# Bach abstract music



## NothungWorld (Feb 27, 2017)

I've just played through Bach's Art of Fuge. 
There are a fuges especially 3, 5, 8, 11 and 14 
where sections are almost completely abstract, modernist. 
Like an abstract sound. I love it.

I would be very grateful for suggestions on other Bach compositions 
that are so abstract in their expression?
(I've already played through The Well-Tempered Clavier)


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I need copies of both of those works. Gould is my go to for Bach, as I'm sure he is for many!


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## Guest (Aug 19, 2018)

Yeah I think there is something about the structural unity, wholeness and intellectual creativity of the compositional craft that gives me the view that he was a proto-serialist, or perhaps a baroque Babbitt interested in approaching composition from a perspective of 'researching' the notes and how to order, combine and structure them through music.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Instrumentation with period instruments make Art of Fugue very austere sounding, it has to do with the idea of classical idea of counterpoint virtuosity. AOF is Work of sheer beauty.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

NothungWorld said:


> I've just played through Bach's Art of Fuge.
> There are a fuges especially 3, 5, 8, 11 and 14
> where sections are almost completely abstract, modernist.
> Like an abstract sound. I love it.
> ...


Try BWV 652, if it's what you want let me know and I can suggest some more in a similar vein.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

The Art of the Fugue has the same underlying theme at its core throughout, something not typical of abstract music. Bach a ‘proto serialist’? Hmm.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

DaveM said:


> The Art of the Fugue has the same underlying theme at its core throughout, something not typical of abstract music.


But it's definitely a very abstract work nonetheless, no doubts about it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I believe the AoF is based throughout on a simplification of the _Thema Regium_ from the Musical Offering. So yes, it's largely (not entirely!) monothematic.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

AoF predates the Opfer with several years, and there is also the much older g-minor organ fugue (BWV 578), the main subject of which obviously is an ornamented version of the AoF subject. So the AoF subject is rather a simplification of the subject of this fugue.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I’d be interested to explore this idea that AoF is abstract. How it more any abstract than any other music which isn’t related to a text?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> I'd be interested to explore this idea that AoF is abstract. How it more any abstract than any other music which isn't related to a text?


well, obviously in a sense all music is abstract (like in a sense all paintings are abstract, even the figurative ones). 
But the art of the fugue has something that is very modern with lack of dynamics and sentimentalism, memorable melodies, great contrasts. There's a lot of detachment and It sounds almost like a giant mechanism.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

norman bates said:


> well, obviously in a sense all music is abstract.
> There's a lot of detachment and It sounds almost like a giant mechanism.


This may be a question of performance style.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> I don't like it much when it's played like this.


but for me that's what that music was about. Bach in the AOF to my ears was experimenting with the notes like a mathematician could calculate matrices or an architect could draw lines to evaluate the spacial effect or something like that.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

NothungWorld said:


> I've just played through Bach's Art of Fuge.
> There are a fuges especially 3, 5, 8, 11 and 14
> where sections are almost completely abstract, modernist.
> Like an abstract sound. I love it.
> ...


Just listened to no. 3 - I see what you mean. It sounds great and very profound.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

norman bates said:


> but to my ears that's what the music was about. Bach in the AOF to my ears was experimenting with the notes like a mathematician could calculate matrices or an architect could draw lines to evaluate the spacial effect or something like that.


Yes I realised that after I made the post and hence made a change. You're right of course, there was a lot of exploration of structures in AoF. Do you think all Bach's text free fugues are detatched and inexpressive, or just the ones in AoF?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Yes I realised that after I made the post and hence made a change. You're right of course, there was a lot of exploration of structures in AoF. Do you think all Bach's text free fugues are detatched and inexpressive, or just the ones in AoF?


I haven't heard everything he composed so I'm not sure if there are other examples, but for what I've heard the AOF is certainly the most cerebral work of him by far. Some works have moments that go in that direction like on the musical offering, but I think the Art of the fugue is quite unique. 
Anyway detached yes, but I would not say that is a "inexpressive" or dry work. To me it's like contemplating the laws of the universe, with the movement of galaxies, stars and planets. Music of the spheres is probably a good definition.
So for all its cerebrality I think it's actually a very poetic and moving work (and I love it).
Even if obviously in a very different way compared for instance to the largo of the double violin concerto with those beautiful melodies.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

norman bates said:


> but for me that's what that music was about. Bach in the AOF to my ears was experimenting with the notes like a mathematician could calculate matrices or an architect could draw lines to evaluate the spacial effect or something like that.


You are describing some of the technical means Bach used for the work, but the purpose of composing the AoF is of course, that it should result in expressive music. And the best interpretations are those, which realize this. One of the reasons why I do not favor chamber ensemble arrangements that much is, that they by their very nature stress the technical aspect more than the expressive aspect. If one wants to study the technical aspect, one can read the score. A performance, on the other hand, should rather stress the expressive aspect.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

False dichotomies abound ^ ^ ^ (not you premont!), mostly based on the eternally lazy intellect-emotion dichotomy. (Calling Mr. Spock ) The fact of a work being organized by rigorous contrapuntal techniques has nothing to do with its capacity for expressiveness, nor does it have anything to do with "abstraction," whatever that is supposed to mean in this context. The individual contrapuncti of AoF are wonderfully varied in personality and expression, and the fact that this diversity of expression is drawn from a tiny bit of material is astounding. If one is losing sight of this diversity and variety, listening to it a few parts at a time might help. Does anyone really think it was meant to be heard from beginning to end at a sitting?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

NothungWorld said:


> I've just played through Bach's Art of Fuge.
> There are a fuges especially 3, 5, 8, 11 and 14
> where sections are almost completely abstract, modernist.
> Like an abstract sound. I love it.
> ...


Well, you have The Musical Offering, with its famous canon that keeps repeating but always modulating upward, process which could, in principle, go forever. And the also famous Crab canon.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> False dichotomies abound ^ ^ ^ (not you premont!), mostly based on the eternally lazy intellect-emotion dichotomy.


so where? Here?



> So for all its cerebrality I think it's actually a very poetic and moving work (and I love it).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Does anyone really think it was meant to be heard from beginning to end at a sitting?


Yes, I think that's what Pieter Dirksen says about the 1740 manuscript.


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## Ras (Oct 6, 2017)

NothungWorld said:


> I would be very grateful for suggestions on other Bach compositions
> that are so abstract in their expression?
> (I've already played through The Well-Tempered Clavier)


*Try the Partitas, The French Suites, The English Suites, The Goldberg Variations, The 2 and 3 part Inventions - and I see you are already familiar with the Art of Fugue and the WTC book 1 and 2.*

I think all the music Bach wrote for harpsichord has this abstract quality to it. I don't like the sound of harpsichords and the piano has the advantage of bringing out an "impersonal" "objective" or as you say "abstract" sound. I don't play piano myself, but I think if you want to hear an abstract recording of Bach's harpsichord music on piano you should try the Hungarian pianist *Andras Schiff*. He recorded almost all of Bach's music for harpsichord for Decca when he was young and he re-recorded a substantial part of it for ECM just a few years ago. If you are still a cd buying guy I think you should start with Schiff-box from Decca. If you are on www.spotify.com I think most of Schiff's Bach recordings can be found there.


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