogous to what one might see in architecture, or in a complex repeating yet varying graphic design. If the major "lines" which form the structure are shifted too much in random directions, (which is the effect too much tempo and loudness variation has on me) the pattern, that aspect of the Art of the Music itself, its greatest expression and achievement, is broken, and scattered into a incomprehensible mess.

I second your sentiments with regard to some soloists.

When the soloist wants to take center stage (assuming some don't want to) with their own artistry, essentially tweaking toward what music they would have liked to have written... rather than making an honest attempt at putting the composer's music center stage, and particularly with Bach, it is incredibly distracting.

In fact, I believe I can now say I have discovered the mystery to the OP.

There is no Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I do love all of Bach's music.

What I hate, are certain soloists approach to playing the music. Nothing against the instruments as such, nor the emotion or virtuosity to be found in Bach's music as such. It is the blatant injection of ego from and/or imposed artistry by a soloist, over and above and at the expense of the music of Bach which I now recognize... as noise, obscuring, strutting, pointless noise. The pattern I have observed by instrumentation appears to be a side effect of the culture of soloists of those instruments.

I bear no ill will to the soloist themselves. The "style" might be standard fare as per the culture of soloists of that instrument.... it might be required for survival of the artist in the face of fierce competition... being egged on by "critics" and "music journalists"... being expected of them.

If anyone knows of other kinds of soloists (who play Bach and other baroque music) who lean away from a desire to outshine the music and lean towards a philosophy of bringing the art of the composer to life in an honest way, with little to no editorializing or personal artistry... then I would greatly appreciate being given some references particularly for:

Solo Violinists
Solo Cellists

and any others which come to mind.

Thank you one and all for the conversation it has been very enlightening.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> As you say speed perhaps may be a problem from time to time.
> 
> I find that Bach sets up a certain structure in time and space (note space?) a pattern analogous to what one might see in architecture, or in a complex repeating yet varying graphic design. If the major "lines" which form the structure are shifted to much in random directions, (which is the effect too much tempo and loudness variation has on me) the pattern, that aspect of the Art of the Music itself, its greatest expression and achievement, is broken, and scattered into a incomprehensible mess.
> 
> ...


Listen, for example, to Dmitri Badiarov or Hidemi Suzuki in the cello music. And to John Holloway or Ryo Terakado in the violin music.

By the way don't forget the accompanied violin sonatas and the gamba sonatas.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Listen, for example, to Dmitri Badiarov or Hidemi Suzuki in the cello music. And to John Holloway or Ryo Terakado in the violin music.
> 
> By the way don't forget the accompanied violin sonatas and the gamba sonatas.


Thank you ... I'll look into these.

Sigh...






For this one in particular... I am interrupted... here... and then there... what? why did he do that?... oh... I wasn't expecting THAT... ok that's nice... .. wait what.. WHY??? ... .alright... HUH? arg!!! where's Bach in this... "music"?!

That particular performance was not my Bach, I do understand that it is his Bach.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

AvidListener said:


> I love Bach, his Harpsichord works, his Organ Works, his Orchestral, his Choral works to me are sublime. To me, no matter what the recording they are Bach and I love it.
> 
> I also hate Bach, sometimes.... recordings of piano works, violin solos, cello solos, very rarely project the sublime genius I associate with Bach, they do not even sound like Bach to my ears, often thick and running with perplexing changes in tempo and/or incomprehensible changes in loudness to sections or individual notes...
> 
> ...


if you think that the Two violins' concerto is not amazing I have to say just one thing. What's wrong with you? 
I'm kidding. Not really though.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

norman bates said:


> if you think that the Two violins' concerto is not amazing I have to say just one thing. What's wrong with you?
> I'm kidding. Not really though.


Norman, much has been discussed at length since my OP.

As for Concertos I've always loved them, and BWV 1043 is one of my all time favorites. Not kidding.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> After asking Helmut, in particular, whether there was more to music than the written score, and whether he could bring that as close to what in his view was intended by Bach, with as little self-artistry or ego from Helmut himself... if he answered in the affirmative I personally would order from the second part of the menu, and be happy to order from Helmut himself.


Instead of expressing his own feelings in the music, Walcha apparently endeavored to clarify the counterpoint and to show the mutual relations of the voices. But often he does not display the contained affects of the music sufficiently. Examples of this are several of the Allemande's and Sarabande's of the French suites and the e-flat minor prelude from WTC book 1.


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

norman bates said:


> if you think that the Two violins' concerto is not amazing I have to say just one thing. What's wrong with you?
> I'm kidding. Not really though.


I like the harpsichord transcription of that work almost as much as I do the original:


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> UGH. Well put. This grinds my gears so much when soloists do this. It's like they let their ego take over the music
> 
> EDIT: For example, listening to cellists blaze through subtle reflective Allemandes at Mach V, not allowing the listener to hear the complex harmonies and lyricality and expression of the lines. The listener can't properly build those relations when listening to those specific recordings, which might be part of OP's problem.


To me that's one of the things I hate about HIP. Largos are played as allegrettos, allegros as prestos etc. I'm tired of hearing the Kyrie of the B minor Mass performed as if it's marked allegro moderato.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> To me that's one of the things I hate about HIP. Largos are played as allegrettos, allegros as prestos etc. I'm tired of hearing the Kyrie of the B minor Mass performed as if it's marked allegro moderato.


So just listen to Klemperer.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> So just listen to Klemperer.


Well, not Klemperer but usually Richter or Rilling. (edit) or the Corboz recording from the early 70s.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> Well, not Klemperer but usually Richter or Rilling. (edit) or the Corboz recording from the early 70s.


Have you any of the Herreweghe recordings? I think he's done three of them.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I consider these great Bach YouTube channels

Netherlands Bach Society or All of Bach

Bachstiftung


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Have you any of the Herreweghe recordings? I think he's done three of them.


Yes I've listened to Herreweghe and don't like his readings or Koopman's. I like Suzuki and some of Gardiner though so I don't hate HIP entirely by any means. And yep I like a lot of those performances on the Netherlands Bach Society channel. Even the ones with a darned countertenor.


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Have you any of the Herreweghe recordings? I think he's done three of them.


consuono believes HIP recordings are too fast.


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

consuono said:


> Well, not Klemperer but usually Richter or Rilling. (edit) or the Corboz recording from the early 70s.


So far, Richter is the gold standard to me.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

consuono said:


> Yes I've listened to Herreweghe and don't like his readings or Koopman's. I like Suzuki and some of Gardiner though so I don't hate HIP entirely by any means. And yep I like a lot of those performances on the Netherlands Bach Society channel. Even the ones with a darned countertenor.


The Dutch get it right on that channel, bess' em!


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

I like Rostropovic so far, and Suzuki.






The above is a wee bit fast for me, but it is relatively bereft of undue sentimentality or theatrics.

Looking at this music as written, I cannot for the life of me understand why it is so often played as though it were some operatic tribute to some famous person's life and trials... complete with an overblown triumphant fanfare to conclude it! It is immensely beautiful and rich, but it is also a simple, and in my view, a humble introspective piece.

I am so perplexed. I do wonder how Bach would react to his straightforward pieces being played with such dripping melodrama.

Can anyone help me find recordings of performers which approaches this as a simple, humble, and yet richly beautiful piece of music?

IF I can find such "soloists", I'd likely enjoy the rest of their repertoire.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

True or False?

This performance:






is to Bach's BWV 999:










AS this performance:






is to Bach's BWV 1007:









(btw I do see the fermata in there)

True? or False?...
and

Why????


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> True or False?
> 
> This performance:
> 
> ...


The music is not the score. What I mean is, when Bach wrote down this music, he did so at a time when performers standardly embellished the score with various sorts of rubato, ornamentation etc to make the music expressive. Early on in this thread the idea of Historically Informed Performance came up -- HIP. Well one aspect of HIP has been the investigation of these performance practices -- there's quite a lot of 17th and 18th century accounts of it for keyboard at least -- no doubt for strings too, though I haven't explored it (I think Tartini left some important writings about it concerning violin, but I may be wrong.) It's really important because one point of music in the 18th and 17th century was to express feelings, to make the listener feel a certain way in fact.

The idea that the music is the score is a much much later one and I suspect is totally unimportant _sub speciae aeternitatis_. It's probably just something to do with all the publicity around Toscanini!


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Oh by the way, I forgot to ask you -- that manuscript you found online for 1007 -- who wrote it?


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> The music is not the score. What I mean is, when Bach wrote down this music, he did so at a time when performers standardly embellished the score with various sorts of rubato, ornamentation etc to make the music expressive. Early on in this thread the idea of Historically Informed Performance came up -- HIP. Well one aspect of HIP has been the investigation of these performance practices -- there's quite a lot of 17th and 18th century accounts of it for keyboard at least -- no doubt for strings too, though I haven't explored it (I think Tartini left some important writings about it concerning violin, but I may be wrong.) It's really important because one point of music in the 18th and 17th century was to express feelings, to make the listener feel a certain way in fact.
> 
> The idea that the music is the score is a much much later one and I suspect is totally unimportant _sub speciae aeternitatis_. It's probably just something to do with all the publicity around Toscanini!


Yes, indeed the music is NOT the score. Let's take this as granted.

Now, no one, plays any music like a metronome, without any engagement with the music. Nigel North here does not either. There IS variation to loudness and tempo, emphasis on notes, and/or phrasing... the score itself, and yes the performance, both convey and express feeling, but the magnitude of variation in tempo and loudness are subtle. Now, at the standard sensitivity of a 3 year old, they would not notice at all, but avid listeners do notice the subtleties. On what basis would one conclude that there is or is not enough? A three year old might not feel anything but are the standards for expression to be based on those who are not sensitive to subtlety? Is it based on a 17th century worker of the fields or of an elite subset of the aristocracy who are patrons to the arts?

Sure... maybe no one really knows, and its not as if quantitative scientific measurements of variations or deviations in BPM or decibels were ever made for what actually was "ideal" performance... perhaps even Bach had his own preferences.. and maybe even they varied over his lifetime??

IMHO These two solo artists are playing in accordance with two completely different standards of "expression" in interpreting two similarly beautiful and simple pieces by the same composer. This difference cries out for explanation. IMHO 
or Is it all just random subjectivity?

IF SO, 
Why don't more Cello soloists play the way Nigel North plays?


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Oh by the way, I forgot to ask you -- that manuscript you found online for 1007 -- who wrote it?


The page I linked to has this caption:

"The first page from the manuscript by Anna Magdalena Bach of Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007"

Link is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_Suites_(Bach)


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> Yes, indeed the music is NOT the score. Let's take this as granted.
> 
> Now, no one, plays any music like a metronome, without any engagement with the music. Nigel North here does not either. There IS variation to loudness and tempo, emphasis on notes, and/or phrasing... the score itself, and yes the performance, both convey and express feeling, but the magnitude of variation in tempo and loudness are subtle. Now, at the standard sensitivity of a 3 year old, they would not notice at all, but avid listeners do notice the subtleties. On what basis would one conclude that there is or is not enough? A three year old might not feel anything but are the standards for expression to be based on those who are not sensitive to subtlety? Is it based on a 17th century worker of the fields or of an elite subset of the aristocracy who are patrons to the arts?
> 
> ...


One key concept is that baroque music is rhetorical -- by that I mean that people thought that a piece of music should effect the listener like a well made speech effects the listener. And of course they took their concepts and standards of rhetoric from the classics, from Quintilian. I think Badiarov is playing that piece with these ideas in mind. A brief internet search came up with this paper, which certainly doesn't look bad on the basis of a quick skim. I'm sure there are better things to read online, but it's a start.

http://kmh.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:529778/FULLTEXT01


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> The page I linked to has this caption:
> 
> "The first page from the manuscript by Anna Magdalena Bach of Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007"
> 
> ...


Ah yes, it was not written by Bach, it was written by his wife. You see how things can get complicated!


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> One key concept is that baroque music is rhetorical -- by that I mean that people thought that a piece of music should effect the listener like a well made speech effects the listener. And of course they took their concepts and standards of rhetoric from the classics, from Quintilian. I think Badiarov is playing that piece with these ideas in mind. A brief internet search came up with this paper, which certainly doesn't look bad on the basis of a quick skim. I'm sure there are better things to read online, but it's a start.
> 
> http://kmh.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:529778/FULLTEXT01


I can imagine an "impassioned" speech delivered and enthusiastically received, in a civilized age, among the well educated, as having a certain level of loudness and speed variation, but I doubt I would see any spittle or sweat flying as we might see in historical footage of a speech by Hitler or Mussolini.

We might also imagine, in some back alley of civilization, an impassioned speech, made among the uneducated, as well, about some plan or expressing some indignation, with much theater and strutting, and wide eyed yelling as that crowd might require to be so "inspired".. and no doubt, volume and speed variations here will FAR exceed the impassioned speech among the civilized.

What then is just right and when is it, quite simply, just way too much?


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> I can imagine an "impassioned" speech delivered and enthusiastically received, in a civilized age, among the well educated, as having a certain level of loudness and speed variation, but I doubt I would see any spittle or sweat flying as we might see in historical footage of a speech by Hitler or Mussolini.
> 
> We might also imagine, in some back alley of civilization, an impassioned speech, made among the uneducated, as well, about some plan or expressing some indignation, with much theater and strutting, and wide eyed yelling as that crowd might require to be so "inspired".. and no doubt, volume and speed variations here will FAR exceed the impassioned speech among the civilized.
> 
> What then is just right and when is it, quite simply, just way too much?


This question is a matter of taste, surely.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Try this one






And this one, which is a great favourite of mine


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> This question is a matter of taste, surely.


Which takes us back to this question:

Why don't more (any??) Cello soloists play the way Nigel North plays?


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Shsnshshshshshshhsshshsh


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> Which takes us back to this question:
> 
> Why don't more (any??) Cello soloists play the way Nigel North plays?


Well it's like asking why don't more people play Brahms like Toscanini, or Furtwangler? Or why don't more people play Schubert like Schnabel, or Richter? The music doesn't determine the performance. Each performer has his own temperament.

I suppose one question to think about is whether the music is a vector for significant ideas, or whether it's written by the composer to divert his friends and family. I suspect that many cellists see Bach's suites as the former, and their performances reflect this. But that idea the music is domestic, is not unreasonable given that the autograph is by Anna Maria Bach.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Well it's like asking why don't more people play Brahms like Toscanini, or Furtwangler? Or why don't more people play Schubert like Schnabel, or Richter? The music doesn't determine the performance. Each performer has his own temperament.
> 
> I suppose one question to think about is whether the music is a vector for significant ideas, or whether it's written by the composer to divert his friends and family. I suspect that many cellists see Bach's suites as the former, and their performances reflect this. But that idea the music is domestic, is not unreasonable given that the autograph is by Anna Maria Bach.


You've spoken in terms of musical culture, perhaps reflected by composers during certain periods, but are there not separate cultures to be found, not grounded in musical compositional tradition, but perhaps in the different guild-like mentor-student schools associated with particular instruments?

More specifically, in your honest opinion is there a discernible difference between modern cello soloist performance culture and harpsichordist (or lute) performance culture which has some part to play in the differences being observed here?


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> You've spoken in terms of musical culture, perhaps reflected by composers during certain periods, but are there not separate cultures to be found, not grounded in musical compositional tradition, but perhaps in the different guild-like mentor-student schools associated with particular instruments?
> 
> More specifically, in your honest opinion is there a discernible difference between modern cello soloist performance culture and harpsichordist (or lute) performance culture which has some part to play in the differences being observed here?


I don't know enough about cellos and cello music to comment.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> I don't know enough about cellos and cello music to comment.


Nothing to see here... move along.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> I suppose one question to think about is whether the music is a vector for significant ideas, or whether it's written by the composer to divert his friends and family. I suspect that many cellists see Bach's suites as the former, and their performances reflect this. But that idea the music is domestic, is not unreasonable given that the autograph is by Anna Maria Bach.


This touches on something.

Perhaps, rather than there existing a dichotomy between the so called "significant" and the "domestic", perhaps there is something deeply profound in the domesticity of Bach's music and indeed, something of deep meaning in the domestic nature of the spirit, whose home is love of hearth and home, family, and friends.

Rather than assuming a piece of music being domestic is inconsistent with that music being a vector of great significance, I would tend to argue in fact, that the very converse is true.

WRT performers, perhaps being afraid others are blind, but with the desire to make them see the significance in the music, perhaps that might cause one to overemphasize the playing (beyond some thoughtful engagement), with the erroneous idea that such zealous playing could ever increase the intrinsic significance or the sublime spirit and quiet blinding glory already there.

So in a sense, a cello player could be right to see Bach's music as greatly significant, but perhaps err in the manner with which they endeavor to convey it.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> WRT performers, perhaps being afraid others are blind, but with the desire to make them see the significance in the music, perhaps that might cause one to overemphasize the playing (beyond some thoughtful engagement), with the erroneous idea that such zealous playing could ever increase the intrinsic significance or the sublime spirit and quiet blinding glory already there.
> 
> So in a sense, a cello player could be right to see Bach's music as greatly significant, but perhaps err in the manner with which they endeavor to convey it.


They do it for the groundlings



> HAMLET
> 
> Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
> you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
> ...





AvidListener said:


> This touches on something.
> 
> Perhaps, rather than there existing a dichotomy between the so called "significant" and the "domestic", perhaps there is something deeply profound in the domesticity of Bach's music and indeed, something of deep meaning in the domestic nature of the spirit, whose home is love of hearth and home, family, and friends.
> 
> Rather than assuming a piece of music being domestic is inconsistent with that music being a vector of great significance, I would tend to argue in fact, that the very converse is true.


This is an idea I see in 20th century modernism, James Joyce especially, and maybe in D H Lawrence too.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> They do it for the groundlings
> 
> This is an idea I see in 20th century modernism, James Joyce especially, and maybe in D H Lawrence too.


Yikes... but thanks for the Shakespeare.

and as for James Joyce... I had thought his works relied so much on so many allusions as to be inaccessible to anyone who did not occupy some particular intersection of culture, time, idiom, and education... perhaps that only applies to some of his work.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> I don't know enough about cellos and cello music to comment.


Hey, does anyone out there know enough about cellos and cello music to comment?

Perhaps a cello soloist or anyone else?


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> If you appreciate the polyphony and complex lines in the organ/keyboard works, listen for the *implied polyphony* in the solo violin and cello works. It may just click with you.


"Wilfrid Mellers described them in 1980 as "*Monophonic music* wherein a man has created a dance of God.""

Nowadays, I think the idea that there is such a thing as "implied polyphony" is ********.






Because by that idea, every single work of 18th-century music would be considered to exhibit "implied polyphony" or "implied counterpoint".



hammeredklavier said:


> "Throughout most of the eighteenth century, only counterpoint was taught to young composers, and any knowledge of harmony was informally picked up by experience or by reading the few theorists who tried to deal innovatively with the subject. Counterpoint was absolutely fundamental. Beginning with harmony was an early nineteenth-century novelty, introduced, I think, by the Paris Conservatoire. Chopin attributes what he thinks of as Berlioz's clumsiness to the newfangled system of music instruction. He himself, Having grown up in a backwater like Warsaw, had studied the old-fashioned way. He insists that counterpoint must precede the study or harmony, or else the harmonic movement will have no inner life-it will be laid on from the outside, as he says, like a veneer.
> As we see from Chopin's remarks, the idea of putting part writing (counterpoint before chords (harmony) is not surprisingly modern idea-it is the old traditional way, and Chopin deplored its disappearance. It was the late eighteenth-century development of large harmony areas, of modulation, in fact, that made the teaching of harmony independent of counterpoint. The same stylistic development also gave Rameau's theory of classifying chords by their roots an importance it did not have when it appeared in the early eighteenth century: his theory became of central importance to musical education in early nineteenth-century France. Berlioz seemed to think naturally in Rameau's terms. He chose the harmonies often because of the roots and then employed the inversion which sounded most expressive.
> It seems to me that Chopin's claim of a failure on Berlioz's part is partly true-and nevertheless that this failure accounts for much of that is powerful and original in Berlioz's music. Until the nineteenth century, music education began with what is called species counterpoint. In this exercise the student is given a simple phrase of long, even notes like part of a Gregorian chant, called a cantus firmus, and is asked to write another phrase of long, even notes that could be played or sung with it. The first species is one note of the countermelody for one note of the cantus firmus; the different species then advance in rhythmic complexity, the last being a free rhythm against the original cantus firmus. The student advances from two voices to three-, four-, and five-part counterpoint."
> < The Romantic Generation, by Charles Rosen, P. 552~553 >


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Wilfrid Mellers described them in 1980 as "*Monophonic music* wherein a man has created a dance of God.""
> 
> Nowadays, I think the idea that there is such a thing as "implied polyphony" is ********.


And your thinking is wrong.

https://www.escom.org/proceedings/ICMPC2000/Wed/Davis.htm


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> And your thinking is wrong.
> 
> https://www.escom.org/proceedings/ICMPC2000/Wed/Davis.htm


Well, he's wrong according to Stacey Davis. Appeal to authority, such as she is? Presumably she wrote that paper while she was working on her Masters or Ph.D from Northwestern. Implied polyphony is her little red wagon, not that I don't agree with her - but still ... just sayin'.

View attachment 154852




> Stacey Davis is Associate Chair of the Department of Music and Associate Professor of music theory at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She holds Ph.D. and M.M. degrees in music theory from Northwestern University and a B.M. in violin performance from Arizona State University.


Everybody has a opinion.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> And your thinking is wrong.
> https://www.escom.org/proceedings/ICMPC2000/Wed/Davis.htm


"Although there are certainly movements within these sonatas that reflect the predilection of 18th century German composers for multiple stops in solo string music, the majority of these pieces are almost completely monophonic."


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Although there are certainly movements within these sonatas that reflect the predilection of 18th century German composers for multiple stops in solo string music, the majority of these pieces are almost completely monophonic."


That sounds right to me! The cello suites are a bit different in that respect I think, the last two especially.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Well, he's wrong according to Stacey Davis. Appeal to authority, such as she is? Presumably she wrote that paper while she was working on her Masters or Ph.D from Northwestern. Implied polyphony is her little red wagon, not that I don't agree with her - but still ... just sayin'.


Whether it's her little red wagon or not is quite beside the point. The subject is implied polyphony. And using a reference is "appeal to authority"? :lol: 
Anyway, here's another appeal to authority that touches on the subject:

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.385.8445&rep=rep1&type=pdf


> Everybody has a opinion.


Well refute that one. Or is the point just to bring up "appeal to authority"? The opinion that there is implied polyphony in the solo violin and cello works of Bach seems to be fairly widespread. Anyway it isn't based simply on this writer's opinion. Did you even read the thing, or did you just go straight to the bio for a bit of ad hominem?


hammeredklavier said:


> "Although there are certainly movements within these sonatas that reflect the predilection of 18th century German composers for multiple stops in solo string music, the majority of these pieces are almost completely monophonic."


Which is why the subject is *implied* polyphony.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

consuono said:


> Whether it's her little red wagon or not is quite beside the point. The subject is implied polyphony. And using a reference is "appeal to authority"? :lol:
> Anyway, here's another appeal to authority that touches on the subject:
> 
> https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.385.8445&rep=rep1&type=pdf
> ...


I'm fascinated, and do not want to derail your discussion, but can I ask both of you...

In your own personal opinion, does "implied polyphony" exist as an objective phenomenon in the brain, whereby whatever makes up the musico-auditory system, makes impressions of polyphony in the mind (even VERY subtle ones) in response to hearing suitably arranged monophonic progressions, i.e. it exists on a perceptual level, even if only very weak. 
OR is it a higher level mental construct, whereby a listener deconstructs what they heard almost consciously, remembering and then interpreting the progression in order to recognize the "message", being polyphony, implied in the music.

The former would be more akin to for example pointillism (in visual arts) which creates a real perceived color (whether as an impression, overlay, or actual color) which does not exist, from other colors which clearly and perceptibly do exist, whereas the latter would be more akin to a (semi?) conscious recognition of symbology in a painting, which is at a higher level of mental processing than perception.

I raise this because it is easier to acknowledge the former as objective (undeniably in the art and in the autonomous perception of the perceiver), while the latter could be more argued to be subjective, illusory, or merely convention ... (primarily only in the mind of the perceiver).


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

AvidListener said:


> I'm fascinated, and do not want to derail your discussion, but can I ask both of you...
> 
> In your own personal opinion, does "implied polyphony" exist as an objective phenomenon in the brain, whereby whatever makes up the musico-auditory system, makes impressions of polyphony in the mind (even VERY subtle ones) in response to hearing suitably arranged monophonic progressions, i.e. it exists on a perceptual level, even if only very weak.
> OR is it a higher level mental construct, whereby a listener deconstructs what they heard almost consciously, remembering and then interpreting the progression in order to recognize the "message", being polyphony, implied in the music.
> ...


I honestly don't know, and I'm not sure that the phenomenon occurs in every bar of the Bach solo string music. In certain movements though I think it's undeniable, such as the prelude to the fifth cello suite.

Btw the discussion was derailed when I disagreed with someone and someone else wanted to score some quick points.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

consuono said:


> I honestly don't know, and I'm not sure that the phenomenon occurs in every bar of the Bach solo string music. In certain movements though I think it's undeniable, such as the prelude to the fifth cello suite.
> 
> Btw the discussion was derailed when I disagreed with someone and someone else wanted to score some quick points.


I wonder if there have been any neurological studies on the subject...

Thank you for your honest answer!

BTW: Sometimes honest disagreement is not about points...


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

AvidListener said:


> I wonder if there have been any neurological studies on the subject...
> 
> Thank you for your honest answer!
> 
> BTW: Sometimes honest disagreement is not about points...


And some disagreements aren't honest, but just for the sake of disagreeing.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

I think implied polyphony is a relatively objective concept. If you listen to different recordings of Bach's cello suites, you may become avare of, how different cellists make the implied polyphony more or less perceptible by means of different subtle dynamics, different stroke and different articulation. I also think that the cellists who tend to display the implied polyphony in this way (most of them do) have a rather common idea of how it should be done, whether they do it "explicit" or more implicit, or whether they use Anna-Magdalena Bach's manuscript strictly or not (what only very few do), meaning that they "hear" the polyphony much in the same way.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

premont said:


> I think implied polyphony is a relatively objective concept. If you listen to different recordings of Bach's cello suites, you may become avare of, how different cellists make the implied polyphony more or less perceptible by means of different subtle dynamics, different stroke and different articulation. I also think that the cellists who tend to display the implied polyphony in this way (most of them do) have a rather common idea of how it should be done, whether they do it "explicit" or more implicit, or whether they use Anna-Magdalena Bach's manuscript strictly or not (what only very few do), meaning that they "hear" the polyphony much in the same way.


And I'd say that close to 100% of those cellists have no problem with the concept of implied counterpoint. I imagine that mainly happens on internet sites like this.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

premont said:


> I think implied polyphony is a relatively objective concept. If you listen to different recordings of Bach's cello suites, you may become avare of, how different cellists make the implied polyphony more or less perceptible by means of different subtle dynamics, different stroke and different articulation. I also think that the cellists who tend to display the implied polyphony in this way (most of them do) have a rather common idea of how it should be done, whether they do it "explicit" or more implicit, or whether they use Anna-Magdalena Bach's manuscript strictly or not (what only very few do), meaning that they "hear" the polyphony much in the same way.


Implied polyphony seems to be a BS way of describing implied harmony. You can't "imply" additional melodic lines, or you are describing two lines which are played in different registers creating a simulated polyphonic texture. But that is not "implied," that is melodic content _actually present_ in the work.

Harmonic content though can be heard and "implied" by the single line.

So, "implied polyphony" sounds like inflated rhetoric to describe something pretty common.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Implied polyphony seems to be a BS way of describing implied harmony. You can't "imply" additional melodic lines, or you are describing two lines which are played in different registers creating a simulated polyphonic texture. But that is not "implied," that is melodic content _actually present_ in the work.
> ...





> The fugue [in the prelude of the fifth suite] - the only one in the cello suites (as opposed to three fugues in Bach's unaccompanied works for violin, one in each sonata) - is remarkable in that, even though it's written in multiple voices, it contains very few chords; harmony and multiple voicing is, for the most part, implied, but noticeable just the same due to Bach's remarkable gift for creating expectation and a certain sense of inevitability in voicing. In other words, he sets up the progression of the music so that our brains capture the sense of the harmony and multiple voicing, even though throughout most of this fugue Bach has written only one musical line at any given time.


https://costanzabach.stanford.edu/commentary/suite-no-5-c-minor

I wonder if you have any examples handy of such fairly common implied harmony. In the meantime here's another reference touching maybe tangentially on the subject (harmonic "vertical" vs non-harmonic "linear" polyphony) which you can refute if you want:

https://resmusica.ee/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/rm9_2017_9-26_Humal.pdf


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> You can't "imply" additional melodic lines...


Of course one can. Keen cembalo continuo players realize implied melodical lines all the time, and Bach himself is reported to have done similarly.



SanAntone said:


> Harmonic content though can be heard and "implied" by the single line.


Yes, if only the naked harmonies are heard in one's inner ear. This is what unimaginative keayboard arrangements of these cello suites sound like.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Implied polyphony seems to be a BS way of describing implied harmony. You can't "imply" additional melodic lines, or you are describing two lines which are played in different registers creating a simulated polyphonic texture. But that is not "implied," that is melodic content _actually present_ in the work.
> 
> Harmonic content though can be heard and "implied" by the single line.
> 
> So, "implied polyphony" sounds like inflated rhetoric to describe something pretty common.


It seems like you're caught up in the semantics of the word "implied". What you said about two lines playing in different registers creating a simulated polyphonic texture essentially means the same thing to me. This goes hand in hand with the harmonic content implied by the line. All of the implied polyphony is actually audible to the listener, otherwise it would be a useless intellectual pretension. Whatever you want to call it, it _does_ exist.

I listened to Telemann Flute Fantasias that Hammeredklavier cited to show it's something fairly common. His point about counterpoint being a tenet that's sso highly engrained in the Baroque idiom that it's already going to be ubiquitous is valid. Those pieces do have polyphonic elements of what we're talking about, even if it's not super emphasized. In fact, I don't even think of all the Bach cello suites as being consistently polyphonic in texture. Polyphonic characteristics are present, but stuff like the 5th suite is more of an outlier. However, the way he does full on implied counterpoint like the fugue in the 5th Suite prelude is starkly different.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> In fact, I don't even think of all the Bach cello suites as being consistently polyphonic in texture. Polyphonic characteristics are present, but stuff like the 5th suite is more of an outlier. However, the way he does full on implied counterpoint like the fugue in the 5th Suite prelude is starkly different.


I think most of the movements of the cello suites contain implied polyphony. An exception (among a few others) is the obvious monodic sarabande of the fifth suite.

A movement like the prelude to the first suite has an obvious harmonic function, but the polyphony is implied in the harmonies.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

premont said:


> I think most of the movements of the cello suites contain implied polyphony.


The way I said that was unclear. It's present in all the movements, but I don't hear it or feel it as being consistently polyphonic in texture.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

I agree completely with this.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

premont said:


> I think most of the movements of the cello suites contain implied polyphony. An exception (among a few others) is the obvious monodic sarabande of the fifth suite.
> ...


I think there's some implied harmony even there. Now in something like the sarabande and first bourrée from the third suite, it seems to me the harmonic content is more explicit through the use of chords. But you're right, I can't think of any movement of the cello suites that is strictly a melodic line and nothing else.


GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> It seems like you're caught up in the semantics of the word "implied". What you said about two lines playing in different registers creating a simulated polyphonic texture essentially means the same thing to me.


I think it's more like arguing for the sake of arguing.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

Now it may be me who is unclear.

One must distinguish between implied harmony and implied polyphony (in this case rather counterpoint).

Implied harmony is present almost everywhere in Baroque music, consistent with the basso continuo concept.

Implied polyphony is the *missing parts* in e.g. most of Bach's cello suites, which mostly is written out as a single melodic line, which however consists of a combination of different voices often "playing" alternating at different pitches. Bach was reported to add completely new counterpuntal parts when he played basso continuo, and he surely also did this when he (as it has been reported) played improvised arrangements of his violin soli on the clavichord. I can point to examples of this in Bach's own arrangements of some of his violin soli (the sonata BWV 964 or the organ fugue BWV 539).

A contemporary example of inventive adding of contrapuntal parts to Bachs cello suites and violin soli is done by Winsome Evans:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classic...s-for-solo-violoncello-partita-for-solo-flute

https://www.prestomusic.com/classic...sonatas-partitas-for-solo-violin-bwv1001-1006

But of course there is a reciprocal relationship between the harmony and the polyphony. Sometimes harmony is decisive for the polyphony, sometimes the polyphony is decisive for the harmonies - or the disharmonies, just like in Bach's originally polyphonic works.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

premont said:


> Now it may be me who is unclear.
> 
> One must distinguish between implied harmony and implied polyphony (in this case rather counterpoint).
> 
> ...


Yes, you're right, I confuse the two myself. However, in regards to SanAntone and hammeredklavier, they can take the issue up with Bach himself, I guess. Maybe they could convince him there's no such thing as what he was writing.


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

I love Bach's keyboard music, when performed on piano, and much of his other solo instrument music (his cello suites are among my favorites). I love his orchestral music too. I cannot stand his cantatas and in general much of his religious music leaves me cold.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> Yes, you're right, I confuse the two myself. However, in regards to SanAntone and hammeredklavier, they can take the issue up with Bach himself, I guess. Maybe they could convince him there's no such thing as what he was writing.


I wouldn't really say the whole thing "implied counterpoint" doesn't exist. But you could call literally anything in the 18th century "implied counterpoint", cause even the later composers of the century did not conceive music in terms of "chords". It's just that the "harmonic space" got bigger. They were trained as composers by doing species counterpoint, and hence the reason why Chopin said that in every piece of Mozart (unlike Berlioz), there is counterpoint.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> I wouldn't really say the whole thing "implied counterpoint" doesn't exist. But you could call literally anything in the 18th century "implied counterpoint",


You're fond of posting references and examples and scores and such. Give us one in this case.


> cause even the later composers of the century did not conceive music in terms of "chords".


Basso continuo has nothing to do with chords?


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

premont said:


> Implied polyphony is the *missing parts* in e.g. most of Bach's cello suites, which mostly is written out as a single melodic line, which however consists of a combination of different voices often "playing" alternating at different pitches.


You seem to be saying two things which contradict: you cite "*missing parts*" but then say, "a single melodic line, which however consists of a *combination of different voices often "playing" alternating at different pitches*." This second is what I said occurred with two lines in a single part but in different registers.

It could a matter of semantics.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> You seem to be saying two things which contradict: you cite "*missing parts*" but then say, "a single melodic line, which however consists of a *combination of different voices often "playing" alternating at different pitches*." This second is what I said occurred with two lines in a single part but in different registers.
> 
> It could a matter of semantics.


Yes, I see that I was unclear again. English isn't my first tongue.

When I write "missing parts" in Bach's cello suites and solo violin works I refer to the missing and implied contrapuntal parts of the voices, with which the music can be supplemented in the resting voices, as often only one voice at a time is active just for technical (and rarely for musical) reasons. There are of course many options for realizing these missing parts of the voices, but my examples above display some of these options very well, particularly Bach's own works. And I can't say that I don't sometimes hear such implied missing parts in my inner ear, when listening to this music.

I recall someone who said, that all music is implied - i.e. exists as an option in our world. The composers role is to find it.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

premont said:


> Yes, I see that I was unclear again. English isn't my first tongue.
> 
> When I write "missing parts" in Bach's cello suites and solo violin works I refer to the missing and implied contrapuntal parts of the voices, with which the music can be supplemented in the resting voices, as often only one voice at a time is active just for technical (and rarely for musical) reasons. There are of course many options for realizing these missing parts of the voices, but my examples above display some of these options very well, particularly Bach's own works. And I can't say that I don't sometimes hear such implied missing parts in my inner ear, when listening to this music.
> 
> I recall someone who said, that all music is implied - i.e. exists as an option in our world. The composers role is to find it.


Does this occur more in the cello suites than in the solo violin sonatas and partitas?


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> I wouldn't really say the whole thing "implied counterpoint" doesn't exist. But you could call literally anything in the 18th century "implied counterpoint", cause even the later composers of the century did not conceive music in terms of "chords".


Until the end of the basso continuo era the 18th century composers (and the 17th century composers as well) conceived the music in a perfect synthesis of harmony and counterpoint - listen to The Art of Fugue or Sweelinck's Chromatic Fantasy.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> Does this occur more in the cello suites than in the solo violin sonatas and partitas?


Yes, there are more implied voices in Bach's cello suites, because in the solo violin works the contrapuntal voices are almost always fully written out, - I think the baroque violin for technical reasons allows multiple part playing more "easily" than the cello. There are four cellists, who have recorded the solo violin works on their cello, the most convincing of these are Mario Brunello who uses a piccolo cello tuned one octave beneath a violin. Less convincing is Markku Luolajan-Mikkola who uses a standard baroque cello and plays one octave and a fifth below a violin - the music is from Bach's hand set in a relatively low tessitura, and this results in too much rumbling on the cello. I do not recall details about Norbert Hilger's recording - probably it's forgettable, and I haven't heard Vito Paternoster. But common for those I have heard is that they display perfectly how almost impossible it is to play multiple voices at the same time on a cello.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

premont said:


> Yes, there are more implied voices in Bach's cello suites, because in the solo violin works the contrapuntal voices are almost always fully written out, - I think the baroque violin for technical reasons allows multiple part playing more "easily" than the cello. There are four cellists, who have recorded the solo violin works on their cello, the most convincing of these are Mario Brunello who uses a piccolo cello tuned one octave beneath a violin. Less convincing is Markku Luolajan-Mikkola who uses a standard baroque cello and plays one octave and a fifth below a violin - the music is from Bach's hand set in a relatively low tessitura, and this results in too much rumbling on the cello. I do not recall details about Norbert Hilger's recording - probably it's forgettable, and I haven't heard Vito Paternoster. But common for those I have heard is that they display perfectly how almost impossible it is to play multiple voices at the same time on a cello.


IIRC the original chain of posts was regarding implied polyphony in the solo violin sonatas/partitas, and a paper was cited.


----------



## jkl (May 4, 2021)

Bach keyboard music is much like "Jekyll and Hyde". It has so much variety in its moods and technical prowess that no mortal could have written. I love it.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> IIRC the original chain of posts was regarding implied polyphony in the solo violin sonatas/partitas, and a paper was cited.


You remember incorrectly.


GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> If you appreciate the polyphony and complex lines in the organ/keyboard works, listen for the implied polyphony in the solo violin and cello works. It may just click with you.


To which hammeredklavier replied,


hammeredklavier said:


> Nowadays, I think the idea that there is such a thing as "implied polyphony" is ********.


 And with which you essentially agreed. Well, you had to weigh in to denigrate the author of the paper I cited disagreeing with hammeredklavier. Heck, "implied polyphony" might even be somewhere in the New Grove along with the officially-and-authoritatively-important John Cage.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> You're fond of posting references and examples and scores and such. Give us one in this case.


"Throughout most of the eighteenth century, only counterpoint was taught to young composers, and any knowledge of harmony was informally picked up by experience or by reading the few theorists who tried to deal innovatively with the subject. Counterpoint was absolutely fundamental. Beginning with harmony was an early nineteenth-century novelty, introduced, I think, by the Paris Conservatoire. Chopin attributes what he thinks of as Berlioz's clumsiness to the newfangled system of music instruction. He himself, Having grown up in a backwater like Warsaw, had studied the old-fashioned way. He insists that counterpoint must precede the study or harmony, or else the harmonic movement will have no inner life-it will be laid on from the outside, as he says, like a veneer.
As we see from Chopin's remarks, the idea of putting part writing (counterpoint before chords (harmony) is not surprisingly modern idea-it is the old traditional way, and Chopin deplored its disappearance. It was the late eighteenth-century development of large harmony areas, of modulation, in fact, that made the teaching of harmony independent of counterpoint. The same stylistic development also gave Rameau's theory of classifying chords by their roots an importance it did not have when it appeared in the early eighteenth century: his theory became of central importance to musical education in early nineteenth-century France. Berlioz seemed to think naturally in Rameau's terms. He chose the harmonies often because of the roots and then employed the inversion which sounded most expressive.
It seems to me that Chopin's claim of a failure on Berlioz's part is partly true-and nevertheless that this failure accounts for much of that is powerful and original in Berlioz's music. Until the nineteenth century, music education began with what is called species counterpoint. In this exercise the student is given a simple phrase of long, even notes like part of a Gregorian chant, called a cantus firmus, and is asked to write another phrase of long, even notes that could be played or sung with it. The first species is one note of the countermelody for one note of the cantus firmus; the different species then advance in rhythmic complexity, the last being a free rhythm against the original cantus firmus. The student advances from two voices to three-, four-, and five-part counterpoint."
< The Romantic Generation, by Charles Rosen, P. 552~553 >

"He [Chopin] said the problem with the way they teach nowadays is that they teach the chords before they teach the movement of voices that creates the chords. That's the problem, he said, with Berlioz. He applies the chords as a kind of veneer and fills in the gaps the best way he can. Chopin then said that you can get a sense of pure logic in music with fugue and he cited not Bach-though we know that he worshiped Bach-but Mozart. He said, in every one of Mozart's pieces, you feel the counterpoint."
< The Art of Tonal Analysis: Twelve Lessons in Schenkerian Theory, by Carl Schachter, P. 57 >



SanAntone said:


> It could a matter of semantics.


I'm inclined to agree.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Throughout most of the eighteenth century, only counterpoint was taught to young composers, and any knowledge of harmony was informally picked up by experience or by reading the few theorists who tried to deal innovatively with the subject. Counterpoint was absolutely fundamental. Beginning with harmony was an early nineteenth-century novelty, introduced, I think, by the Paris Conservatoire. Chopin attributes what he thinks of as Berlioz's clumsiness to the newfangled system of music instruction. He himself, Having grown up in a backwater like Warsaw, had studied the old-fashioned way. He insists that counterpoint must precede the study or harmony, or else the harmonic movement will have no inner life-it will be laid on from the outside, as he says, like a veneer.
> As we see from Chopin's remarks, the idea of putting part writing (counterpoint before chords (harmony) is not surprisingly modern idea-it is the old traditional way, and Chopin deplored its disappearance. It was the late eighteenth-century development of large harmony areas, of modulation, in fact, that made the teaching of harmony independent of counterpoint. The same stylistic development also gave Rameau's theory of classifying chords by their roots an importance it did not have when it appeared in the early eighteenth century: his theory became of central importance to musical education in early nineteenth-century France. Berlioz seemed to think naturally in Rameau's terms. He chose the harmonies often because of the roots and then employed the inversion which sounded most expressive.
> It seems to me that Chopin's claim of a failure on Berlioz's part is partly true-and nevertheless that this failure accounts for much of that is powerful and original in Berlioz's music. Until the nineteenth century, music education began with what is called species counterpoint. In this exercise the student is given a simple phrase of long, even notes like part of a Gregorian chant, called a cantus firmus, and is asked to write another phrase of long, even notes that could be played or sung with it. The first species is one note of the countermelody for one note of the cantus firmus; the different species then advance in rhythmic complexity, the last being a free rhythm against the original cantus firmus. The student advances from two voices to three-, four-, and five-part counterpoint."
> < The Romantic Generation, by Charles Rosen, P. 552~553 >
> ...


Yeah, I've seen you post that quote before. In itself it's rhetoric and Mozart hagiography without practical demonstrations. Besides, the subject was implied counterpoint, not counterpoint, period.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

consuono said:


> Yeah, I've seen you post that quote before. In itself it's rhetoric and Mozart hagiography without practical demonstrations. Besides, the subject was implied counterpoint, not counterpoint, period.


Yes, nothing but futile recycling.


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Many posts here have totally exhausted my wisdom on JS Bach for this thread, I have nothing to add. I appreciate your curiosity much. Like honey, candies, if not a professional, do not hurry with JS Bach and any of all the good stuff out there, they worth your greatest patience. Living an easy life and enjoy as you pleased, things will just fine.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

Ariasexta said:


> Many posts here have totally exhausted my wisdom on JS Bach for this thread, I have nothing to add. I appreciate your curiosity much. Like honey, candies, if not a professional, do not hurry with JS Bach and any of all the good stuff out there, they worth your greatest patience. Living an easy life and enjoy as you pleased, things will just fine.


To be honest, I really don't get the original premise of the thread. I get music can leave highly subjective impressions that vary from person to person, but the idea of the solo violin/cello works being like soap opera melodrama makes 0% sense to me. I get if someone said that about Mahler or Rachmaninov, but these highly specific Bach works? I really have a hard time grasping what OP was trying to say. To me they're very subtle and restrained in their expression.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> To be honest, I really don't get the original premise of the thread. I get music can leave highly subjective impressions that vary from person to person, but the idea of the solo violin/cello works being like soap opera melodrama makes 0% sense to me. I get if someone said that about Mahler or Rachmaninov, but these highly specific Bach works? I really have a hard time grasping what OP was trying to say. To me they're very subtle and restrained in their expression.


I agree. I also did not "get" the OP.


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> To be honest, I really don't get the original premise of the thread. I get music can leave highly subjective impressions that vary from person to person, but the idea of the solo violin/cello works being like soap opera melodrama makes 0% sense to me. I get if someone said that about Mahler or Rachmaninov, but these highly specific Bach works? I really have a hard time grasping what OP was trying to say. To me they're very subtle and restrained in their expression.


Most of old members like me here could be such seasoned personages. :lol: But patience will foment more incisive insight in art, not like mathematics and sports which rely on some edges of the youth, youthful edges just do not work for music especially classical music. As you can see, there are almost no young talents that really excel in classical music at all since about a decade or two. Like Christophe Rousset and Richard Egarr, they just consistently go backward in their art over the years...When we do not have the church ambient like in the old times, we must church us with patience.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Ariasexta said:


> Most of old members like me here could be such seasoned personages. :lol: But patience will foment more incisive insight in art, not like mathematics and sports which rely on some edges of the youth, youthful edges just do not work for music especially classical music. As you can see, there are almost no young talents that really excel in classical music at all since about a decade or two. Like Christophe Rousset and Richard Egarr, they just consistently go backward in their art over the years...When we do not have the church ambient like in the old times, we must church us with patience.


Have you heard Michael Finnissy's seven sacred motets? Or Brian Ferneyhough's Missa Brevis? Or Howard Skempton's magnificat?


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> To be honest, I really don't get the original premise of the thread. I get music can leave highly subjective impressions that vary from person to person, *but the idea of the solo violin/cello works being like soap opera melodrama makes 0% sense to me.*


Where did you get this from? No one here hinted at such a thing.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

premont said:


> Where did you get this from? No one here hinted at such a thing.


It's from what was written in the OP:


> I also hate Bach, sometimes.... recordings of piano works, violin solos, cello solos, very rarely project the sublime genius I associate with Bach, they do not even sound like Bach to my ears, often thick and running with perplexing changes in tempo and/or incomprehensible changes in loudness to sections or individual notes...
> 
> It is as though Bach were two composers in one... an austere genius and a melodramatic attention craving wreck...
> 
> (don't get me wrong, I love thick and psychologically tortured melodrama... Barber's Adagio, Mahler's Adagietto (symph 5), etc... I just don't associate them with Bach)


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

consuono said:


> It's from what was written in the OP:


Thanks. I didn't realize this, because I didn't interprete it in that way.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I'd have to agree though that it's puzzling. There's more continuity and consistency in Bach than in just about any composer I can think of. There's no big musical disconnect between the cantatas and the WTC.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

consuono said:


> I'd have to agree though that it's puzzling. There's more continuity and consistency in Bach than in just about any composer I can think of. There's no big musical disconnect between the cantatas and the WTC.


I think, as I have suggested earlier, that the OP was confused by the fact, that some performers (maybe mostly pianists and violinists) interprete Bach's music in a relatively extrovert and dramatic way (not to draw the romantic card), which not necessarily is in accordance with the spirit - or what usually is considered the spirit - of the music.


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Have you heard Michael Finnissy's seven sacred motets? Or Brian Ferneyhough's Missa Brevis? Or Howard Skempton's magnificat?


I have not heard of them. I meant younger generations seem not to be excelling in baroque, when compared to Bob Van Asperen, Gustav Leonhardt, Blandine Verlet, Huguette Dreyfus, Ton Koopman there are very few successors to their level of art. I supposed maybe we have to wait for their seniority to come, and some have just arrived with disappointments.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> I'd have to agree though that it's puzzling. There's more continuity and consistency in Bach than in just about any composer I can think of. There's no big musical disconnect between the cantatas and the WTC.


What are your thoughts on Telemann or Graupner's cantatas in that regard? (I'm just curious, I haven't seen anyone comparing them in a meaningful way.)


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> What are your thoughts on Telemann or Graupner's cantatas in that regard? (I'm just curious, I haven't seen anyone comparing them in a meaningful way.)


I haven't heard Graupner's, but I've listened to some drum-and-trumpets ones by Telemann and they were pleasant enough, like most of his music. Let's look at this one for an example:




When I first listened to this without taking a look at the movements list I expected a grand choral fantasy after such an opening...but no. Sounds nice and has another nice aria, but this is light years removed from Bach.




Bach just has, to me, an uncanny sense for what's musically right.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

consuono said:


> ...but this is light years removed from Bach.


I've always found that Telemann works as a great alternative to Bach. Bach gets put up on a pedestal above other Baroque composers, and rightfully so in my opinion, but there's always something found in his comtemporaries music that you won't really find in Bach. Vivaldi or Telemann may not be as inventive or weighty and profound as Bach, but that's honestly part of why I like them. Telemann for example just writes music that doesnt necessarily wow you, but it's just _really solid_ and has a tunefulness and charming quality that still contains a good bit of depth.


----------



## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> I've always found that Telemann works as a great alternative to Bach. Bach gets put up on a pedestal above other Baroque composers, and rightfully so in my opinion, but there's always something found in his comtemporaries music that you won't really find in Bach. Vivaldi or Telemann may not be as inventive or weighty and profound as Bach, but that's honestly part of why I like them. Telemann for example just writes music that doesnt necessarily wow you, but it's just _really solid_ and has a tunefulness and charming quality that still contains a good bit of depth.


I've read Telemann was almost completely selftaught. Maybe I'm saying something stupid, I didn't listen to much by him, but I think he was probably focusing more on melody and overall beauty of the piece while Bach on harmony and counterpoint. So maybe that's why you perceive his music that way. Also I guess they had different influences and their music had different intentions.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

Amadea said:


> I've read Telemann was almost completely selftaught. Maybe I'm saying something stupid, I didn't listen to much by him, but I think he was probably focusing more on melody and overall beauty of the piece while Bach on harmony and counterpoint. So maybe that's why you perceive his music that way. Also I guess they had different influences and their music had different intentions.


I dont think what you said is stupid, I think it's accurate. The compositional goals of Telemann are much different precisely the way you described, so he can be a great breath of fresh air from Bach for me. Bach himself respected Telemann a ton.

I've read that the realm of academia treated Telemann like a footnote for a long time and dissed his works, while at the same time praising cantatas attributed to Bach that were in fact written by Telemann :lol:


----------



## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> I've read that the realm of academia treated Telemann like a footnote for a long time and dissed his works, while at the same time praising cantatas attributed to Bach that were in fact written by Telemann :lol:


That's super funny :lol: yes you're right he's a breath of fresh air, when I first heard Telemann I was surprised I hadn't heard more of him before. I am still discovering him though so I don't know much. My problem is that I immediatly go from a composer to another one even of very different eras. I can't stay focused on one, so I should come back to Telemann and listen to more stuff.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> ...
> I've read that the realm of academia treated Telemann like a footnote for a long time and dissed his works, while at the same time praising cantatas attributed to Bach that were in fact written by Telemann :lol:


I think this might have been one such misattribution:




It's kinda understandable, come to think of it.


----------



## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

consuono said:


> I think this might have been one such misattribution.
> It's kinda understandable, come to think of it.


Idk. It doesn't sound so much like Bach in my opinion. I don't get it.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Amadea said:


> Idk. It doesn't sound so much like Bach in my opinion. I don't get it.


It could probably pass for one of Bach's "lesser" duets. On the other hand I don't think anyone would ever have mistaken BWV 80 as being by Telemann.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

My general impression is that, rather than Telemann, it is Zelenka who comes close to Bach's expressivity in vocal works. 
As I said, there are some idiomatic similarites as well; the credo movements of Zelenka's Missa votiva (1739) and Bach's B minor.
Also their employment in of chromatic fugal subjects https://www.talkclassical.com/70437-craziest-wildest-most-daring.html#post2044206


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> My general impression is that, rather than Telemann, it is Zelenka who comes close to Bach's expressivity in vocal works.
> As I said, there are some idiomatic similarites as well; the credo movements of Zelenka's Missa votiva (1739) and Bach's B minor.
> Also their employment in of chromatic fugal subjects https://www.talkclassical.com/70437-craziest-wildest-most-daring.html#post2044206


I could probably get a better view of Zelenka if every performance of his music that I've heard weren't in that thin, wheezy HIP style. It's a shame that Richter or Rilling didn't record his work, at least that I know of.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont said:


> I think, as I have suggested earlier, that the OP was confused by the fact, that some performers (maybe mostly pianists and violinists) interprete Bach's music in a relatively extrovert and dramatic way (not to draw the romantic card), which not necessarily is in accordance with the spirit - or what usually is considered the spirit - of the music.


Thank you premont for helping to clear that up.

There were many useful and informative posts in the discussion re. the OP, early on and in the middle.

In the end however, no one was eager to seriously opine on the issue of whether there is a "unique" culture or traditional school associated with cello or violin soloists which differs sufficiently from the culture of harpsichordists and pipe organists (also soloists by the way)... such that the result is a perceptibly wide difference in interpretations or approach to Bach, which can be discerned as generally falling into what appear to be two different camps - string soloists and _mostly_ everyone else (with the exception perhaps of pianists who wander on both sides of the track)


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> In the end however, no one was eager to seriously opine on the issue of whether there is a "unique" culture or traditional school associated with cello or violin soloists which differs sufficiently from the culture of harpsichordists and pipe organists (also soloists by the way)... such that the result is a perceptibly wide difference in interpretations or approach to Bach, which can be discerned as generally falling into what appear to be two different camps - string soloists and _mostly_ everyone else (with the exception perhaps of pianists who wander on both sides of the track)


If I have to answer that question, I would say that there are three different camps, and in all of these, different kinds of musicians are represented, both pianists, strings, organists, etc ..

1) The romantic school (omnipresent).

2) The "true to the score" school (flourished especially from 1950 to 1980)

3) The various HIP schools (especially from 1975 and on)

Which school a musician chooses to work in can be quite random, depending on his/her temper, teachers and general interests.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont said:


> Which school a musician chooses to work in can be quite random, depending on his/her temper, teachers and general interests.


For me it's a <10 and >90 split.

I like the way harpsichordists, lute players, and pipe organists play Bach more than 90% of the time.

I like the way Cello and Violin soloists play Bach, less than 10% of the time.

I love the the Cello and Violin parts in all of Bach's other works 100% of the time.

I suppose "authority" would have me believe it's all in my head... and if no one else here is in agreement, then perhaps that is true... albeit utterly inexplicable.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> For me it's a <10 and >90 split.
> I like the way harpsichordists, lute players, and pipe organists play Bach more than 90% of the time.


It is natural, that harpsichordists, lute players and pipe organists playing period instruments are more HIP oriented than musicians playing "modern" instruments.



AvidListener said:


> I like the way Cello and Violin soloists play Bach, less than 10% of the time.


The problem may be, that you haven't heard a representative selection of the options on the market, but focused upon romantic violin- and cello soloists. This has been my point between the lines in all my post in this thread.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I've listened to cellists playing Bach on Baroque instruments and I've enjoyed most of those. However the differences between those and Janos Starker are nowhere near as stark as harpsichord vs piano...and I like hearing Bach on either, btw. Bach's music is such that it really isn't inextricably and dogmatically tied to any one instrument or prescribed style of playing.


----------



## mparta (Sep 29, 2020)

Back to arguments about Bach's music and its general characteristics, I found this as a representation of the argument (perhaps not entirely the same) from Bach's own time....

From the Bulletin of the American Musicological Society

The Scheibe-Bach Controversy
Harold Gleason
December 4, 1938, Rochester NY

Johann Adolph Scheibe (1708-1776), son of Bach’s friend Johann Scheibe, the organ builder, began, on March 5, 1737, the publication of Der critische Musicus. In March, 1738, the twenty-six numbers of the first year of this periodical appeared in volume form with an index, and in 1740 a second volume appeared with the fifty-two remaining issues (March 3, 1739 to February 23, 1740). The entire series was republished in 1745 with additional material.
In the sixth number (May 14, 1737), Scheibe published a supposedly anonymous report of a musician travelling through Germany. One of the criticisms is obvioulsy directed at Bach, although he is not named. After praising Bach’s skill on the clavier and organ, the critic complains of the lack of agreeableness in his compositions, their artificiality, bombast, confusion, and difficulty, objecting that Bach frequently wrote out ornaments, thereby obscuring the harmony, and that the parts being equally melodic made it difficult to distinguish the principal melody. The criticism was immediately commented upon by Mizler in his neu eroeffnete musikalische Bibliothek and Scheibe named as author.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

consuono said:


> I've listened to cellists playing Bach on Baroque instruments and I've enjoyed most of those. However the differences between those and Janos Starker are nowhere near as stark as harpsichord vs piano...and I like hearing Bach on either, btw. Bach's music is such that it really isn't inextricably and dogmatically tied to any one instrument or prescribed style of playing.


I agree with this. And one could rather say that the inextricable and dogmatic connection is more attached to the musicians than to the music.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I do have personal boundaries, though. Bach *usually* just doesn't sound right to me played by Mahler-sized orchestras, although I do like the Leibowitz orchestration of the C minor Passacaglia and Fugue. Stokowski transcriptions though...bleagh.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

mparta said:


> Back to arguments about Bach's music and its general characteristics, I found this as a representation of the argument (perhaps not entirely the same) from Bach's own time....
> 
> The Scheibe-Bach Controversy ......


Scheibe's attitude was due to his own and time-typical attitude, an attitude which is not strongly represented today.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

consuono said:


> I do have personal boundaries, though. Bach *usually* just doesn't sound right to me played by Mahler-sized orchestras, although I do like the Leibowitz orchestration of the C minor Passacaglia and Fugue. Stokowski transcriptions though...bleagh.


So have I - and very similar boundaries indeed. Usually I prefer the original works to transcriptions, the exception being Bach's transcriptions of his own works, which I consider original works from his hands as well.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> I like the way Cello and Violin soloists play Bach, less than 10% of the time.


Maybe I should consider the recommending to you of some recordings of the violin- and cello solo pieces, which you would like.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont said:


> Maybe I should consider the recommending to you of some recordings of the violin- and cello solo pieces, which you would like.


[EDIT: I've gone back and looked through this thread... you've been here all along so my comments below are somewhat erroneous, but I will leave them]

Absolutely! I would love that.

Most of the examples which were discussed in this thread previously, although arguably HIP, were still quite ... "unlike" one another...

"Here is an orange somewhat more like to your apple than other oranges"

doesn't quite cut it.

Please feel free to comment on those various posts of performances in previous pages of this thread, and certainly any recommendations you might have would be appreciated!!!

Differences noted here:
Bach: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde??

between violin, pipe organ, and lute performances of the "same" piece, are subtle, BUT perceivable.

Differences between these :
Bach: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde??
are more extreme, even though the cello solo is arguably an HIP performance - to me that one wanders into the extremes.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> Differences noted here:
> Bach: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde??
> between violin, pipe organ, and lute performances of the "same" piece, are subtle, BUT perceivable.


The only piece by Bach I know, which exists in these three instrumental versions (his own arrangements) is the fugue from the solo violin sonata BWV 1001, which also exist as an arrangement for lute BWV 1000 and for organ BWV 539. It's important to know, that the arrangements differ in many points, so the musicians don't play the same notes, which results in perceivable differences.



AvidListener said:


> Differences between these :
> Bach: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde??
> are more extreme, even though the cello solo is arguably an HIP performance - to me that one wanders into the extremes.


Badiarov stresses the dancing elements of the suites (which I find completely legitimate), and this results in a rhythmically dominated playing. I think that's what you are hearing.

A few comments upon some of the other recordings mentioned above in this thread and some further recommendations, particularly for the cello suites will follow as soon as I get the time.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont said:


> The only piece by Bach I know, which exists in these three instrumental versions (his own arrangements) is the fugue from the solo violin sonata BWV 1001, which also exist as an arrangement for lute BWV 1000 and for organ BWV 539. It's important to know, that the arrangements differ in many points, so the musicians don't play the same notes, which results in perceivable differences.


Just listened to the fugue for this.

Versions on the Pipe Organ - thumbs way up
Lute: generally enjoyable
Violin versions (the ones I found that is): PUHLEASE... I mean really?



premont said:


> Badiarov stresses the dancing elements of the suites (which I find completely legitimate), and this results in a rhythmically dominated playing. I think that's what you are hearing.


I'm not a professional musician, but "stresses" the "dancing elements" seems like a vast understatement. Even given an approach to rhythmically dominating the playing (if acceptable for arguments sake), that pattern changes erratically... and incomprehensibly... I get it, he feels the music and he is "owning it".. it just sounds very disjointed, interrupted, and chaotic to me, especially when listening through the entirety of it...

oh those poor dancers, having to adjust their cadence to such a piece... unpredictably changing in tempo... here, then there... slow down, speed up... slowly, quickly... stately now... frantic! poor poor dancers.

SO, I am eager to hear any recommendations.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

My first recommendation of a recording of Bach's cello suites is a relatively new acquisition. André Laurent O'Neil (Edition Lilac recorded 2015). He is a student of Aldo Parisot and Jaap ter Linden and plays period instruments. He states that he is strongly influenced by Anner Bijlsma's playing. Stylistically, he is the moderately restrained type, suitably expressive within a reasonable framework. He in no way exaggerates the dancing elements, rather the opposite. He always plays in tune and rarely uses vibrato of significance. He uses A M Bach's manuscript, but changes the articulation in it according to his discretion. In addition, he adds well-chosen embellishments by repetitions. I suppose he might interest you.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=andre+o'neil+bach&ref=nb_sb_noss

About the three harpsichord recordings mentioned above I think Lars Mortensen's own arrangement of the Chaconne from BWV 1004 is stylish and imaginitive and also rather dramatically expressive. It is a live recording and probably this makes it more spontaneous.

Karl Richter's recording of the sixth partita for harpsichord is on the other hand something of the most unimaginative I have heard. Oldfashioned true to the score without extenuating circumstances. Add to this the relentless sewing maschine style and the hard touch.

Cates French suites are in these ears very imaginative but mannered, and in the long run he irritates me, but that is maybe just me - many talk enthusiastically about him.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

premont said:


> My first recommendation of a recording of Bach's cello suites is a relatively new acquisition. André Laurent O'Neil (Edition Lilac recorded 2015). He is a student of Aldo Parisot and Jaap ter Linden and plays period instruments. He states that he is strongly influenced by Anner Bijlsma's playing. Stylistically, he is the moderately restrained type, suitably expressive within a reasonable framework. He in no way exaggerates the dancing elements, rather the opposite. He always plays in tune and rarely uses vibrato of significance. He uses A M Bach's manuscript, but changes the articulation in it according to his discretion. In addition, he adds well-chosen embellishments by repetitions. I suppose he might interest you.


Here's some info on his instrument, he plays a John Morrison baroque cello (ca. 1800), and a 2006 Wang Zhi Ming violoncello piccolo (for the Suite No. 6). No mention of what kind of bow or if he uses gut strings. I'm listening to this set right now, and so far, I'm liking what I hear.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont said:


> My first recommendation of a recording of Bach's cello suites is a relatively new acquisition. André Laurent O'Neil (Edition Lilac recorded 2015). He is a student of Aldo Parisot and Jaap ter Linden and plays period instruments. He states that he is strongly influenced by Anner Bijlsma's playing. Stylistically, he is the moderately restrained type, suitably expressive within a reasonable framework. He in no way exaggerates the dancing elements, rather the opposite. He always plays in tune and rarely uses vibrato of significance. He uses A M Bach's manuscript, but changes the articulation in it according to his discretion. In addition, he adds well-chosen embellishments by repetitions. I suppose he might interest you.
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/s?k=andre+o'neil+bach&ref=nb_sb_noss
> 
> ...


Found this






it's well done, but it still sounds more like a "Cello solo" than Bach to me...

I

give

up.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> it's well done, but it still sounds more like a "Cello solo" than Bach to me...


It's both, not either or.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont said:


> It's both, not either or.


To me, No.

Not from what I see and from what I hear.

I cannot speak to what you or anyone else feels, thinks, sees, or hears... and for you, granted it is both... and good for you, for your peace, your joy, your enjoyment.

I, however, am not so lucky. Something about Bach, about the universe therefore, will be, evermore, simply broken.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

In one of Christian Wolff's essays from the 1960s he wrote as a sort of aesthetic principle "What do you mean by articulation – expressivity? Haven’t we decided to let it follow rather than lead us? We are not exploiting sounds to serve our feelings." 

I just don't know whether the cellists are imposing their own egos onto the music, forcing the music to say what they want to say. Or whether in some sense they're finding and then revealing in performance, expressivity in the music.

Maybe you need a performer who will locate the expressivity in the sound and not in the way sounds are shaped through narrative.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> I just don't know whether the cellists are imposing their own egos onto the music, forcing the music to say what they want to say. Or whether in some sense they're finding and then revealing in performance, expressivity in the music.


It is difficult to separate these two categories as most cellists fall somewhere in between. Do you think of cellists like Terakado and Suzuki in the second category? Or maybe Wieland Kuijken?


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

premont said:


> It is difficult to separate these two categories as most cellists fall somewhere in between. Do you think of cellists like Terakado and Suzuki in the second category? Or maybe Wieland Kuijken?


Suzuki is certainly a good example -- I listened to the SACD recording this week.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Suzuki is certainly a good example -- I listened to the SACD recording this week.


AVID LISTENER ALERT!!

If we suppose he is, I tend to prefer Suzukis second recording, this one which is the one you listened to:

https://www.amazon.de/Complete-Cell...s=hidemi+suzuki&qid=1621084831&s=music&sr=1-4

to his first set. Both may be difficult to find cheaply, but I don't know about streaming services.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

premont said:


> AVID LISTENER ALERT!!
> 
> If we suppose he is, I tend to prefer Suzukis second recording, this one which is the one you listened to:
> 
> ...


This is why I didn't mention when the thread started, it's hard to find samples of the SACD and it's practically made of unobtanium.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Thank you Premont and Mandryka


I believe I will augment my Bach collection with Hidemi Suzuki's Cello performances. They are the closest to Bach in my ears.


Now I just need to find a comparable/analogous solo violinist...


----------



## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

AvidListener said:


> ...Now I just need to find a comparable/analogous solo violinist...


If you're referring to the violin sonatas and partitas (BWV 1001-1006), you won't have any trouble finding good recordings. Given their stature in the solo violin repertoire, many world-renowned violinists have recorded them over the years.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Bluecrab said:


> If you're referring to the violin sonatas and partitas (BWV 1001-1006), you won't have any trouble finding good recordings. Given their stature in the solo violin repertoire, many world-renowned violinists have recorded them over the years.


As you could note from the contents of this thread, I'm not necessarily interested in just "good recordings".


----------



## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

AvidListener said:


> As you could note from the contents of this thread, I'm not necessarily interested in just "good recordings".


Then I'll rephrase. If you're interested in recordings of these works by world-renowned violinists, they are abundant.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> Thank you Premont and Mandryka
> 
> I believe I will augment my Bach collection with Hidemi Suzuki's Cello performances. They are the closest to Bach in my ears.
> 
> Now I just need to find a comparable/analogous solo violinist...


How about this sort of thing?


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Isabelle Faust - Bach: Sonata No. 3 for Solo Violin






Bach - Violin Sonata no. 2 in A minor BWV 1003 - Sato | Netherlands Bach Society


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> How about this sort of thing?


Or better IMO, Pavlo Beznosiuk. (Can't see it on YouTube)


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

I have not had time to get through this but I very much like Christopher Hogwood's interpretations of Bach, I'm curious about what he has to say, and of course also looking forward to hearing Beznosiuk.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> How about this sort of thing?


Or Ryo Terakado?

IMO Beznosiuk is an un-imaginative routinier, at least in these works.

I am tempted to think, that Gottfried von der Goltz might be suitable. But I haven't heard his recording yet, despite having owned it for about a year. The same for Ritchie.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

premont said:


> IMO Beznosiuk is an un-imaginative routinier, at least in these works.
> 
> .


The challenge is to try to match performance style to AvidListener's taste - i.e. total utter complete absence of the slightest whiff of gypsy violin.

This also maybe


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> The challenge is to try to match performance style to AvidListener's taste - i.e. total utter complete absence of the slightest whiff of gypsy violin.






Mandryka said:


> This also maybe


Excellent choice, I have also thought of Schneiderhan, but refrained from mentioning him, because he only recorded the second partita.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Have a quick <8 min listen to the Toccata of this (BWV 540, Toccata and Fugue in F major).

What is it that characterizes the toccata of this piece? What about it makes it so absolutely perfectly brilliant, and IMHO among Bach's best masterpieces (of which there are many)? What gives it the sense of unstoppable motion? Uninterrupted joy?

I love Christopher Herrick's rendition slightly more (it's not on youtube), and although this one is only a teeny tiny bit fast, I think Simon Preston is brilliant here ( I happen to own both).


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> The challenge is to try to match performance style to AvidListener's taste - i.e. total utter complete absence of the slightest whiff of gypsy violin.


What would gypsy violin, as applied to playing Bach, mean? Sorry, I'm from North America, and I've never encountered a gypsy violin here, but we have "fiddle playing" in particular in coastal communities with Irish or Scottish (and other types of British) roots.

Have you seen my questions re BWV 540? I'd love to know your thoughts.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont said:


> IMO Beznosiuk is an un-imaginative routinier, at least in these works.


What do you mean by "un-imaginitive routinier" and do you think it a bad thing? Why?

Also have you seen my questions re BWV 540? I'd love to know your thoughts.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> What would gypsy violin, as applied to playing Bach, mean?


Too dancing quality and too flexible rhythm I suppose. I once heard Oscar Shumsky's recording of the violin solo S&P's described in this way. I haven't heard him myself.

https://www.prestomusic.com/classic...sonatas-partitas-for-solo-violin-bwv1001-1006

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=oscar+shumsky+bach


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> What would gypsy violin, as applied to playing Bach, mean? Sorry, I'm from North America, and I've never encountered a gypsy violin here, but we have "fiddle playing" in particular in coastal communities with Irish or Scottish (and other types of British) roots.


Lots of stress on the violinist's technical wizardry and embellishment of the music in a way which makes it emotionally expressive to the point of sentimentality. This is the sort of thing I had in mind






Or this






What do you think of this?


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> What do you mean by "un-imaginitive routinier" and do you think it a bad thing? Why?


Playing with lack of engagement, seemingly tired of having played the works too often. Certainly a bad thing, because the music becomes uninteresting in that way.



AvidListener said:


> Also have you seen my questions re BWV 540? I'd love to know your thoughts.


You give the answer yourself implicit in your question, and I don't find anything to add.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont said:


> You give the answer yourself implicit in your question, and I don't find anything to add.


Sorry. I was being honest about wanting your thoughts on that specific piece. If you have no thoughts on it, or would rather not share, you could simply say so explicitly.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Lots of stress on the violinist's technical wizardry and embellishment of the music in a way which makes it emotionally expressive to the point of sentimentality. This is the sort of thing I had in mind


Yes, I think I hear what you mean by gypsy playing. In North America in various cities we have street performers playing to the crowd for money, and "embellishment" and/or "sentimentality" get more attention from the general public, regardless of the instrument.



Mandryka said:


> What do you think of this?


I do not dislike these, nor is my ear offended, in fact these are well performed and enjoyable... if I listen to them simply hearing them for what they are... I like them... they just do not sound like Bach to my ears (admittedly they do have glimmers of his brilliance as they would have to). Were I to catalog my real media (CD AudioDVD SACD) music not by composer, but by some abstract measure of the characteristics of the music, these would not likely sit in the same "cubby hole" as most of my other Bach...

I like mashed potatoes, I also like vanilla ice cream.... but if were to unwittingly eat one expecting the taste of the other... I would hate it... well that is like expecting Bach and getting, what you call a "gypsy" performance, on any instrument.

BTW I am honestly curious about your thoughts on BWV 540.

It could help me put our conversation into better context.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Re BWV 540 I'm not specially interested in the music at the moment, so I'll pass.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Re BWV 540 I'm not specially interested in the music at the moment, so I'll pass.


Fair enough. Can to share what about it disinclines you to listen or assures you that you are uninterested in it?


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

No, not easily, there’s time for thinking about only so much music I suppose. One day maybe I’ll give more attention to Bach’s toccatas.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> Sorry. I was being honest about wanting your thoughts on that specific piece. If you have no thoughts on it, or would rather not share, you could simply say so explicitly.


i don't quite understand what you are asking for. Do you want me to do a structural analysis of the toccata?


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

AvidListener said:


> Have a quick <8 min listen to the Toccata of this (BWV 540, Toccata and Fugue in F major)


BWV540 -I remember it as the Bach organ work with the longest pedal point




I think it's ok but doesn't really have the "catchiness" of:

Trio sonata BWV528 



 ,
Fantasie and fugue BWV542 
Prelude and fugue BWV543 



 ,
Prelude and fugue, BWV552 



 , 
Fugue BWV578





(the "theatrical" movements of the performer are also interesting to watch. I like how he really feels the music with his body - the orgasm seems so intense.)

I like this youtube comment on the video:
"Headbanging, Baroque style." -The Geek Monster


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont said:


> i don't quite understand what you are asking for. Do you want me to do a structural analysis of the toccata?


We've shared some thoughts on Cello pieces, styles, musicians etc. clearly you have thoughts on those subjects and those pieces... I was interested what you think about a piece I happen to like very much for sounding (to me) like Bach, that would help me contextualize your thoughts (wrt Cello solo music) against my perception of Bach.

Maybe you really like it when musicians go "solo" ... and hence find BWV 540 (one of the most amazing pieces of music IMHO) as bland, unimaginative, remote, unengaging... but I simply do not know.

So I am curious.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> BWV540 -I remember it as the Bach organ work with the longest pedal point
> 
> I think it's ok but doesn't really have the "catchiness" of:
> 
> ...


Ah yes these are all great too.

It is so very hard to pick favorites. I once decided to burn a few CDs (a decade or so ago) for driving to work and back, do some audio cleaning on my favorite Bach Pipe Organ pieces and crank it up... I ended up having way too many favorites, so I picked a few of those favs at random and only burned one CD...

BWV545
BWV532
BWV572
BWV549a
BWV540

I often wish he wrote more...sometimes I wish I could hear them as if for the first time again.. or perhaps for someone to discover a long lost previously unknown Bach piece.

Do you have others to composers recommend? I have various best of or grand toccata collections and some Buxtehude and Rheinbuger but have not collected their complete works... would they or another composer be worth it (pipe organ)?

Want to listen to more!


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> No, not easily, there's time for thinking about only so much music I suppose. One day maybe I'll give more attention to Bach's toccatas.


Indeed time.. there is so precious little of it.

So, thank you for your time in replying on this thread above! It's been insightful!


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's an interesting one


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> Maybe you really like it when musicians go "solo" ... and hence find BWV 540 (one of the most amazing pieces of music IMHO) as bland, unimaginative, remote, unengaging... but I simply do not know.


I find it to be a very tense and energetic piece. The first half of it derives its energy from the long organ point and the two part canon, where the two parts chase each other and drive each other forward whereafter the pedal continues alone with the same musical substance in new combinations. This is then all repeated. Then comes a long concertizing section also built upon this musical substance, where we are led through several different modes building up a kind of impatience until the music eventually "lands" in the tonic and thereby conveys a kind of relief from the precedent musical tension. Indeed a very exciting piece of music.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

AvidListener said:


> Do you have others to composers recommend? I have various best of or grand toccata collections and some Buxtehude and Rheinbuger but have not collected their complete works... would they or another composer be worth it (pipe organ)?


The Bach works you mention are mostly early works in North German style, so *Buxtehude* indeed, and *Vincent Lübeck*, *Nicolaus Bruhns* and maybe *Georg Böhm*, all of whom are North German composers from the time around Bach's youth. Their preludes (not chorale based) , sometimes called toccata or prelude and fugue may be of interest to you.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

premont
Thank you very much indeed!


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AvidListener said:


> premont
> Thank you very much indeed!


Maybe see if you can find the series of recordings by Bernard Winsemius called North German Baroque. Or the ones called North German Organ Music by Albert Bollinger.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

AvidListener said:


> Do you have others to composers recommend? I have various best of or grand toccata collections and some Buxtehude and Rheinbuger but have not collected their complete works... would they or another composer be worth it (pipe organ)?
> Want to listen to more!


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

That's a good one.


----------



## AvidListener (Apr 15, 2021)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Especially BWV 13, 60, 56, and 109, but I think that many cantatas are explorations of the human condition in which even the uncomfortable turbulence of a confused mind is not out of the question. IMO, every music lover should try to listen to all of them at some point. I did throughout six months this past year, and I didn't regret a moment of it. Sure, some are less inspired than others but not many compared to the standard. There's none that I would call "bad." And it's absolutely essential to follow with the texts to understand Bach's exceptional gifts of tone-painting. I have previously posted elsewhere my ranking of all the cantatas which I consider "outstanding" and it might be of help to you.
> 
> ***** (the best of the best, my favorite group of musical works in any genre, of all time)
> 4, 8, 12, 21, 23, 27, 36, 38, 42, 49, 56, 60, 77, 80, 101, 105, 106, 109, 125, 127, 140, 147, 161
> ...


Really thank you for investing in the the time to do this.... just queueing up selections by Helmuth Rilling from Hanssler's Complete J.S. Bach collection... now

cheers!

I do quite like the boxed set!


----------

