# Do You Enjoy Bach's Ricercar a 3 from Musikalisches Opfer?



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Just released today, played here on a Thomas and Barbara Wolf 1997/1998 copy of a Gottfried Silbermann 1746 piano. The Silbermann was shown to Bach when he visited Frederick the Great and when Bach was given the theme. This was biographically one of the more interesting points in Bach's relatively uneventful life from a travelling perspective.

This is the most expressive performance I have heard to date. Do you enjoy it?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Here is a great harpsichord performance for your evaluation:


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Or with a Baroque chamber group of musicians:


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I prefer it on harpsichord, or even modern piano. Not that I dislike the performance...


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## level82rat (Jun 20, 2019)

I don't know if it's the sound quality, the performance, or just a natural result of repeat listening, but I can hear and appreciate each voice more than I have before. And anybody that can perform a 7-minute fugue without making massive mistakes deserves our respect either way.


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## EnescuCvartet (Dec 16, 2016)

I love this recording


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Yes to both questions: I love Bach's Musical Offering and I really liked the performance and the chosen instrument.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Not at this moment, will try it later .


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Yes, I did enjoy the performance and found it very expressive. Thanks for sharing.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Yes...the fortepiano sounds much better playing that music than it does playing music from the Classical era. Less "tinkly".  Maybe it has something to do with the richness of Bach's writing in the mid-range, where I think the fortepiano doesn't sound too bad.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> Yes...the fortepiano sounds much better playing that music than it does playing music from the Classical era. Less "tinkly".  Maybe it has something to do with the richness of Bach's writing in the mid-range, where I think the fortepiano doesn't sound too bad.


Try:


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> Try:
> ...


Well yeah, but that's four hands. Bach works in that mid-range for only two hands. Not as much oom-pa-pa Alberti stuff below a tinkly treble. :devil:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> Well yeah, but that's four hands. Bach works in that mid-range for only two hands. Not as much oom-pa-pa Alberti stuff below a tinkly treble. :devil:


It's been like 100 times you've made similar complaints on this forum already. I'll always respect your views and preferences though. There are some things in Bach, where use of instruments for dramatic effect (such as the way to use the trumpet in the gloria and sanctus of the B minor mass or stuff like BWV70) and arias with basso continuo, isn't any more interesting than Handel or the later composers. But I don't feel the need to make the complaint about that in every thread. I acknowledge Bach was a genius of the highest level, writing music that was fashionable for his time.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> It's been like 100 times you've made similar complaints on this forum already. I'll always respect your views and preferences though. There are some things in Bach, where use of instruments for dramatic effect (such as the way to use the trumpet in the gloria and sanctus of the B minor mass or stuff like BWV70) and arias with basso continuo, isn't any more interesting than Handel or the later composers. But I don't feel the need to make the complaint about that in every thread. I acknowledge Bach was a genius of the highest level, writing music that was fashionable for his time.


So what? You've complained about Haydn how many times now, and with the same load of links?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

----------------------


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> You've complained about Haydn how many times now, and with the same load of links?


I'm sorry about that, but there are some things where I perceive as "injustice", regarding that issue:



hammeredklavier said:


> "there's no reason all of Joseph's baryton trios should be recorded (even though it's so hard to find a baryton player today), while his own younger brother's 20 litanies still languish in obscurity."





hammeredklavier said:


> Rather, I think, a question we really need to ask ourselves at this point is, -"how much did Mozart actually care about Joseph deep down?"


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm sorry about that, but there are some things where I perceive as "injustice", regarding that issue:


So now you've brought your anti-Haydn obsession into this thread as well. You would do well to stop playing the hypocrite.

By the way, are you so impressed with your postings that you feel the need to quote yourself on a daily basis?


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> I acknowledge Bach was a genius of the highest level, writing music that was fashionable for his time.


 Apparently he wasn't considered all that fashionable in his time.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

consuono said:


> Apparently he wasn't considered all that fashionable in his time.


Correct, Bach was not a fashionable music writer. He was more learned and more didactic. He himself considered this, judging simply by the works he chose to publish (which were not that many). When he did write music for a broader audience, say during his Leipzig years (the last 27 years of his life), the instrumental music were for students and people at a local coffee house. That's mostly about it, not quite the international stardom like Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, Quantz, Graun etc. During the Baroque, it was however not unusual to be employed by or providing musical services to the church, and Bach chose this path for most of his life.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

ArtMusic said:


> Correct, Bach was not a fashionable music writer. He was more learned and more didactic. He himself considered this, judging simply by the works he chose to publish (which were not that many). When he did write music for a broader audience, say during his Leipzig years (the last 27 years of his life), the instrumental music were for students and people at a local coffee house. That's mostly about it, not quite the international stardom like Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, Quantz, Graun etc. During the Baroque, it was however not unusual to be employed by or providing musical services to the church, and Bach chose this path for most of his life.


I know that, but consider the context in which I said "Bach was writing music that was fashionable for his time"; 
( I compared his style of writing with:












 )
Bach is less about incorporation of "operatic elements", less about reaction against the doctrine of the affections. So compared with the above example, Bach mostly reflects the time period of 1720~1750 rather than, say, 1760~1790.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Bach is less about incorporation of "operatic elements", less about reaction against the doctrine of the affections. So compared with the above example, Bach mostly reflects the time period of 1720~1750 rather than, say, 1760~1790.


Have you heard the the accompanied violin sonatas, the St Matthew Passion, The St John Passion, The French Suites, Clavier Ubung I/6 and 4, The Goldberg Variations, The Trio Sonatas? There's a performance of Opfer by The Bach Players which makes the trio sonata sound like something by C P E Bach to me.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Have you heard the sonata from Musical Offering, the accompanied violin sonatas, the St Matthew Passion, The St John Passion, The French Suites, Clavier Ubung I/6 and 4, The Goldberg Variations, The Trio Sonatas?


Yes, I have. But how are they "reactions" against "the Doctrine of the Affections" in the way the Dies irae movement of this








is, for example? (also note the change of character through use of dynamics, timbre, rhythm, chromaticism, ensembles ie. orchestral/choral forces)


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Come on, you all need to know Bach's music better. Here is Bach's "opera", he himself titled it _Drama per musica_, _Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde_ BWV 201.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Yes, I have. But how are they "reactions" against "the Doctrine of the Affections" in the way the Dies irae movement of this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ah, sorry, I misunderstood, I was thinking of them as examples using the doctrine of affects. (There has been some interesting work on affects in Bach's keyboard and violin sonata recently.)

I expect you are right to say that there are examples from Bach which aren't consistent with it. The more I explore Bach the more I see him as someone who was often exploring new ideas.


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## Skakner (Oct 8, 2020)

When Bach's music is played on keyboard, piano is my top choice, by far.
Nevertheless, I do enjoy this performance!


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> I know that, but consider the context in which I said "Bach was writing music that was fashionable for his time";


But it wasn't fashionable for his time. Handel and Telemann were. Bach's music hearkened back to older forms and styles.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

consuono said:


> But it wasn't fashionable for his time. Handel and Telemann were. Bach's music hearkened back to older forms and styles.


Sometimes but by no means always, think the violin and harpsichord sonatas, the trio sonata from opfer, some of the duetti in Clavier Ubung iii maybe. Bach was obviously very aware of the most fashionable musical ideas, no doubt partly through his sons, and he was willing to explore them.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Sometimes but by no means always, think the violin and harpsichord sonatas, the trio sonata from opfer, some of the duetti in Clavier Ubung iii maybe. Bach was obviously very aware of the most fashionable musical ideas, no doubt partly through his sons, and he was willing to explore them.


The sonata in the Musical Offering is a sonata da chiesa whose form goes back to Corelli and earlier. In some of the preludes in WTC II Bach does delve a little into Scarlatti-type territory.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

consuono said:


> The sonata in the Musical Offering is a sonata da chiesa whose form goes back to Corelli and earlier. .


In form, yes.

(Otherwise it's like you're pointing out that, I dunno, Barraqué's concerto for vibraphone and clarinet is a concerto, whose form goes back to some old guy in Italy whose music I know nothing about . . ., Or the Schoenberg suite is a suite like suites in the sun king's palace. )


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> In form, yes.
> 
> (Otherwise it's like you're pointing out that, I dunno, Barraqué's concerto for vibraphone and clarinet is a concerto, whose form goes back to some old guy in Italy whose music I know nothing about . . .


So what was so au courant about the sonata from the Musical Offering? And if you don't know Corelli, give his music a listen. Great stuff.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

consuono said:


> So what was so au courant about the sonata from the Musical Offering.


I think the third movement is in empfindsamer style, well brought out here


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> I think the third movement is in empfindsamer style, well brought out here


It's melodic but although I sometimes scratch my head at this reviewer's take on things, overall I'd agree with this:


> The flute part is fiendishly difficult, and there is no allowance for the monarch's clear preference for galant music; it is as Baroque as anything else Bach wrote, except where he takes galant ideas and makes them more Baroque. For example, instead of performing a simple "sigh" gesture in the flute sonata movement, a descending interval that sounds like a sigh, Bach sequences it in different pitches until it is as difficult and Baroque as anything as he had written before. Galant music is meant to be simple, a return to melody over harmony, and is the first step toward the Classical music of Haydn and Mozart.


YMMV.

https://www.allmusic.com/compositio...and-chamber-instruments-bwv-1079-mc0002368982


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> https://www.allmusic.com/compositio...and-chamber-instruments-bwv-1079-mc0002368982


One thing about these "journalists" (of dubious authority) is that they are still stuck in the outdated/limited/stereotypical views regarding matters of "18th-century baroque/galant", so it's best to take the things they say with a bit of grain of salt.

That's why there are still arguments over topics like:
The "Galant" Style in J. S. Bach's "Musical Offering:" Widening the Dimensions
"The view that in the case of the Musical offering these references to the galant style were intended by Bach both to demonstrate his engagement with progressive tendencies and to appeal to certain aesthetic sensibilities at the Potsdam court of the collection's dedicatee is widely accepted by Bach scholars."

I don't think it's "insightful" nowadays to simply call Bach's style "outdated" simply because he wrote counterpoint. How "outdated" would Michael Haydn's Missa in C "sancti Hieronymi" (1777) be then?




(Btw, so little is known about Michael's certain contemporaries and colleagues in Salzburg such as A.C. Adlgasser, G.V. Pasterwitz, because so little of their music is performed or recorded nowadays.)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Maybe someone should explain to me, for example, the aesthetic differences Michael's Missa in C "sancti Hieronymi" (1777) have, vs Bach's general style,
other than;
- use of galant-style phrases and cadences




- reaction against the doctrine of the affections




 (and 6:29)




 (and 13:55)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Maybe there's a case to be made for saying that whenever he wrote in the Galant style he did so in bad faith, he undermined it. My favourite example is this --Part 1 a Galant fugue, Part 2 a sort of reductio of the Galant, Part 3 the apotheosis of the Galant


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

consuono said:


> It's melodic but although I sometimes scratch my head at this reviewer's take on things, overall I'd agree with this:
> 
> YMMV.
> 
> https://www.allmusic.com/compositio...and-chamber-instruments-bwv-1079-mc0002368982


I'm kind of out of my depth here, but I thought that emfindsamer was a sort of bridge between baroque and Galant. But really I know next to nothing about this music!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

(Not sure about this)

Another example maybe -- the second part of BWV 544, I've put it with a timestamp here






Is this a Galant fugue, the sort of thing Haydn and Mozart wrote? It comes after a typically dissonant Bachian baroque fugue -- the mood shift in the whole piece is strange.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> I'm kind of out of my depth here, but I thought that emfindsamer was a sort of bridge between baroque and Galant. But really I know next to nothing about this music!


I'm no expert either and I'll be the first to admit it. There are certain composers/eras/styles I'm familiar with, that's all.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

There were some hints of the Galant style in the Trio Sonata of the Musical Offering because he wanted to show case to Frederick the Great a range of styles. Frederick's court was filled with musicians (among them CPE Bach) who played much newer styled music than Bach's older style.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I’ll just ask a question in case anyone feels up to thinking about it. Is BWV 1019 galant? The solo keyboard movement?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

The great six sonatas for violin and harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019. They were probably mostly composed during Bach's final years in Cöthen between 1720 and 1723. I hear Baroque throughout all of them, no Galant.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I'll just ask a question in case anyone feels up to thinking about it. Is BWV 1019 galant? The solo keyboard movement?


I think the piece does have a playful quasi-galant exuberance. But it's more complex and demanding, especially when compared to similar works of the time, such as Telemann's engaging trios in _Essercizii Musici_ (1739- 40) written, in part, in a truly light galant idiom combining concertante harpsichord with a variety of other instruments.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I've heard it said that these cantatas all have "galant" elements, but I hear it more in the secular cantatas. Is "galant" and "Rococo" generally the same thing? (BTW, the alto aria of BWV 197 is very special)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

> Bach sequences it in different pitches until it is as difficult and Baroque as anything as he had written before. Galant music is meant to be simple, a return to melody over harmony, and is the first step toward the Classical music of Haydn and Mozart.


Another thing about statements like this is, why are they always used to positively describe J.S. Bach, and why not F.X. Richter, for example? So when J.S. Bach writes stuff like 








 ,
he's still regarded as "incorporating good things of the Baroque", when F.X. Richter does 








 ,
he's just regarded as "being mediocre compared to J. Haydn". (I'm saying this because I've been told by some members that it's outrageous to think F.X. Richter is as good as Joseph Haydn).
Some members have bashed F.X. Richter for not writing in the sonata-form as elaborately as J. Haydn. Why is it OK to bash F.X. Richter this way, but not J.S. Bach? I'm just curious.





*Early Symphony*
The Adagio and Fugue in G minor for Strings (1760) is one of Franz Xaver Richter's symphonies, which features the learned style in 18th century orchestral works. His experience in churches also contributes to his sophisticated contrapuntal style in his orchestral works. The first movement begins with the tonic key, G minor, entitled Adagio and fugue, and it distinguishes from later sonata form by Haydn and Mozart. The opening material is quite different from the primary theme in symphonies by Mozart and Haydn. First, the opening material is not highly melodically recognizable and easy to grasp for the audience. One could call it primary key area instead of the primary theme. It is in highly learned style with a lot of sequential passages. The music progresses until m. 23 when it reaches a structural V chord in the first section after an augmented sixth chord (m. 25) is emphasized (Example A). Again the music is still in the tonic key area when the fugue begins. The fugue subject is in g minor, and the answer is in d minor. The music goes to B-flat major for the first time in m. 60 after a V-I motion. The B-flat major passage starts another sequence until m. 67. The third tonal area in this piece is C major, starting after a French augmented sixth chord resolving to a dominant chord (G-B-D) in m. 120. A cadence on C major is elided in m. 217, the bass progresses to a D-G motion, sitting on the tonic key G minor in m. 222. Overall, the first movement includes two sections, Adagio (which can be seen as an introduction to fugue) and a fugue (in fugue form), which is very different from the sonata-allegro form composed by Mozart and Haydn. As Jochen Reutter acclaims, Franz Xaver Richter's compositional idiom "changed from a late Baroque sound to a tonal language which reached the threshold of the Classical style. He was influenced by the 18th-century learned style and he adapted the Mannheim symphonic style with his own differentiated instrumentation." Also according to Reutter, "his [Richter's] works from this period include such conservative traits as fugal techniques, Baroque sequences and the frequent use of minor tonality." As shown in this work Adagio and Fugue in G minor for Strings, the first movement is almost entirely based on various kinds of sequences and fugal style. This early symphony makes an intriguing subject for a scholarly study of early symphonies.









Example A. The Augmented Sixth Chord in m. 25









Example B

In other words, why is this sort of logic ["Because "richer" is "worse"?" -consuono] always used by everyone to elevate J.S. Bach (at the expense of, not just his contemporaries, but also the later composers), but not Zelenka, or Michael Haydn, for example?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

> The flute part is fiendishly difficult, and there is no allowance for the monarch's clear preference for galant music; it is as Baroque as anything else Bach wrote, except where he takes galant ideas and makes them more Baroque. For example, instead of performing a simple "sigh" gesture in the flute sonata movement, a descending interval that sounds like a sigh, Bach sequences it in different pitches until it is as difficult and Baroque as anything as he had written before. Galant music is meant to be simple, a return to melody over harmony, and is the first step toward the Classical music of Haydn and Mozart.





> IS JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH A GREAT COMPOSER?
> https://www.critique-musicale.com/bachen.htm
> In fact, according to all the musicologists, Vivaldi had a great importance in the transformation of the concerto, developping the mind of solist, on the other hand the novelties he carries in the symphonism were incontestable. On the contrary, Bach was a typically conservative who did not change the musical language. He was turned towards the past, prefering religious music, choral song, the ancient forms : fugue, polyphonic writing.


Are these just two different perspectives on the matter?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> I think the piece does have a playful quasi-galant exuberance. But it's more complex and demanding, especially when compared to similar works of the time, such as Telemann's engaging trios in _Essercizii Musici_ (1739- 40) written, in part, in a truly light galant idiom combining concertante harpsichord with a variety of other instruments.


Yes, very well put.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Bach was acutely aware of what was fashionable. He just didn't write as much of that because his job in Leipzig demanded he supply church music and teach. Avoid pigeon holing Bach because his encyclopedic oeuvre encompassed all formats except formal grand opera, but he did write mini-operas.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

No I don't actually hate ArtMusic himself. That was (snuck in) here, wasn't it?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Roger Knox said:


> No I don't actually hate ArtMusic himself. That was (snuck in) here, wasn't it?


Well, some voters do hate the polls (because they voted that option) and curiously, they still vote the options of the poll's original question. So, no; I doubt if anyone hates me personally and beside, I don't know anyone here in real life.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

ArtMusic said:


> So, no; I doubt if anyone hates me personally and beside, I don't know anyone here in real life.


Thank you. I don't actually hate your polls either, although sometimes there are things I disagree with.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

......Mozart>Bach


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## Guest (Apr 24, 2021)

That performance didn't do much for me. I love Tatiana Nikolayeva's recording on a modern grand on the Hyperion label. (She plays both Ricercars as "fillers.")


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> Just released today, played here on a Thomas and Barbara Wolf 1997/1998 copy of a Gottfried Silbermann 1746 piano. The Silbermann was shown to Bach when he visited Frederick the Great and when Bach was given the theme. This was biographically one of the more interesting points in Bach's relatively uneventful life from a travelling perspective.
> 
> This is the most expressive performance I have heard to date. Do you enjoy it?


Interestingly the piano sounds despite the unequal tuning more "modern" than I had expected. I also noted, that van Doeselaar plays rather soft and with restrained dynamics (I'm reminded of Wolfgang Rübsam's touch). And added to this van Doeselaar plays with exemplary transparency. He also adds some discrete and tasteful ornamentation - Koopman and van Asperen has something to learn from him. He also - to some extent - displays the supposed improvisatory air of the piece. So - yes, I enjoyed the performance.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

ArtMusic said:


> Just released today, played here on a Thomas and Barbara Wolf 1997/1998 copy of a Gottfried Silbermann 1746 piano. The Silbermann was shown to Bach when he visited Frederick the Great and when Bach was given the theme. This was biographically one of the more interesting points in Bach's relatively uneventful life from a travelling perspective.
> 
> This is the most expressive performance I have heard to date. Do you enjoy it?


:clap:

Performance: 10/10
Instrument: 10/10

:tiphat:


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> ......Mozart>Bach


...now iv just listened to "Et in terra pax"


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