# Question regarding the history of JS Bach



## sexton1022 (Nov 19, 2018)

Hello all. I've been doing some reading about Bach and I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how while he lived he was just a guy holding down a job, but 200 (?) years later he's a genius and the father of classical music. Why wouldn't it be apparent while he lived? My husband says art is generally more appreciated in the future, but I feel like I may be missing some historical facts about how things were during the time he lived. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Well, I'm not a Bach scholar, but I know this; At the time, he was expected to write music for church, and obviously that is what the majority of his music was for. Because of that, much of his music wasn't really "performed" in that sense that his cantatas or other choral works might be performed today. It was for a church service, generally just to go along with that week's mass. Much of his other secular music was largely never performed or forgotten, making it quite hard for people to hear it until later in the 19th century.

But your husband is correct that most composers will not become considered a "great" until at least several years after their death, sadly. I can think of very few examples where a composer actually achieved legendary status during their life... yes, Beethoven and Mozart were popular but they were not really seen in the same light that we see them today.

And to speak of Mozart, he too was forgotten by his death, although a revival quickly happened. 

Some of my historical facts may be wrong, as I am not too specialized in specific composer history, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong about any of the Bach facts.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Well, I don’t think he was ever thought of as just a guy holding down a job. He was too prolific a composer even in his day and met just about every possible musical challenge that ever came his way, such as writing an enormous number of weekly cantatas and countless other works of super high-quality, full of harmonic inventiveness and genius... He was also a great teacher whose teachings were kept alive by some of his children, such as his teachings on counterpoint and The Art of the Fugue. After he died, he was mostly forgotten by the public because there was the change from the Baroque era to the Classical era and he was no longer considered fashionable. But he was never entirely forgotten as a great master by some of the great composers of the day who came after him, and that includes Mozart (who was studying him only about 30 years after Bach’s death, not 200), Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Brahms, all of whom studied and venerated him, keeping his legacy alive. That’s a far cry from being just a regular working-stiff guy... Naturally, he is one of my favorites and I feel that he can be musically rewarding to just about anyone with a life that's very much worth exploring.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

He was revered in his time as an excellent musician and composer, he just was not (yet) widely considered the _very_ best composer. He held positions that only the best and most respected musicians held. He was generally considered the best organist and was also quite knowledgeable on their construction and repair. While its true at a certain point his music was considered somewhat old fashioned and not as fashionable as some other composers, his music was consistently played by connoisseurs during his life as well as after, and of course his music was also played and studied by the top composers that came immediately after him.

So he was always rated highly as a musician and composer and was never forgotten.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tchaikov6 said:


> ...I can think of very few examples where a composer actually achieved legendary status during their life... yes, Beethoven and Mozart were popular but they were not really seen in the same light that we see them today.


I recently read that _two _complete Beethoven symphony cycles were performed in Vienna in 1826, while he was still writing his quartets. I had never heard that before and found it kind of astonishing.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tchaikov6 said:


> I can think of very few examples where a composer actually achieved legendary status during their life... *yes, Beethoven* and Mozart were popular but they were not really seen in the same light that we see them today.
> 
> .


Beethoven certainly had achieved somewhat of a legendary status in his day with thousands turning out for the funeral procession. Bach just looked upon himself doing a job of writing music 'for the glory of God'. When asked how he did it he merely said, 'Anyone who works as hard as I do could do the same!' I think he only got his Leipzig appointment because Telemann turned it down! So he certainly wasn't as highly regarded in his day as he is today. It was only when Mendelssohn revived the St Matthew Passion that Bach really began his revival among the general population of music lovers


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## Hermastersvoice (Oct 15, 2018)

It is astonishing though how comparatively unknown he remained for years, among the general public anyway. One immediately assumes that the means of communication were slower at the time, yet an event like the Reformation happened only a few years before Bach and spread like wildfire in a short space of time. It’s also astonishing how little we continue to know about Bach the man to this day. Most biographical knowledge we have to glean from surviving music. Gardiner wrote a fabulous biography but a lot of it is guesswork, except of course the music.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

The reasons J.S. Bach wasn't considered in his time what he is today are multiple. First, the concept of "genius" wasn't known in his time. 

Even though he was a fecund composer, could play all the instruments, sing all the parts, had a volatile temper, spent a night in jail over a musical disagreement, wore out two wives, bred 20-plus children -- two that went on to become masters, one of which received credit for "inventing" the symphony -- authored equal temperament and perfected the fugue, wrote some of the greatest concertos, solo keyboard music and sacred music in history, he was considered a kapellmeister in his time, a church organist, choir director and teacher.

Bach worked in smaller places like Cothen and, even after moving to larger Leipzig, he never made it to fame in the musical centers of Berlin, Vienna, Rome, London or Paris where composers grew reputations. He never wrote an opera so there was no international fame from that. He ground out cantatas for church service. Students everywhere played his preludes and fugues to learn equal temperament and style but no one considered them in themselves masterworks to be played in concert.

It wasn't until Felix Mendelssohn performed an abridged version of his St. Matthew Passion almost a century after its birth that anyone knew of this masterpiece. Bach's fame began to grow after that and his works were played more often. It wasn't until the birth of recordings that the full richness of his output became known. And then his music was frivolously played until some performers in the 1950s decided to look into appropriate Baroque practices. Today everyone knows him and abject attention is given to the style and substance of his music.

Bach was a great intellectual when such a concept wasn't known. It is speculated he wrote his Art of the Fugue and Musical Offering for his own mental engagement, never considering it would be played by anyone for pleasure or performance. He gave his second wife, Anna Magdalena, a gift called the Musical Notebook never thinking anyone else would ever play or sing it (Anna was a soprano.) He wrote the famous Brandenburg concertos for the Margrave of Brandenburg-Wendt, not for any personal glory. He gave the margrave the original scores.

It may help to compare Bach's (lack of) fame to his famed contemporaries, Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Frideric Handel. 

Even though he spent his life in the musical capitol of Italy, Vivaldi wasn't particularly well known in his day. Today, almost nothing is known of his life. In part this was because he spent his days in a school for wayward girls teaching them music and how to play his compositions. The author of the Four Seasons, Gloria and hundreds of other great works never rose to much fame. He also composed for country musicians; his famous "Alla Rustica" concerto was written for traveling country (or as the name implies, rustic) musicians.

By contrast, Handel sought fame and achieved it. Born German, he went early to England and settled in cosmopolitan London. He tried his hand first at Italian opera but didn't achieve fame. When he switched to other forms, mainly oratorios and orchestral music, he achieved fame. At one point every woodwind player in London gathered at their famous bridge to play his Royal Fireworks Music, a cacophony of 500 woodwinds. The author of Messiah and Israel In Egypt died beloved and famous and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

To say a lot has changed in the past 250 or so years to Bach's reputation is thunderous understatement. His life story, and the way his worldwide perception changed over a couple centuries, is testament to the lasting value of his music which remains relevant in our era and will remain relevant for as long as people play and listen to classical music on our planet.


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## sexton1022 (Nov 19, 2018)

All of you are amazing. That's fascinating stuff.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Most artists are just doing their jobs, hoping to support their families by following their muse and doing what they can do well. 95% of them are just fairly good, mediocre, or bad. Time and appreciation generally separate out the greats -- although yes, some are recognized as such during their lifetimes. But, when your job is primarily cranking out Church music, and most of it is beng absorbed as part of the liturgy, most listeners have other things on their minds (or not).


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## Hermastersvoice (Oct 15, 2018)

“Frivolously” - what are we talking about? Are we having the usual go at Mengelberg, Ramin, Klemperer etc?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Hermastersvoice said:


> "Frivolously" - what are we talking about? Are we having the usual go at Mengelberg, Ramin, Klemperer etc?


Yes, and I'd put Stokowski at the front of the list.


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## Guest (Nov 20, 2018)

He published a substantial body of work during his lifetime, and I gather that he was one of the most prominent musicians of his era. I don't know if it was his choice or not, but he remained in church service and this limited his activities compared with someone like Handel, who traveled to London and became a famous composer of opera and instrumental music. In his lifetime he was respected, in posterity he was loved.


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## Guest (Nov 20, 2018)

larold said:


> By contrast, Handel sought fame and achieved it. Born German, he went early to England and settled in cosmopolitan London. He tried his hand first at Italian opera but didn't achieve fame. When he switched to other forms, mainly oratorios and orchestral music, he achieved fame. At one point every woodwind player in London gathered at their famous bridge to play his Royal Fireworks Music, a cacophony of 500 woodwinds. The author of Messiah and Israel In Egypt died beloved and famous and was buried in Westminster Abbey.


I don't think this is entirely right. He was a very successful composer of opera, composing 40 operas over a period of 20 years. His adoption of the oratorio was motivated by a general decline in the popularity of Italian opera in London along with the rising popularity of oratorio sung in English. He wrote music in the genre which was most in demand at any given time.


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## Hermastersvoice (Oct 15, 2018)

I find it heavy-handed and disrespectful to describe the music-making of some of the foremost and most considerate musicians of this century “frivolous”. I don’t know why I bother writing this though.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

larold said:


> And then his music was frivolously played until some performers in the 1950s decided to look into appropriate Baroque practices. Today everyone knows him and abject attention is given to the style and substance of his music.


When I listen to Bach recordings from the 30s by the likes of the Busch Chamber Players, Casals, Cortot, Menuhin, Enescu, Edwin Fischer, Landowska...frivolous is not the adjective that comes to mind.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Bulldog said:


> Yes, and I'd put Stokowski at the front of the list.


Then you have no idea what is the whole point of music.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Baron Scarpia said:


> I don't think this is entirely right. He was a very successful composer of opera, composing 40 operas over a period of 20 years. His adoption of the oratorio was motivated by a general decline in the popularity of Italian opera in London along with the rising popularity of oratorio sung in English. He wrote music in the genre which was most in demand at any given time.


Yes this is correct. He was extremely popular as an operatic composer at one time before fashions changed.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

larold said:


> And then his music was *frivolously played* until some performers in the 1950s decided to look into appropriate Baroque practices. Today everyone knows him and abject attention is given to the style and substance of his music.
> 
> Bach was a great intellectual when such a concept wasn't known. It is speculated he wrote his Art of the Fugue and *Musical Offering for his own mental engagement*, never considering it would be played by anyone for pleasure or performance. He gave his second wife, Anna Magdalena, a gift called the Musical Notebook never thinking anyone else would ever play or sing it (Anna was a soprano.) He wrote the famous Brandenburg concertos for the Margrave of Brandenburg-Wendt, not for any personal glory. He gave the margrave the original scores.
> 
> .


This is not correct s far as The Musical Offering is concerned. 'The collection has its roots in a meeting between Bach and Frederick II on May 7, 1747. The meeting, taking place at the King's residence in Potsdam, came about because Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel was employed there as court musician. Frederick wanted to show the elder Bach a novelty, the fortepiano, which had been invented some years earlier. The King owned several of the experimental instruments being developed by Gottfried Silbermann.[2] During his anticipated visit to Frederick's palace in Potsdam, Bach, who was well known for his skill at improvising, received from Frederick a long and complex musical theme on which to improvise a three-voice fugue. He did so, but Frederick then challenged him to improvise a six-voice fugue on the same theme. Bach answered that he would need to work the score and send it to the King afterwards. He then returned to Leipzig to write out the Thema Regium ("theme of the king") Two months after the meeting, Bach published a set of pieces based on this theme which we now know as The Musical Offering. Bach inscribed the piece "Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta" (the theme given by the king, with additions, resolved in the canonic style), the first letters of which spell out the word ricercar, a well-known genre of the time.' (Wiki)

I think to use the word 'frivolous' concerning past performances of Bach strikes me as a bit arrogant. Mendelssohn's resurrection of the St Matthew? Or Klemperer's St Matthew? Frivolous is not the word I would use. Just to say that performing styles have changed to be more in line with what Bach intended


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> Then you have no idea what is the whole point of music.


Yes, I don't have a clue. Could you teach me? :lol:

Being serious, I find Stokie's Bach arrangements to sound horrible. That's my opinion, and it's just as valid as whatever opinion you might hold.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Bulldog said:


> Yes, I don't have a clue. Could you teach me? :lol:
> 
> Being serious, I find Stokie's Bach arrangements to sound horrible. That's my opinion, and it's just as valid as whatever opinion you might hold.


The point of music and art is to be touched by what is performed, not to engage in judgments over "correctness." Correctness discussions belong in science and mathematics, where there are objective answers. The whole point of art is subjective enjoyment.

You don't have to like an interpretation. But "frivolous" insinuates one does not even care for the music he is performing. The case was anything but with the performers who pioneered Bach recordings and to whom much gratitude is owed for his current popularity.

The snootiness with which many period practice adherents promote their cause strikes me as antithetical to the point of art. I am reminded of the story of Brahms approaching a conductor who had just performed his first symphony. The composer remarked, "I never thought of it going that way, but I liked it!"

THAT is the point of art.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> The point of music and art is to be touched by what is performed, not to engage in judgments over "correctness." Correctness discussions belong in science and mathematics, where there are objective answers. The whole point of art is subjective enjoyment.


I agree. As I said earlier, Stokie's Bach arrangements sound horrible to my ears; that he doesn't adhere to baroque style is neither here nor there. FWIW, I enjoy Bach solo keyboard on piano and have much affection for Klemperer's Bach.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bulldog said:


> I agree. As I said earlier, Stokie's Bach arrangements sound horrible to my ears; that he doesn't adhere to baroque style is neither here nor there. FWIW, I enjoy Bach solo keyboard on piano and have much affection for Klemperer's Bach.


I once spent a bit of time exploring Stokowski's chaconne, someone put me on to this one which I thought was the best of them, from 1934 - I've not checked the transfer on this youtube.






I vaguely remember finding a very early Brandenburg 5 with Klemperer and a harpsichord - it's as if Klemperer was really adventurous and forward thinking when he was young.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> The point of music and art is to be touched by what is performed, not to engage in judgments over "correctness." Correctness discussions belong in science and mathematics, where there are objective answers. The whole point of art is subjective enjoyment.
> 
> You don't have to like an interpretation. But "frivolous" insinuates one does not even care for the music he is performing. The case was anything but with the performers who pioneered Bach recordings and to whom much gratitude is owed for his current popularity.
> 
> ...


The word I'd have used for Mengelberg, Furtwangler, Stokowski, Landowska and that sort of musician isn't "frivolous" but "casual". They did what they felt sounded right, without caring about what the composer had in mind for an interpretation.


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## Guest (Nov 20, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> The word I'd have used for Mengelberg, Furtwangler, Stokowski, Landowska and that sort of musician isn't "frivolous" but "casual". They did what they felt sounded right, without caring about what the composer had in mind for an interpretation.


I would not say casual, but self-absorbed.

I don't think "authenticity" has any value except that the pursuit of authenticity can lead a performer to a different way of performing a work. The ultimate criteria is whether the performance is musically successful. There can be successful performances which the composer did not foresee or perhaps would not approve of.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Baron Scarpia said:


> I would not say casual, but self-absorbed.
> 
> I don't think "authenticity" has any value except that the pursuit of authenticity can lead a performer to a different way of performing a work. The ultimate criteria is whether the performance is musically successful. There can be successful performances which the composer did not foresee or perhaps would not approve of.


Part of the way I'm starting to think is this: that a musical performance is like an experiment, you try to see what happens if you do certain things. HIP has proved to be a good source of new experiments, like OVPP for example. Generally I've found that with great composers (who knew what they were doing, whose intentions are worth taking into account) the HIP approach is the most productive for me

I'm listening to that Stokowski chaconne as I type, it is absolutely dreadful!!!!! How anyone can think that's a good way to make music beats me. It's a failed experiment.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I never did like that old way of playing baroque, even before the HIP people came along. Now I think some of them have gone too far, but I agree that if you're worth your salt as a performer, you shouldn't be imitating someone else, therefore, you experiment.

Some of the earlier HIP recordings are getting stale now too.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> The word I'd have used for Mengelberg, Furtwangler, Stokowski, Landowska and that sort of musician isn't "frivolous" but "casual". They did what they felt sounded right, without caring about what the composer had in mind for an interpretation.


And you could likewise argue that the pedantic, historically-informed performer is "casual" about whether the music sounds right or communicates what it is intended to communicate. In this way the "informed" performer does a far greater disservice to Bach than Mengelberg, Furtwangler, et al.

It is the age old question, what would a long dead composer prefer? That we search deep within our souls to communicate his music as authentically and personally as we can, or that we act like trained, thoughtless monkeys simply regurgitating his instructions?

The idea that only the latter truly "cares" about the music makes my blood boil. In fact it is the very reason I was inspired to go to music school and become a professional myself.

I see my job as a performer as being to communicate to the audience why the music moves me, so it is deeply personal. If I impersonally relay instructions "authentically," I am merely acting like a "don't shoot the messenger" type of conduit. How does that show respect to the composer? Personalizing the music is the ultimate form of respect from a performer.


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## Guest (Nov 20, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Part of the way I'm starting to think is this: that a musical performance is like an experiment, you try to see what happens if you do certain things. HIP has proved to be a good source of new experiments, like OVPP for example. Generally I've found that with great composers (who knew what they were doing, whose intentions are worth taking into account) the HIP approach is the most productive for me
> 
> I'm listening to that Stokowski chaconne as I type, it is absolutely dreadful!!!!! How anyone can think that's a good way to make music beats me. It's a failed experiment.


More or less in full agreement, although after swinging far to the HIP side, I now find myself enjoying some historically uninformed performances, which can likewise bring out a different side of the music. Karajan's early 60's Brandenburg set contains some beautiful string playing, and perhaps puts Brahms' debt to Bach into relief. And to be honest, if I had no choice but harpsichord, I'd probably never listen to pre-Mozart keyboard music at all.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

larold said:


> Even though he was a fecund composer, could play all the instruments, sing all the parts, had a volatile temper, spent a night in jail over a musical disagreement, wore out two wives, bred 20-plus children -- two that went on to become masters, one of which received credit for "inventing" the symphony --* authored equal temperament* and perfected the fugue, wrote some of the greatest concertos, solo keyboard music and sacred music in history, he was considered a kapellmeister in his time, a church organist, choir director and teacher.


It should be noted though that J.S. Bach did not invent equal temperament. What he did was to create the first set of pieces for keyboard using all twenty four key possibilites of equal temperament (the first book of the Well Tempered Clavier, finished in 1722) and, by doing so, influentiate many subsequent composers that adopted it. It's interesting to note that other composers of his time had already done works using equal temperament, for example Fischer's _Ariadne musica neo-organoedum_, from 1715, that seems to have been an important influence on Bach's WTC.



larold said:


> Bach was a great intellectual when such a concept wasn't known. *It is speculated he wrote his Art of the Fugue and Musical Offering for his own mental engagement*, never considering it would be played by anyone for pleasure or performance. He gave his second wife, Anna Magdalena, a gift called the Musical Notebook never thinking anyone else would ever play or sing it (Anna was a soprano.) *He wrote the famous Brandenburg concertos for the Margrave of Brandenburg-Wendt, not for any personal glory*. He gave the margrave the original scores.


The Brandenburg concertos seem to have been comissioned by Christian Ludwig, the brother of King Frederick I of Prussia and Margrave of Brandemburg, and Bach may have expected to have not only payment but also influence with the King by making them (the Margrave seems to have not paid Bach however, for unknown reasons). And the Musical Offering probably was made as an answer for the King Frederick II himself after he asked Bach to improvise a six-voice fugue on a theme that he chose, what Bach refused to do, probably due to the amazing difficulty of the task.



larold said:


> *Even though he spent his life in the musical capitol of Italy, Vivaldi wasn't particularly well known in his day.* Today, almost nothing is known of his life. In part this was because he spent his days in a school for wayward girls teaching them music and how to play his compositions. The author of the Four Seasons, Gloria and hundreds of other great works never rose to much fame. He also composed for country musicians; his famous "Alla Rustica" concerto was written for traveling country (or as the name implies, rustic) musicians.


Vivaldi was so famous in his day that his music reached other countries, including France and today's Germany (Bach for example had access to Vivaldi's concertos and did transcriptions of them). Not only Vivaldi was a successful _impresario_ of opera, but also had connections with the nobility and even played for princes, emperors, kings and the pope himself. It seems that his music became out of fashion after his death though, and he died impoverished after a very unfortunate travel to Viena.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> Well, I don't think he was ever thought of as just a guy holding down a job. He was too prolific a composer even in his day and met just about every possible musical challenge that ever came his way, such as writing an enormous number of weekly cantatas and countless other works of super high-quality, full of harmonic inventiveness and genius... He was also a great teacher whose teachings were kept alive by some of his children, such as his teachings on counterpoint and The Art of the Fugue. After he died, he was mostly forgotten by the public because there was the change from the Baroque era to the Classical era and he was no longer considered fashionable. *But he was never entirely forgotten as a great master by some of the great composers of the day who came after him, and that includes Mozart (who was studying him only about 30 years after Bach's death, not 200), Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Brahms, all of whom studied and venerated him, keeping his legacy alive.* That's a far cry from being just a regular working-stiff guy... Naturally, he is one of my favorites and I feel that he can be musically rewarding to just about anyone with a life that's very much worth exploring.


I will include Beethoven here. Not only he was introduced to Bach's music at an early age by Neefe, his first teacher, being able to play the WTC at 13, but he seems to have venerated the man and his music, calling Bach "the immortal god of harmony" and saying that "he (Bach) should be called sea, not brook("Bach" in german), because of the never-ending richness of his harmonies." He also did a close study of Bach's pieces (and Händel's) when composing the Missa Solemnis.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Allerius said:


> I will include Beethoven here. Not only he was introduced to Bach's music at an early age by Neefe, his first teacher, being able to play the WTC at 13, but he seems to have venerated the man and his music, calling Bach "the immortal god of harmony" and saying that "he (Bach) should be called sea, not brook("Bach" in german), because of the never-ending richness of his harmonies." He did a close study of Bach's pieces (and Händel's) when composing the Missa Solemnis, and when discovered that one of Bach's daughters was impoverished, Beethoven not only may have given her a large sum of money but also may have made sure that she had an income until the end of her life. This story may not be true though.
> 
> _Johann Sebastian Bach's second wife, Anna Magdalena, a gifted singer who shared his work and who bore him 13 children, died in great poverty 10 years after Bach's passing.
> 
> ...


Bravo! Well said. Beethoven yes, of course.

I was surprised to know that Anna Magdalena died in great poverty. Where the hell were Bach's two sons: Carl Phillipp Emanuel and Johann Christian Bach, both of whom had influential careers? Sorry to hear about Anna's unhappy end after all those years with Mr. Procreator. Evidently, Bach's church wasn't of much help either after all his years of dedicated service, nor the rest of her progeny.

Oh:



> After Bach's death in 1750, his sons came into conflict and moved on in separate directions, going to live with other family members. While Bach did everything to educate his sons, his daughters never went to school. Anna Magdalena was left alone, with no financial support from family members, to care for herself and her two youngest daughters, plus her stepdaughter from Bach's first marriage. Anna Magdalena became increasingly dependent upon charity and handouts from the city council, ultimately relying on public begging to survive. Probably her only child or stepchild who provided any support to her was her stepson Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, whose letters show he provided regular financial assistance. She died on the street on February 27, 1760, with no money at all, and was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave at Leipzig's Johanniskirche [de] (St. John's Church). [unquote]
> 
> _Terrible!_ And what better example why women should be provided with an ongoing education just like the men. It might have been different for her and her remaining children. _Died on the street!_


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> Bravo. Well said.


Thanks, but I think that the story that I included about Beethoven and Bach's daughter was not completely true at all. I removed it from my original post.

See what has been said about it on the comment section of the link provided:

_Tommie Haglund made an important correction to this story on Norman's Facebook page, which I would like to acknowledge here. In my original Facebook post, which Norman was so kind as to wish to repost on Slipped Disc, I made the mistake of trusting a single source, in this case an older account that I first encountered many years ago, a bit of which you can see above. This is something that I always caution my students not to do - the temptation to tell a good story and to make heroes of their subjects was something that even quite well-respected writers of earlier times found hard to resist. Consequently turns out that things that "everyone knows" are often simply things that everyone wishes were true.

In this case, the truth is every bit as interesting as the fiction: the appeal for funds was real, as was Regina Susanne's (and Anna Magdalena's) poverty. Beethoven was moved by Regina's plight, and also scandalized by the meagre German response to the appeal. As Mr. Haglund points out, Beethoven suggested to his publisher that he should compose a piece, the proceeds of which would go to Regina Bach (with a typical attempt at humor, he asked that it be done soon, before the Bach - ie "Brook" - dried up). Nevertheless, he apparently never followed through on his good intentions: an all-too-human foible.

Older writers, such as Albert Schweitzer, claimed: "Als einer der ersten… sandte Beethoven seine Gabe ein" ("As one of the first… Beethoven sent in his gift"), and the source I relied on claimed that Beethoven had sent 307 Gulden, receiving the quoted thank you letter in reply. In fact, the 307 Gulden represented the total amount collected from multiple donors in Vienna, and the thank-you was written to Rochlitz, the originator of the appeal.

Object lessons all around - and a good story to the bargain. History is endlessly fascinating, and truth is invariably more interesting (and often stranger) than fiction. - RWE_

I verified the story in a book on Beethoven that I have (Thayer's) and it seems clear to me by this source that the composer had the intention of publishing a work to help Regina Susanne, but that it's unknown if he actually did that. He said in a letter to his publisher that he would, and I take myself the liberty to believe that he must have done.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> I was surprised to know that Anna Magdalena died in great poverty. Where the hell were Bach's two sons: Carl Phillipp Emanuel and Johann Christian Bach, both of whom had influential careers? Sorry to hear about Anna's unhappy end after all those years with Mr. Procreator. Evidently, Bach's church wasn't of much help either after all his years of dedicated service, nor the rest of her progeny.
> 
> Oh:
> 
> ...


Yes, I agree. It's awfully sad that the wife and daughters of the man who may be the greatest composer in history had such a tragic end.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Allerius said:


> ...I verified the story in a book on Beethoven that I have (Thayer's) and it seems clear to me by this source that the composer had the intention of publishing a work to help Regina Susanne, but that it's unknown if he actually did that. He said in a letter to his publisher that he would, and I take myself the liberty to believe that he must have done.


Another example of Beethoven's sometime generosity: His hated nemesis, the "Queen of the Night" Johanna van Beethoven, fell deeply into poverty by 1824*. He agreed to return to her the half of her widow's pension that had been assigned to him for Karl's education. That meant, of course, that he now had to pay those costs out of his own pocket.

*Her economic situation was aggravated by the birth of an illegitimate child in 1820, the same year that she permanently lost custody of Karl to Ludwig. But she outlived everybody, even her son Karl, dying in 1869.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Another example of Beethoven's sometime generosity: His hated nemesis, the "Queen of the Night" Johanna van Beethoven, fell deeply into poverty by 1824*. He agreed to return to her the half of her widow's pension that had been assigned to him for Karl's education. That meant, of course, that he now had to pay those costs out of his own pocket.
> 
> *Her economic situation was aggravated by the birth of an illegitimate child in 1820, the same year that she permanently lost custody of Karl to Ludwig. But she outlived everybody, even her son Karl, dying in 1869.


This is very interesting in my opinion.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bulldog said:


> I agree. As I said earlier, Stokie's Bach arrangements sound horrible to my ears; that he doesn't adhere to baroque style is neither here nor there. *FWIW, I enjoy Bach solo keyboard on piano and have much affection for Klemperer's Bach*.


I just can't see how you manage to denigrate Stoki's Bach and admire Klemperer's leaden tempi


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> And you could likewise argue that the pedantic, historically-informed performer is "casual" about whether the music sounds right or communicates what it is intended to communicate. In this way the "informed" performer does a far greater disservice to Bach than Mengelberg, Furtwangler, et al.
> 
> It is the age old question, what would a long dead composer prefer? That we search deep within our souls to communicate his music as authentically and personally as we can, or that we act like trained, thoughtless monkeys simply regurgitating his instructions?
> 
> ...


Bruggen once disrupted Haitink's Amsterdam performances of Mozart, saying they were a lie. They were not telling the truth about Mozart's music because the approach was inconsistent with what we know about the composer's intentions. He was right, and for him this conception of truth in music really mattered.

Others don't care about Bruggen's conception of musical truth, they just want a performance which moves you, they don't mind if it's a travesty of the composer's conception, like Mengelberg's Matthew Passion.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Allerius said:


> It should be noted though that J.S. Bach did not invent equal temperament. What he did was to create the first set of pieces for keyboard using all twenty four key possibilites of equal temperament (the first book of the Well Tempered Clavier, finished in 1722) and, by doing so, influentiate many subsequent composers that adopted it.


I think JSB would have been shocked and surprised to see the concert I attended notes long back to hear Angela Hewitt play book 2 of WTC. He might have scratched his head in disbelief that we were listening to a whole evening of these pieces at once


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Bruggen once disrupted Haitink's Amsterdam performances of Mozart, saying they were a lie. They were not telling the truth about Mozart's music because the approach was inconsistent with what we know about the composer's intentions. He was right, and for him this conception of truth in music really mattered.
> 
> You don't care about Bruggen's conception of musical truth, you just want a performance which moves you, you don't mind if it's a travesty of the composer's conception, like Mengelberg's Matthew Passion.


I think we must remember that composers such as Back, Handel, etc had no concept of HIP. In fact, Handel would adapt his music to whatever he had available and so (to a lesser extent) did Bach. Why Gardiner argues that so-called 'authenticity' with such composers is unachievable. I believe great music can be played different ways and so I have in my library recordings of St Matthew Passion conducted by Richter, Karajan, Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Jacobs and Herreweghe.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DavidA said:


> I think we must remember that composers such as Back, Handel, etc had no concept of HIP.


Maybe, I've heard this argument before.

One thing I will say is that amongst early music performers there has been a strong interest in HIP for a very long time. People in the C 14 and before justified their performance choices with reference to precedents, traditions etc. I came across precisely this the other day in a discussion about _musica ficta_, where someone berated someone else for embellishing the music with accidentals, and the monks responded that the greatest singers have always done it like that. Similarly the whole Solesmes project with Gregorian music is rooted in HIP ideas about reconstructing the meanings of the neums.

So if what you say is true of 18th century composers, it's by no means the norm in music and the 18th century may be a blip.



DavidA said:


> In fact, Handel would adapt his music to whatever he had available and so (to a lesser extent) did Bach.


The key is of course, in the word "adaption", so where a piece has not been adapted it's not obvious how to make it work in new resources. For example, it's not at all clear how to play the toccata for the 6th partita or The Goldberg Variations on an organ or clavichord without fundamentally altering the music. I don't know enough about Handel to comment with any confidence.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

DavidA said:


> I just can't see how you manage to denigrate Stoki's Bach and admire Klemperer's leaden tempi


First, I never said a word about Klemperer's tempos. Second, Stokowski made arrangements.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bulldog said:


> First, I never said a word about Klemperer's tempos. Second, Stokowski made arrangements.


I think you will find that Klemperer's is an 'arrangement' too compared with what Bach himself used

In any case Stoki's arrangements were made at a time to introduce Bach when not many concert goers would hear him. You don't have to take them too seriously - I'm sure Stoki didn't!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Maybe, I've heard this argument before.
> 
> One thing I will say is that amongst early music performers there has been a strong interest in HIP for a very long time. People in the C 14 and before justified their performance choices with reference to precedents, traditions etc. I came across precisely this the other day in a discussion about _musica ficta_, where someone berated someone else for embellishing the music with accidentals, and the monks responded that the greatest singers have always done it like that. Similarly the whole Solesmes project with Gregorian music is rooted in HIP ideas about reconstructing the meanings of the neums.
> 
> ...


We do know Handel conducted Messiah with a large chorus and made umpteen different arrangements according to what was available. He'd have scratched his head in amazement at the modern concept of HIP 'purity'. In any case there is a whole load of disagreement in the HIP camp as to what HIP really is. Is it one to a part as Rifkin insisted was Bach' practice? I was delighted to hear a performance of St Matthew Passion the other day which didn't hesitate to arrange the music dramatically. I was talking to the couple next to me who agreed it was absolutely refreshing to hear people so committed to the drama 'after all the po-faced performances we hear' said the lady concerned.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

DavidA said:


> In any case Stoki's arrangements were made at a time to introduce Bach when not many concert goers would hear him. You don't have to take them too seriously - I'm sure Stoki didn't!


I'd rather not take them at all.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bulldog said:


> I'd rather not take them at all.


That's fine. Let others who can enjoy them!


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Just to say that performing styles have changed to be more in line with what Bach intended_

Bach was highly experimental and open to change. He copied his own and Vivaldi's concertos onto other instruments and reused his own music endlessly. He would have been happy to hear his music played on the Moog synthesizer.

However, I wonder if he'd have been happy to hear it played with heavily Romanticized alterations in pacing and volume, agogic accents, leaning notes and long ritards the way pianists like Cortot, Serkin and others played his solo keyboard music, the fifth Brandenburg and his keyboard concertos in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I know no one today would accept this as appropriate Bach playing.

Yet for more than a century this was common practice before the first authenticity period arrived after World War II and people like Wanda Landowska began trying to authenticate both the instruments and styles used in J.S. Bach's music.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Bruggen once disrupted Haitink's Amsterdam performances of Mozart, saying they were a lie. They were not telling the truth about Mozart's music because the approach was inconsistent with what we know about the composer's intentions. He was right, and for him this conception of truth in music really mattered.
> 
> Others don't care about Bruggen's conception of musical truth, they just want a performance which moves you, they don't mind if it's a travesty of the composer's conception, like Mengelberg's Matthew Passion.


I consider Mengelberg's St Matthew Passion to be the most beautiful, moving ever recorded. How do you know Bach would not have agreed? You don't think his intention was to move people? Again, I think this is an example of not understanding the point of art and music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> I consider Mengelberg's St Matthew Passion to be the most beautiful, moving ever recorded. How do you know Bach would not have agreed?


He may have agreed, but it's not the point. The point is it's not what he composed, and I think Bruggen et. al. would have said it's a travesty, a beautiful and moving travesty.

It's stupid to try and guess what Bach would have said about the performance -- you need a ouija board for that! Things have got to a very low point if people are saying in all seriousness "Bach would have liked it."

You think the point is music making is to move people; Bruggen thinks the point of performance is to find a way of playing the composition which moves people; Mengelberg thinks that you can do whatever you want -- look at the music, have a drink, see what pops into your head -- as long as it moves the audience. I, as a matter of contingent fact, find I get a more enduring reward from performances by people with the Bruggen ideology -- Mengelberg no longer excites me -- apart from Karl Erb's voice.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

larold said:


> _
> 
> Yet for more than a century this was common practice before the first authenticity period arrived after World War II and people like Wanda Landowska began trying to authenticate both the instruments and styles used in J.S. Bach's music._


_

Is this true about Landowska? I always thought that stylistically she was no more interested in playing in an informed way than Mengelberg. And as far as instrument, she never played a harpsichord, though I bet she could have. Instead she chose a gimmick, a Pleyel plucking piano, or a modern piano for Mozart and Haydn.

Re post WW2, I want to mention that I find her recordings from after the war inferior to the earlier ones. Some of the ones made in her home are close to unlistenable for me, the style is so self indulgent._


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> He may have agreed, but it's not the point. The point is it's not what he composed, and I think Bruggen et. al. would have said it's a travesty, a beautiful and moving travesty.


What do you mean it's not what he composed? What is it, then, Gluck?

I am glad you pointed out the stupidity of trying to guess what Bach would have liked. The point is to perform good music, period. The point is NOT about acting like some sort of authenticity police to appease some long dead god.

You don't like Mengelberg's Bach. Great. At least you state that as an opinion not a fact. I love Mengelberg's SMP. I believe it is one of the 10 greatest recordings of all time. The "er barme dich" gets me every time, just like it is SUPPOSED to do!

I have only sampled Bruggen, but I find his interpretations to be dull and lifeless. You try to tell me he is advancing some sort of noble purpose, and I tell you he is doing the opposite. He is making the music he performs irrelevant.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> What do you mean it's not what he composed? What is it, then, Gluck?
> 
> I am glad you pointed out the stupidity of trying to guess what Bach would have liked. The point is to perform good music, period. The point is NOT about acting like some sort of authenticity police to appease some long dead god.
> 
> ...


Well I did say I like Karl Erb's style!

You know, talking about what you like, what moves you, what doesn't is a complete waste of energy. What one person likes another loathes. It's like sexual attraction.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Well I did say I like Karl Erb's style!
> 
> You know, talking about what you like, what moves you, what doesn't is a complete waste of energy. What one person likes another loathes. It's like sexual attraction.


Right, that's why there are just as many Bach fans as Dittersdorf fans. It is all meaningless.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I like Bruggen almost always and I've heard Mengelberg I like but I think the point of the comment that Mengelberg's performance is not what Bach composed relates to the cuts and additions he makes. Mengelberg came from a time when conductors felt they could do anything they wanted to music, a time a century before the current authenticist movement that believes the fidelity of a score is set in stone and cannot be altered. 

Even Bernstein's St. Matthew Passion is full of cuts and it was recorded in the 1960s; he and Stokowski were two of the last hangers-on to the old way where a conductor could alter the music as s/he wished. Certainly Bernstein didn't do it as often as Stoki…

A lot of people thought we were done with that when Stokowski died but a lot of today's authenticists seem to believe they can play anything they want in any reduction -- one instrument or voice to a part -- citing historical ideas that it was done this way in the past.

I sang the St. Matthew Passion this century under a director that cut it by at least one-third and converted the evangelist role to a speaker using a microphone!

One thing about Bach's music -- it is so fabulous it can withstand any type of performance and still be masterful.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> Right, that's why there are just as many Bach fans as Dittersdorf fans. It is all meaningless.


What are you trying to say?


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> What are you trying to say?


I believe there is a point to art. There is good art and bad art. And the job of the performer is to make it good, not to mindlessly regurgitate it like an exercise.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> I believe there is a point to art. There is good art and bad art. And the job of the performer is to make it good, not to mindlessly regurgitate it like an exercise.


And I suppose given this comment of yours



Brahmsianhorn said:


> The point of music and art is to be touched by what is performed,.


you think it's good in so far as it touches . . . _you_? The job of the performer is to touch you, he's failed if you're unmoved?


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> And I suppose given this comment of yours
> 
> you think it's good in so far as it touches . . . _you_? The job of the performer is to touch you, he's failed if you're unmoved?


Obviously the more people that are moved the better, but at least we are coming around to acknowledging the true point of art as opposed to the pedantic goal of "authenticity."


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Audience appreciation. Any performance can be looked at from the performer’s point of view or the audience’s point of view. It’s not that hard. It’s possible that the performer has failed to communicate with the audience; it’s also possible that the performer has made every effort to communicate and the audience just doesn’t get it. There’s no set rule and sometimes it’s impossible to tell which is which. But to qualify everything to death really gets tedious and can interfere with anyone having a direct experience of a performance.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> Obviously the more people that are moved the better,


Good if generally people like you are moved?


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Good if generally people like you are moved?


I have no idea what that even means. I will say this: I think treating classical music like an academic exercise deters audience interest.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> I have no idea what that even means. I will say this: I think treating classical music like an academic exercise deters audience interest.


The academic exercise talk of yours is getting rather old. What you seem to fail to realize is that many baroque music enthusiasts find that the quest for authenticity greatly increases their enjoyment of baroque music. That it doesn't increase your enjoyment is irrelevant.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> I have no idea what that even means. I will say this: I think treating classical music like an academic exercise deters audience interest.


Strange. When I have friends over to listen to music, I always administer pop quizzes. Lately they seem increasingly busy with other things, not sure why.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> Obviously the more people that are moved the better...the true point of art as opposed to the pedantic goal of "authenticity."


I'm in complete agreement with this statement. But I also think it's legitimate to ask how much performance practice should be dictated by current ideas of what is "moving." Performances are given for audiences, but art has its own prerogatives, and audiences must eventually respect them, adjusting their expectations and, ultimately, their tastes. There's no question that the evolution of art leaves many beautiful things behind. Fortunately, we have recordings to keep alive the performances of treasured artists of the past. What we don't have, unfortunately, is recordings of Bach performing his own work. It is a virtual certainty that Bach would have found Mengelberg's _St.Matthew_ in some ways surprising, but we can't be certain which elements he would have considered to be interesting and legitimate interpretive insights into his written music. Scholarly investigation of historical documents can tell us a good deal about general performance practice, but it discerns poorly the diversity of practice which must have existed then as in every era. The inspiration of the performer was an intrinsic and important factor in performance in 18th-century music, and we can be sure that it was a matter of more than the conventional application of ornaments.

Historically informed performances have brought invigorating freshness to a lot of music for a great number of us, myself included, and has made some music sound to our ears more like itself and less like an odd variant on more historically recent styles. But it has also brought orthodoxies which often seem to hamstring the expressive impulses of musicians who ought to engage spontaneously with the music but feel they need to translate it into an acquired and approved dialect before they dare utter it. Music can't be a living art if artists can't express themselves with the conviction that comes with spontaneous feeling. But is it better not to perform a work at all if we aren't comfortable doing it "the way they did it then," to the extent that we can determine that? Is "authenticity" a moral obligation, despite the very real limitations on our ability to achieve it? It seems not only possible but likely that some of what now passes for authenticity is as much an expression of our own tastes as of the sensibilities of the period we imagine we're representing.

In the end, I come down on the side of whoever makes music communicate most powerfully. If that can be done in a variety of dissimilar ways, we are only the richer for it, and arguments about authenticity, pro and con, look pretty pointless. Nobody is going to tell me that Wilhelm Furtwangler's performances of Beethoven are inferior to Roger Norrington's, and somehow unacceptable and "wrong."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> I think treating classical music like an academic exercise deters audience interest.


No, you're wrong, for example Furtwangler didn't deter audience interest, he based his performances on Schenkerian analysis.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> But it has also brought orthodoxies which often seem to hamstring the expressive impulses of musicians who ought to engage spontaneously with the music but feel they need to translate it into an acquired and approved dialect before they dare utter it. Music can't be a living art if artists can't express themselves with the conviction that comes with spontaneous feeling. But is it better not to perform a work at all if we aren't comfortable doing it "the way they did it then," to the extent that we can determine that? Is "authenticity" a moral obligation, despite the very real limitations on our ability to achieve it? It seems not only possible but likely that some of what now passes for authenticity is as much an expression of our own tastes as of the sensibilities of the period we imagine we're representing.


On the one hand you want to say that HIP is a dogma that sometimes limits inspiration. On the other hand you want to say that HIP is really an expression of « our own » (whose?) sensibilites.

I think that there is a musical establishment which acts to check unbridled inspiration. HIP ideas are probably part of the establishment's values. It may be invitable that this sort of establishment exists.

Occasionally a Walther comes along and sings a new sort of preislied which people like. Beckmesser is pensioned off, Walther himself becomes part of the jury, the rules for maesteringers are modified and so on ad infinitum!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> On the one hand you want to say that HIP is a dogma that sometimes limits inspiration. On the other hand you want to say that HIP is really an expression of « our own » (whose?) sensibilites.


We have two hands. The right doesn't always know what the left is doing.

Hey, it's your metaphor. 

But seriously - yes, HIP can become a dogma and it can neutralize natural musicality. We've all heard it happen. But that's because the musicians in question are NOT playing or singing the way people played and sang in 1695, but rather in some way, learned from books, that people probably never played and sang. We actually don't know just how they played and sang, and so our attempt to approximate the way they played and sang will be determined by our own preferences, and it will express our own sensibilities, not those of people of a time and place long gone. It's better to accept who we are and not play make believe in our music-making. If a crescendo or a ritardando feels expressive and right to us, we should make one and not fret about terraced dynamics or some other "authentic" practice we're told we must follow, else we're in danger of ending up with something that's neither fish nor fowl and is rigid, insipid or boring.

Kapeesh?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> We have two hands. The right doesn't always know what the left is doing.
> 
> Hey, it's your metaphor.
> 
> ...


I'll tell you something that may or may not be relevant here which really effected me. It was when Wolfgang Rubsam here on this website made a post to say that he knows when he's playing something wrong because, and this is from memory, the instrument growls at him!

I suddenly saw how important the instrument is, that original instruments are maybe the most exciting aspect of experimental music making in old classical music, that a sensitive musician will listen to what his instrument is telling him, rather than try to force it into doing things which it's not really made to do.

This feedback loop, from instrument and composition to interpretation, constrains the performer's will.


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

sexton1022 said:


> Hello all. …. Why wouldn't it be apparent while he lived? …


You probably feel you got much more than you expected! :lol: Here's a couple more cents: Bach was a bit of a hothead, anti-authority and nobody likes a disgruntled employee. One time he took off and walked 20 miles to another town to listen to a concert, without getting permission from his employer. Also, his music was ahead of its time, think Vincent van Gogh.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> I'll tell you something that may or may not be relevant here which really effected me. It was when Wolfgang Rubsam here on this website made a post to say that he knows when he's playing something wrong because, and this is from memory, the instrument growls at him!
> 
> I suddenly saw how important the instrument is, that original instruments are maybe the most exciting aspect of experimental music making in old classical music, that a sensitive musician will listen to what his instrument is telling him, rather than try to force it into doing things which it's not really made to do.
> 
> This feedback loop, from instrument and composition to interpretation, constrains the performer's will.


I like that. As a pianist who made his living going from ballet school to ballet school, improvising dance music on dozens of different pianos superb, good, bad, and awful (this was before the CD drove my occupation to near-extinction), I know how powerfully one's instrument can affect one's music-making.

To the extent that we can understand style in music as a function of the characteristics of our instruments, we can have some knowledge of what's sensible and effective and what isn't. But there are still an infinite number of ways to articulate music on any instrument, especially an instrument as sensitive as a violin or a piano, and it's a safe bet that if we could travel back in time to 1700 we'd be surprised at the sheer variety of performance practice from place to place and musician to musician. We might even hear performers deliberately trying to transcend the limitations of the instruments available to them; the limitations were real, and I can only imagine the joy keyboard players felt when the newly invented fortepiano allowed them a control of dynamics such as string players and singers had always taken for granted. That's one reason why I'm an advocate of considerable interpretive freedom in the performance of any music of which we have no sound recordings from the era of its creation.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I like that. As a pianist who made his living going from ballet school to ballet school, improvising dance music on dozens of different pianos superb, good, bad, and awful (this was before the CD drove my occupation to near-extinction), I know how powerfully one's instrument can affect one's music-making.
> 
> To the extent that we can understand style in music as a function of the characteristics of our instruments, we can have some knowledge of what's sensible and effective and what isn't. But there are still an infinite number of ways to articulate music on any instrument, especially an instrument as sensitive as a violin or a piano, and it's a safe bet that if we could travel back in time to 1700 we'd be surprised at the sheer variety of performance practice from place to place and musician to musician. We might even hear performers deliberately trying to transcend the limitations of the instruments available to them; the limitations were real, and I can only imagine the joy keyboard players felt when the newly invented fortepiano allowed them a control of dynamics such as string players and singers had always taken for granted. That's one reason why I'm an advocate of considerable interpretive freedom in the performance of any music of which we have no sound recordings from the era of its creation.


Yes, well a fortepiano is just like a loud clavichord really. That's one of the reasons I'm interested in clavichord.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> No, you're wrong, for example Furtwangler didn't deter audience interest, he based his performances on Schenkerian analysis.


Furtwängler was the LAST conductor you'd find treating music like an academic exercise. The whole point of using Schenkerian analysis was to enhance the audience experience.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> Furtwängler was the LAST conductor you'd find treating music like an academic exercise. The whole point of using Schenkerian analysis was to enhance the audience experience.


I suppose they all want to enhance the listener's experience. It's just that some listeners aren't susceptible for one reason or another, like I'm not susceptible to the charms of Stokowski's chaconne.

I remember reading comments from Harnoncourt about how he wants to jolt the listener out of his complacency. And maybe Furtwangler would have said much the same.


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Bruggen once disrupted Haitink's Amsterdam performances of Mozart, saying they were a lie. They were not telling the truth about Mozart's music because the approach was inconsistent with what we know about the composer's intentions. He was right, and for him this conception of truth in music really mattered.


I had no idea Bruggen was such an ***. His Mozart is pretty boring. I guess he thinks that is what Mozart intended. :lol:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Baron Scarpia said:


> I had no idea Bruggen was such an ***. His Mozart is pretty boring. I guess he thinks that is what Mozart intended. :lol:


I was not totally accurate in fact.

The incident I was thinking of involved Peter Schat, Louis Andriessen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Misha Mengelberg and Jan van Vlijmen, it happened in 1969 and was a demonstration more about programming and funding than about performance practice. Bruggen wasn't involved.

He was very close to these five, and publicly supported their aims and methods. He added musical ideals to their more political ideology, famously saying in Telegraaf "Every note of Mozart and Beethoven that the Concertgebouw Orchestra plays is, musically speaking, a lie."

I agree with him, by the way. Travesty is the word I would have used, rather than lie.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I was not totally accurate in fact.
> 
> The incident I was thinking of involved Peter Schat, Louis Andriessen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Misha Mengelberg and Jan van Vlijmen, it happened in 1969 and was a demonstration more about programming and funding than about performance practice. Bruggen wasn't involved.
> 
> ...


Bruggen's cold, soulless, clinical interpretations are the travesty


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