# Was Bach old-fashioned during his time?



## pianolearnerstride (Dec 17, 2014)

So I've been watching some Glenn Gould talks on Bach. He describes Bach as being old-fashioned for his time period, the late Baroque period. What does he mean by this? Is it just that counterpoint was old-fashioned at the time?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bach may just be the greatest, most profound composer who ever lived.

His music will never get old.

If that's "old-fashioned", give me a good strong dose of it. I wish to be "old-fashioned" too!

In 100 years how many folks will recognize the name "Glenn Gould" vs. "Johann Sebastian Bach"?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I would say, spend less time watching videos and more time listening to Bach.


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## pianolearnerstride (Dec 17, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Bach may just be the greatest, most profound composer who ever lived.
> 
> His music will never get old.
> 
> ...


I apologize, I think I gave the wrong impression in my post. I've edited it. Bach is the greatest composer according to Gould. What Gould was saying was that Bach was old-fashioned in his own time of the late Baroque period (not Gould's period). This is what I was trying to understand.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

pianolearnerstride said:


> I apologize, I think I gave the wrong impression in my post. I've edited it. Bach is the greatest composer according to Gould. What Gould was saying was that Bach was old-fashioned in his own time of the late Baroque period (not Gould's period). This is what I was trying to understand.


Well, Bach did tend to use old-fashioned dances in his various suites: gigues, gavottes, sarabandes, allemandes, correntes, menuets, etc;

Perhaps this is what Gould was alluding to and I would agree with him.

However Bach took these old dances and made them magical!

Thanks for clarifying this!! :tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Complex contrapuntal music was going out of fashion. Bach was quite capable of writing in the lighter, more melody-with-accompaniment manner favored by his contemporaries, but it didn't interest him. His dense, late polyphonic works (Art of Fugue, Musical Offering) have been called "medieval" in their extreme devotion to the old arts of counterpoint and have nothing to do with anything contemporary or to come.

Yes, Bach was considered old-fashioned, but no one, including him and connoisseurs then and since, really cared. The important thing is that he was too immense a genius to be _merely_ old-fashioned: he was extraordinarily innovative as well, and his varied, profound, and original work really transcends such categories.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I read that Bach was a snob's snob. He was visiting some city with his son (one of many) and suggested, evidently somewhat snarkily, that they stop by the opera house to "hear the pretty tunes."


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

pianolearnerstride said:


> So I've been watching some Glenn Gould talks on Bach. He describes Bach as being old-fashioned for his time period, the late Baroque period. What does he mean by this? Is it just that counterpoint was old-fashioned at the time?


Bach was often considered to be old-fashioned during his own lifetime. It was not a fair description because he studied the manuscripts of Vivaldi's concertos (totally new then) and wrote concertos, chamber instrumental in that style, arias in the operatic da capo format etc. that we all new. He studied the new and wrote new. But he also wrote a lot of music in older styles too especially in the keyboard studies, fugues, counterpoint etc. that was his means of composition. It's like baking a new type of desert cake but using old fashioned methods to mix the ingredients and old fashioned ways to do the baking etc.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Bach was considered old-fashioned for the same reason Brahms was: they didn't embrace the new musical forms of the day but stuck to what they considered the better, albeit older, forms. Nothing wrong with that from where I stand. New does not mean better. Incidentally both Bach and Brahms are among my very favorite composers and I'm glad they chose to be old-fashioned.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Bach was considered old-fashioned for the same reason Brahms was: they didn't embrace the new musical forms of the day but stuck to what they considered the better, albeit older, forms. Nothing wrong with that from where I stand. New does not mean better. Incidentally both Bach and Brahms are among my very favorite composers and I'm glad they chose to be old-fashioned.


That's not entirely true for Bach - he did study and wrote in the new forms of the day. Bach synthesized all forms of his day - old and new. All his concertos were in the three movement format for example based on the Italian-Vivaldi style. It was his means of composition that was often considered old fashion because he wrote in the fugal model.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It's also likely that much of Bach's music for his last two decades or so was of the style required by the city fathers in Leipzig, his employers.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> That's not entirely true for Bach - he did study and wrote in the new forms of the day. Bach synthesized all forms of his day - old and new. All his concertos were in the three movement format for example based on the Italian-Vivaldi style. It was his means of composition that was often considered old fashion because he wrote in the fugal model.


I guess "form" is an overloaded term. It's his making heavy use of contrapuntal writing, as already mentioned several times in the thread, that I had in mind.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> I guess "form" is an overloaded term. It's his making heavy use of contrapuntal writing, as already mentioned several times in the thread, that I had in mind.


My understanding is that Bach's style of ornate North German contrapuntalism, as the enlightenment proceeded, fell into disfavor. It was felt to "stink of the church."

When Bach visited Frederick the Great late in life, it was for his unparalleled facility with counterpoint, certainly not for the music itself. Frederick never even sent a thank-you note for the Musical Offering.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

That's right. The theme Frederick gave Bach was ordinary but Bach exhausted it with counterpoint, and by then it was considered old fashioned when young Haydn and the new style were already in its heyday.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> That's right. The theme Frederick gave Bach was ordinary...


Actually not quite so. The "royal theme" was cunningly wrought to resist the forms of imitation normally used in baroque music. There is speculation that the theme was actually prepared by CPE Bach, then in Frederick's employ, as a rather nasty trick on his dad.

The whole episode, with its historical background of a change in cultures, is explored in the entertaining book "Evening in the Palace of Reason."

https://www.amazon.com/Evening-Pala...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483148780&sr=1-1

You can get it for a penny, used. Recommended.


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## Retrograde Inversion (Nov 27, 2016)

Personally, I find much of the _style galant_ that came into fashion in the 1720s rather vapid. I'll take one of Bach's fugues over just about anything by his younger contemporaries any day!


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

pianolearnerstride said:


> So I've been watching some Glenn Gould talks on Bach. He describes Bach as being old-fashioned for his time period, the late Baroque period. What does he mean by this? Is it just that counterpoint was old-fashioned at the time?


This could be a subjective remark from Gould. Bach is probably the most innovative composer of his time. I could be subjective too.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

pcnog11 said:


> This could be a subjective remark from Gould. Bach is probably the most innovative composer of his time. I could be subjective too.


I think everyone is, specially on any composer/ singer / performer.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Perhaps some of Bach's contemporaries viewed him as old-fashioned, because of his contrapuntal style. But they were completely wrong! Many of his works are highly innovative--I would even go so far as to say experimental. 

In fact, Bach was one of the first composers to write pieces in all major and minor keys. At the time, almost nobody else was using keys such as F-sharp Major and G-sharp minor. His systematic exploration of these rare keys indicates his interest in expanding the tonal system.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bach's style may have been considered old fashioned by those who were the 'avant-gars' of the day. But it's what he did with it that counts today.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Old fashioned or not, the fact is Bach's music is great. Pure & simple.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bettina said:


> Perhaps some of Bach's contemporaries viewed him as old-fashioned, because of his contrapuntal style. But they were completely wrong! Many of his works are highly innovative--I would even go so far as to say experimental.
> 
> In fact, Bach was one of the first composers to write pieces in all major and minor keys. At the time, almost nobody else was using keys such as F-sharp Major and G-sharp minor. His systematic exploration of these rare keys indicates his interest in expanding the tonal system.


Good point, Bettina! His WTC was pioneering-not only in exploring rare keys, but creating masterpieces in those keys.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

You know I've never actually seen any instance of Bach's contemporaries or near-contemporaries accusing his keyboard music of being old fashioned. The closest I can think of is CPE Bach's defense of his own theory of harmony (and by extension his father's) against Rameau's - but according to CPE being "old fashioned" in that sense is a GOOD thing, so that may have been a case like Adorno championing Schoenberg as an upholder of timeless values against degenerate Stravinsky.

Where Bach - and German composers in general - were accused of being old fashioned was in vocal music. The conventional wisdom was "Germans, great at counterpoint, could really stand to learn more from the Italians about vocal melody." Which, fair enough - it's not like Mozart learned how to write his famous "Et incarnatus est" just by studying Bach. (Of course, in Mozart's day, Italians even thought of HIM as a crabbed Teuton who wasn't much for melody - and even as late as the early 19th century, Stendhal agreed, though he didn't let that diminish his overall worship of Mozart.)


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