# Bach was a *******



## Gondur (May 17, 2014)

That's right. He was a *******. He started a fight at any opportunity he could. He brawled with a Bassoonist and antagonized a Headmaster of a local school. He was a rude, nasty and arrogant man. A thug if he didn't get his own way. He was full of hubris and self entitlement as he thought he was God.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> He started a fight at any opportunity he could. He brawled with a Bassoonist and antagonized a Headmaster of a local school. He was a rude, nasty and arrogant man. A thug if he didn't get his own way.


You can say "*******", but I prefer to say "swashbuckler".

He won't beat Caravaggio though.


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## JCarmel (Feb 3, 2013)

I think you need to watch John Eliot Gardiner's Documentary on Bach 'A Passionate Life'...it is excellent! It humanises Bach and makes him seem even more remarkable, not just as a composer but as a human being, one who endured greatly through a testing early life & was 'a warm family man, passionate artist and rebellious spirit'


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Aramis said:


> You can say "*******", but I prefer to say "swashbuckler".
> 
> He won't beat Caravaggio though.


He was probably bullied his whole life. What do you expect? The guy wore a wig


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

You must be referring to Donald C. Bach, that investment banker.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

So what if Bach was a *******? That was also the consensus among my former students about me. Who cares?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Cool thread. I'm glad to see TC is getting back on track with high quality discussion.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

For "real" Bach-bashing, you might want to see this thread: http://www.talkclassical.com/26959-why-bach-wretched-homage.html


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Crudblud said:


> Cool thread. I'm glad to see TC is getting back on track with high quality discussion.


Yes. I go back and forth between this thread and ugly composers.

All the information a serious music lover would ever need.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Anybody with vision, talent, insight and a touch (well, considerably more than a touch) of genious is going to be percieved by those less well intellectually and aesthetically endowed as belligerent and obnoxious. It's only in the nature of things...


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Crudblud said:


> Cool thread. I'm glad to see TC is getting back on track with high quality discussion.


quality schmuality


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

The term for illegitimate offspring became asteriskated (asteriskized?)... how?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

It wasn't being used to mean 'illegitimate offspring' but as a swearword & term of abuse; I prefer the new version.

It's the usual thing about whether the life is relevant to the music. The OP on another thread claims to have listened to (quote) '99% of Bach's work'. If this is true, s/he presumably doesn't find Bach's bad temper relevant to the appreciation of his music.

But if s/he doesn't find the bad temper relevant - then why this thread?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

A lot of Bach's trouble was caused by the fact that he needed to earn as much money as poss to support his family & probably felt that he was working very hard for not much credit - that he was being exploited. And in today's terms, he was.


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## StevenOBrien (Jun 27, 2011)

Gondur said:


> That's right. He was a *******. He started a fight at any opportunity he could. He brawled with a Bassoonist and antagonized a Headmaster of a local school. He was a rude, nasty and arrogant man. A thug if he didn't get his own way. He was full of hubris and self entitlement as he thought he was God.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ingélou said:


> A lot of Bach's trouble was caused by the fact that he needed to earn as much money as poss to support his family & probably felt that he was working very hard for not much credit - that he was being exploited. And in today's terms, he was.


Bach was certainly a bit hard-pressed, with 20 children that he admitted to, of whom ten survived to adulthood. But nobody ever talks about the other 18 he *wouldn't* admit to, and his crushing child support payments...


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Sounds as if he was a martyr to his creative impulses...

(Love the handsome new avatar, btw!)


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Well, Bach was a devoutly religious Lutheran so I'm not sure you can claim that he thought he was God...

Other than that, ya, so? Everyone has their faults. It's not like YOU have to deal with his personality so why should it matter to you? All you get to do is reap the benefits of his compositional skills so why not just be grateful for that?


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## Whistler Fred (Feb 6, 2014)

For those interested in a nicely written biography I'd recommend _Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician_ by Christoph Wolff. You can learn a lot about Bach's life and personality from this book.


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## BillT (Nov 3, 2013)

JCarmel said:


> I think you need to watch John Eliot Gardiner's Documentary on Bach 'A Passionate Life'...it is excellent! It humanises Bach and makes him seem even more remarkable, not just as a composer but as a human being, one who endured greatly through a testing early life & was 'a warm family man, passionate artist and rebellious spirit'


THANK YOU for mentioning that! I knew about the book, but not about the documentary. I'll look for it!

- Bill


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Just waiting for the revisionist, Bach The ******* to come out soon.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

BillT said:


> THANK YOU for mentioning that! I knew about the book, but not about the documentary. I'll look for it!
> 
> - Bill


Just a click away 




Bach's not a ******* (his family we know in detail), he may be a dastard though. Interesting, the censor won't let you impugn his family but you can carry on impugning his moral character.

Anyway, i'm sure the basoonists among us can confirm that brawling with basoonists is only natural.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Bassoonists are such passionate, impetuous creatures, you mean?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ingélou said:


> Bassoonists are such passionate, impetuous creatures, you mean?


As I recall, the bassoonist picked the fight and then pulled a knife. Fortunately Bach, like all smart people, was packing heat. He put on his best Sean Connery voice and said, "Just like a bassoonist, bringing a knife to a gunfight."


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Gondur said:


> That's right. He was a *******. He started a fight at any opportunity he could. He brawled with a Bassoonist and antagonized a Headmaster of a local school. He was a rude, nasty and arrogant man. A thug if he didn't get his own way. He was full of hubris and self entitlement as he thought he was God.


People, after being a member in a number of on-line communities, I do believe (by looking at some of his other posts) we have a "fisherman" here. Someone who likes to "stir the pot," rile people up and cause gratuitous controversy. Maybe he's just "socially awkward," or is trying to be funny, but not really good at it, but so far his patterns seem consistent with other trolls I've seen on other forum web sites.

I would just take everything he posts with a grain (or shaker) of salt.

V


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Varick said:


> People, after being a member in a number of on-line communities, I do believe (by looking at some of his other posts) we have a "fisherman" here. Someone who likes to "stir the pot," rile people up and cause gratuitous controversy. Maybe he's just "socially awkward," or is trying to be funny, but not really good at it, but so far his patterns seem consistent with other trolls I've seen on other forum web sites.
> 
> I would just take everything he posts with a grain (or shaker) of salt.
> 
> V


No, no, no, You're missing the point, Varick! This thread is a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek parody of those other 'serious' threads I (and others) have posted which were anti-Mozart and anti-Brahms. Isn't it? We were the trolls, then. He's making fun of trolls by doing this.

Now, if the thread is "Schoenberg is an *******," then it's serious.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Just waiting for the revisionist, Bach The ******* to come out soon.


Marshallin Blair might point you to the post-modernist interpretation if you ask her nicely


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Gondur said:


> That's right. He was a *******. He started a fight at any opportunity he could. He brawled with a Bassoonist and antagonized a Headmaster of a local school. He was a rude, nasty and arrogant man. A thug if he didn't get his own way. He was full of hubris and self entitlement as he thought he was God.


What Rot, Gondur! Every story has another side to it - don't fall for unsubstantiated propaganda!

The bassoonist made farting noises with his instrument as JS walked past. We all know that some headteachers are over-sensitive and easily antagonised by justified inquiry (just ask Michael Gove!) JS was an easy target for those who found him plain-speaking, confident and honest (ie refused to pander to the needs for baseless flattery). He was unfairly criticised for refusing to be a doormat for the ignorant and pedestrian (apologies for this metaphor!). And finally, he was only adhering to the tenets of the catechism that state that man is made in the image and likeness of God.

anyway - I don't care. He wrote music that inspires, entertains, soothes and stimulates me and I couldn't care les what he was like as a person. he could even support Man U (or voted Tory) and I'd have still listened to his music


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Bach was a Thuringian, and we always expect Thuringians to be thuggish... so what's the big surprise here?

False modesty is one of the most attitudinally arrogant things their is.

Besides, each of us knows we are brighter and better than most of the people in our classroom / workplace / neighborhood / society... so why be disingenuous about it, heh?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

This term reminds me of an incident during a cricket match. The umpire had turned down a vigourous appeal and the bowler said to him: "You blind old B******"
To which the umpire replied: "Sir, the strength of my eyesight might be in question. However, the legitimacy of my parents' marriage is not!"


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Brighter and better than most? No. I consider myself average. And yet, still folks call me a *******.

Who cares? Humility is a GOOD thing.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> Originally Posted by hpowders
> Just waiting for the revisionist, Bach The ******* to come out soon.
> Marshallin Blair might point you to the post-modernist interpretation if you ask her nicely


I turn a pretty good kook-obscurantist, post-modernist turn-of-phrase or two; but Woodduck rules the roost.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Headphone Hermit said:


> What Rot, Gondur! Every story has another side to it - don't fall for unsubstantiated propaganda!
> 
> The bassoonist made farting noises with his instrument as JS walked past. We all know that some headteachers are over-sensitive and easily antagonised by justified inquiry (just ask Michael Gove!) JS was an easy target for those who found him plain-speaking, confident and honest (ie refused to pander to the needs for baseless flattery). He was unfairly criticised for refusing to be a doormat for the ignorant and pedestrian (apologies for this metaphor!). And finally, he was only adhering to the tenets of the catechism that state that man is made in the image and likeness of God.
> 
> anyway - I don't care. He wrote music that inspires, entertains, soothes and stimulates me and I couldn't care les what he was like as a person. he could even support Man U (or voted Tory) and I'd have still listened to his music


_I love that response_.

That lower-order peasant should have known his betters. Really. Bach, the Genesis 1:1 of music, as H.L. Mencken put it-- enduring _that_?

The penalty would have been markedly more severe if I, a mere mortal, was in His place.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Bach was a...Freemason! Yeah, that's the ticket!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I turn a pretty good kook-obscurantist, post-modernist turn-of-phrase or two; but Woodduck rules the roost.


Sorry. Nothing anyone can say to/about me, even/especially at this co-incident collision of post-past and pre-future, can precipitate contemplation of a narrative foregrounding even a quasicommitment to a dis/in-semination of however-appropriate phallogocentric Bachic vocalities.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair
> I turn a pretty good kook-obscurantist, post-modernist turn-of-phrase or two; but Woodduck rules the roost.
> 
> Woodduck: Sorry. Nothing anyone can say to/about me, even/especially at this co-incident collision of post-past and pre-future, can precipitate contemplation of a narrative foregrounding even a quasicommitment to a dis/in-semination of however-appropriate phallogocentric Bachic vocalities.


<Ping!>

The ideology of domination concealed behind the_ façade _of "'objectivity'"-- yes, just that.

One cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives. Why?-- _because of _the "ineluctable historicity" and its principle of complementarity or dialecticism-- but within a Lacanian higher homology of groups, for one. Transhumanism is no longer amenable to visualization in conventional three-dimensional Cartesian space, or even non-linear geometry for that matter, as confirmed by Witten's derivation of knot invariants (in particular the Jones polynomial; q.v. Frege's logicalia mentioned in passing in _Principia Mathematica _and especially the Quinian-side of_ Dassein_ in _Sein und Zeit_).

Oppression?

Not at all.

As Irigaray's phrase `"_théorie des ensembles''' __clearly_ points out: Kuhnian paradigmata can also be rendered as Russell's "theory of sets''; and, concomitantly, "'bords'" is usually translated within its equivalent mathematical context as`boundaries.'

This diachronic processes and originary instantiation, of course, starts with Marx and Engel's_ pre_-Hegelian _Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844_, which abduct alienation and transpose the Hegelian understanding of 'thesis,' 'antithesis,' and 'synthesis'-- but with inscription; signified or _not_. . .

I get tired of explaining this to people.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Marschallin Blair said:


> One cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives.


Can and do, often twice before breakfast.



Marschallin Blair said:


> This diachronic processes and originary instantiation, of course, starts with Marx and Engel's_ pre_-Hegelian _Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844_, which abduct alienation and transpose the Hegelian understanding of 'thesis,' 'antithesis,' and 'synthesis'-- but with inscription; signified or _not_. . . I get tired of explaining this to people.


Don't stop! I love it when you talk like that!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair
> One cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives.
> 
> KenOC: Can and do, often twice before breakfast.
> ...


'Objectivity' is a dirty word in the ivory tower alright.

These clowns make a living pretending to figure out what other clowns have written. They try to undermine math, without knowing any. They try to undermine economics, without understanding any. They try to undermine language, without even knowing how to use their words. . . If everything is "socially constructed," imaginary, and malleable-- let's take them at their word: let's hold payment on their salaries and say that the 'pay check' is a socially-constructed meta-narrative, without a fixed-referent, which, for all intents and purposes_ doesn't exist_. . . so why are they worrying about such bourgeois objectivity to begin with?


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Sorry. Nothing anyone can say to/about me, even/especially at this co-incident collision of post-past and pre-future, can precipitate contemplation of a narrative foregrounding even a quasicommitment to a dis/in-semination of however-appropriate phallogocentric Bachic vocalities.





Marschallin Blair said:


> <Ping!>
> 
> The ideology of domination concealed behind the_ façade _of "'objectivity'"-- yes, just that.
> 
> ...


Wow, you guys talk good.

V


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> Varick: Wow, you guys talk good.


Of course we do. We're academicians<ahem!> I mean 'con artists.' Ha. Ha. Ha.

Well, at least Duck is.

I'm merely the Super Model.


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

Hey! What's the problem with Papa Bach? Two threads against Bach!!! C'mon! I don't find rare that someone doesn't like Bach. Everyone have their own tastes, but the whole world doesn't need to know that you don't like Bach, even more if you hate is toward Bach mistakes of a human being rather than his music.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Headphone Hermit said:


> [Bach] could even support *Man U (or voted Tory)* and I'd have still listened to his music


Steady, now...#sigh#. Lengthening message.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I turn a pretty good kook-obscurantist, post-modernist turn-of-phrase or two; but Woodduck rules the roost.


Sorry. I forgot to put quotes around it. "JS Bach, *******" "A Revisionist's Point of View".

And a review, "Bach as you've never heard him before!" Sacramento Bee.


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## chalkpie (Oct 5, 2011)

Crudblud said:


> Cool thread. I'm glad to see TC is getting back on track with high quality discussion.


LOL.....I almost spit coffee out.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Bach was a ******* ? There's me thinking he was a just a **** ****. You learns something every day here!


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## Pouchkine (Apr 30, 2016)

JCarmel said:


> I think you need to watch John Eliot Gardiner's Documentary on Bach 'A Passionate Life'...it is excellent! It humanises Bach and makes him seem even more remarkable, not just as a composer but as a human being, one who endured greatly through a testing early life & was 'a warm family man, passionate artist and rebellious spirit'


This topic was started 2 years ago, but now I would recommand you to read Gardiner's Music in the Castle of Heaven if you haven't done it yet !


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Hey ... I found the following image on-line:









But nothing depicting Bach in gloves.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Pouchkine said:


> This topic was started 2 years ago, but now I would recommand you to read Gardiner's Music in the Castle of Heaven if you haven't done it yet !


Good first post


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

I doubt Bach was asterisks, but there's no doubt that he was Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Gondur said:


> That's right. He was a *******. He started a fight at any opportunity he could. He brawled with a Bassoonist and antagonized a Headmaster of a local school. He was a rude, nasty and arrogant man. A thug if he didn't get his own way. He was full of hubris and self entitlement as he thought he was God.


Either that, or he was a young hothead brawling another young hothead, and in the latter case his headmaster was a pigheaded traditionalist that consistently tried to obstruct what were basically reasonable ideas and goals.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Pouchkine said:


> This topic was started 2 years ago, but now I would recommand you to read Gardiner's Music in the Castle of Heaven if you haven't done it yet !


Nothing more to add?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

To base the whole of Bach's character on one incident appears to make us somewhat naive as historians. I've no doubt JSB was not the easiest person to live with but neither were most men who have achieved great things, including many great composers. As for thinking he was God, that didn't enter his head. I think you'll find that the crude caricature needs some working on - and correction!


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