# A question for lovers of J S Bach



## Bellerophon

Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory? 

My music teacher upheld Bach as the greatest composer of all time. I like his work, but could never see why he was / is considered greater than Mozart or Beethoven. He despised Wagner who's works I find more moving than Bach's.

I can see that for Wagner, music was the expression of dramatic themes (hence, to some, not pure). I think that is why my teacher despised him (he had a low opinion of the Romantics generally but Wagner was his bete noire). I gave up music as an academic subject in third year (age 13), and my knowledge of music theory is minimal. For me, music as the development of purely musical themes is less important than its emotional effect. Hence what may be a partial 'blind spot' for Bach.

Does any of this strike a chord with others' response to music? 

To the Bach lovers; how much music theory do you have, and how much do you think it has influenced your taste?


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## Kreisler jr

I think there could be a weak connection between loving opera and not being extremely fond of Bach. 
This might be more relevant in your case than anything about music theory. 
Obviously Wagner is also a historically/theoretically extremely important composer and far more controversial than Bach (i.e. there are very few people who strongly dislike Bach's music (a negative reaction is usually rather distinterested boredom, the worst I personally encountered was one who said Bach concertos reminded him too much of baroque putti), but lots who detest Wagner's), so there are probably lots of people who think they might like Wagner more if they knew more theory.


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## Haydn70

I have my BM/MA/PhD in music composition, and I love Bach’s music with a passion! But I remember loving some of his music, particularly the Brandenburg concertos and some of his organ music when I was just at the very beginning of my formal studies, i.e., before I really knew anything substantial about music theory.


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## mmsbls

I think to answer the question one would have to first determine that there is a correlation between knowledge of music theory and special love of Bach. From there, one would have to understand what the causal relationship might be. I have very little knowledge of music theory, but I love Bach. It's true that I probably like Mozart and Beethoven more, but those three are my favorite composers.


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## Art Rock

Bach is my favourite composer and has been for over 30 years. My theoretical music knowledge is limited to being able to read (slowly) and play (badly) a simple score (like right hand and left hand for keyboards).


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## Kreisler jr

There is another aspect I think could be important but it does not hold only for Bach vs. Wagner. But Bach is a composer with a considerable amount of music regularly played by amateur or beginning pianists (like some Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Schumann...) and sung by amateur choristers (like some Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Brahms...). Whereas playing/singing Wagner is rare for non-professional musicians. If you don't "get" Wagner by listening, you are unlikely to appreciate his music by playing some of it. Whereas people who find Bach at first a bit boring only listening might come to love the music by playing e.g. the two part inventions, taking part in a performance of a choral work etc.


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## Bulldog

Bach's my favorite composer, and I have little training in music theory.

Concerning the notion that Bach's music doesn't generate much emotional punch, I think it's nonsense.


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## Allegro Con Brio

I do have training in music theory and this can help to appreciate the formal aspects of the music, but it is absolutely not necessary to understand the piercing emotional ecstasy of Bach's music. No composer has moved me to tears nearly as much as him. Perhaps theory would be more beneficial to understanding the most abstract works such as the AoF and some of the organ works, but in the great choral works, cantatas, cello suites, and WTC; Bach is the ultimate chronicler of the human condition through music of the most overwhelming purity, insight, and sincerity. The technical mastery of his work is a secondary factor to my enjoying it; its inexplicable effect on my mind and heart is foremost.


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## Xisten267

I'm an ardent admirer of both J.S. Bach and Wagner, they are both amongst my most favorite composers of all. Wagner's music in my opinion is much more passionate and powerful in the expression of strong emotions than Bach's, but the latter's works in the other hand tend to show a mastery of craft and a purity of deep spiritual expressions that make me feel I'm in a higher plane when I hear it. Both composers can bring me to an state of ecstasy if I hear them under the right conditions, and both can make me shed some tears sometimes (what usually is somewhat rare for me).

I have only a superficial knowledge of music theory, mostly acquired through books and the internet, as I have never had a formal music training at school.


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## Red Terror

As a fan of classical music for over a decade and still knowing nothing of music theory, Bach remains my favorite composer of all.


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## Livly_Station

Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?


No...

But, obviously, being trained in music can help you follow the music more easily.


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## mbhaub

I have a solid background in harmony/counterpoint/keyboard and although I deeply respect Bach's accomplishments, his work as a whole is just not interesting to me. He did essentially "write the book" on western music - how to harmonize, voice leading, counterpoint and just about everything else. But I did like Bach long before I studied music: from the glorious orchestral transcriptions by Stokowski, Calliet, Raff Elgar and others. My theoretical background allows me to appreciate music on a level that a someone without that knowledge cannot, but that doesn't mean they don't find it immensely satisfying and moving. There are times when too much theory can actually ruin music: you find yourself analyzing and criticizing rather than just enjoying.


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## SanAntone

Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?


I can't say for certain since I have had a fairly serious musical education and I can't listen as if I haven't. But I suspect not, since it is my belief that good music transcends our intellectual capacity and goes directly to our hearts/souls. And it matters not a bit whether it is Bach or Wagner, both can do it.

I am not one to quibble over who's great or not, for me if the music touches you deeply, then you have found a composer to hang on to no matter who says what.


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## Bruckner Anton

I have only some fundamental knowledge in music theory and basic skill in piano playing. So I can not think about how professionals would appreciate Bach's music, because I am not on that level. But I find that most experts in classical music that I know about do consider Bach to be either the greatest composer or among the top. 

I remember professor Robert Greenberg mentions in his lectures that Bach is the greatest composer due to the technical perfection and aesthetical beauty of his works. And he says that though he does not write one single chorale, he considers Bach's chorales essential to the music compositions. He says when he gets stuck on writing his music, he would try some Bach's chorales, not because he is composing in that way, but they contain hints that are helpful to composition in general.


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## mikeh375

I fell in love with Bach long before I knew what triple counterpoint was. When I finally learnt how to write triple counterpoint, love turned into the highest esteem and reverence I have, all for the man who above anyone else imv, married the technical and the musical with such a transcendent and expressive artistry.

For me, 'knowing' does enhance his music, but knowing as such is not a necessary pre-requisite to being moved by his work.


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## Triplets

Some Bach works were written at least partially for study, such as the Art of Fugue, but non musicians such as myself can find them moving. There are many Bach works that just speak directly to the heart, even if they are loaded with counterpoint. Wagner as interested in different aspects of music—chromaticism instead of counterpoint. There is such a timeline between Bach and Wagner that directly comparing the two is beside the point. A popular music equivalent might be comparing the music of the Swing Era with Progressive Rock. There is so much intervening history and development between the two that comparisons are meaningless, although that didn’t stop parents of my generation from frequently offering them up


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## Mandryka

And yet there is a real sense in which late Wagner especially is the most contrapuntal music there is, with its singers expressing one thing and its orchestra expressing something different, sometimes clashing. 

For a just, or more just, comparison, limit thinking to dramatic music. Say Götterdämmerung on the one hand, and The Matthew Passion on the other. Personally I couldn’t rank the end of the former (from Hagen calling the vassals) with the end of the latter (say from Am Abend, da es kühle war. )


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## larold

J.S. Bach is considered to have "invented" equal temperament with the 48 preludes and fugues. He also "invented" or perfected other music forms such as the fugue.

I've never studied music theory but am a musician who has performed Bach. His scores are very difficult -- even the easy ones like Sheep May Safely Graze. Performing something like the St. Matthew Passion, which I have done, takes months of practice and score reading. Even little parts are hard to read, memorize, and perform correctly.

Beethoven is also very difficult but I have performed no music more demanding from a music reading perspective than that of J.S. Bach. For so many thousands of performers to make this music sound easy and simple is remarkable.


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## Endeavour

I don't think there is any connection between people enjoying or loving Bach's music and musical knowledge.

From my experience people like what sounds interesting or good to their own inner ear, although there are a few that I've met who just choose to like stuff other people didn't because of a social concept of something being "mainstream" or whatever. 

But I know plenty of people who don't play any musical instruments or have any kind of musical aptitude whatsoever but they absolutely love and enjoy Bach's Orchestral Suites, Brandenburg Concertos, Cello Suites, Goldberg Variations, etc. The melodic style just fits with something that they find aesthetically pleasing to their ears.


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## Mandryka

larold said:


> J.S. Bach is considered to have "invented" equal temperament with the 48 preludes and fugues. .


No, I don't think that's quite right.


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## premont

larold said:


> J.S. Bach is considered to have "invented" equal temperament with the 48 preludes and fugues.


What do you mean "considered"? Maybe it was common learning 50 years ago, but not to day.


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## pianozach

Bellerophon said:


> *Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory? *
> 
> My music teacher upheld Bach as the greatest composer of all time. I like his work, but could never see why he was / is considered greater than Mozart or Beethoven. He despised Wagner who's works I find more moving than Bach's.
> 
> I can see that for Wagner, music was the expression of dramatic themes (hence, to some, not pure). I think that is why my teacher despised him (he had a low opinion of the Romantics generally but Wagner was his bete noire). I gave up music as an academic subject in third year (age 13), and my knowledge of music theory is minimal. For me, music as the development of purely musical themes is less important than its emotional effect. Hence what may be a partial 'blind spot' for Bach.
> 
> Does any of this strike a chord with others' response to music?
> 
> To the Bach lovers; how much music theory do you have, and how much do you think it has influenced your taste?


Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?

No. You can find plenty of people with a limited knowledge of music theory that love Bach, and plenty that love Wagner.

You can also find plenty of people with an advanced knowledge of music theory that love Bach, and plenty that love Wagner.

They are both great composers, but cannot be directly compared as they are from different stylistic eras.


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## hammeredklavier

larold said:


> J.S. Bach is considered to have "invented" equal temperament with the 48 preludes and fugues.


Well v.s. Equal Temperament
"Equal temperament is appropriate for some music of the 20th century, especially atonal music, and music based on the whole tone scale, but not for the works of the 18th and 19th centuries."
Werckmeister I (III): "correct temperament" based on 1/4 comma divisions
"Werckmeister designated this tuning as particularly suited for playing chromatic music ("ficte"), which may have led to its popularity as a tuning for J.S. Bach's music in recent years."



larold said:


> He also "invented" the fugue.


Listen to fugues (Missa omnium sanctorum ZWV21: kyrie II 



 , Missa dei patris ZWV19: cum sancto spiritu 



)
by Zelenka, who was Bach's senior by about 6 years and was highly regarded by him (Missa votiva ZWV18: credo 



)


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## Kreisler jr

mbhaub said:


> I have a solid background in harmony/counterpoint/keyboard and although I deeply respect Bach's accomplishments, his work as a whole is just not interesting to me. He did essentially "write the book" on western music - how to harmonize, voice leading, counterpoint and just about everything else.


But Bach didn't "write the book" like Newton invented/discovered Mechanics and Calculus and wrote Principia Mathematica. More like Lagrange and Laplace wrote books on Analytic Mechanics 100 or more years later. Bach was no inventor but a systematizer and perfector.


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## tdc

Kreisler jr said:


> Bach was no inventor but a systematizer and perfector.


Well, he did invent the organ trios which are considered among his masterpieces for organ. He invented the keyboard concerto. His riddle canons are unlike anything I've listened to before, and some have pointed out they sound minimalistic over 200 years before minimalism. He redefined the concepts of counterpoint and fugue.

As Milton Mermikides poins out (emphasis mine):

"_Above all, Bach was crafty both in his music and life, and he adored puzzles, games and general *inventive* mischief. His monogram on his wax seal and his goblet was his own design, and at first glance it looks like an ornate decorative symmetrical crest of interlocking swirls. It is in fact built up from his initials JSB overlaid and mirrored, which is apt, as his music uses mirror-like reversals, and is, like the monogram, something immediately beautiful but with hidden meaning."_

I think the creativity he displayed in his life and art goes beyond "systematization".

https://aeon.co/essays/look-into-the-secret-world-of-numerology-and-puzzles-in-bach


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## Mandryka

Surely we can say more for Bach’s invention that that he transcribed some trio sonatas to organ with pedal board! 

Is there anything like the Matthew Passion before Bach/Picander? I mean a religious drama with so much subjectivity, so much emphasis on the character’s feelings about the situation they find themselves in?

Is there any instrumental music which develops ideas so expansively as the Great 18 chorales?

Is there anything with the structural elegance, the symmetry, of the Goldberg Variations?


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## tdc

Mandryka said:


> Surely we can say more for Bach's invention that that he transcribed some trio sonatas to organ with pedal board!


Well...
_"The collection was put together in Leipzig in the late 1720s and contained *reworkings* of prior compositions by Bach from earlier cantatas, organ works and chamber music as well as some *newly composed movements.*"_

_"The collection of sonatas is generally *regarded as one of Bach's masterpieces for organ*."_

_"*Bach created a unique compositional genre in this collection of sonatas*...Bach had in his possession many organ works by seventeenth century French organists such as Boyvin, Clérambault, Grigny, Lebègue and Raison who wrote trios, trios en dialogue and trios à trois claviers for two manuals and pedal, with distinctive registrations for each manual keyboard. *Bach's sonatas however, with their binary or ritornello form, owe very little to these French organ trios.*"_

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_Sonatas_(Bach)

Charles Rosen compares Bach's six organ sonatas to Mozart's string trio k. 563:

_"An essay in contrapuntal and harmonic richness, with a surface ease of manner that makes light of its ingenuity, this work (k.563) is a distillation of Mozart's technique and experience...*No other composer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ever understood the demands of writing for three voices as Mozart did, except for Bach in his six trio-sonatas for double manual and keyboard.*"_

_The Classical Style_ p. 280-281

I think perhaps you underestimate the trio sonatas?


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## Enthusiast

I love Bach - he would be one of my top 3 - but know nothing at all about music theory. I also love opera, including the operas of Monteverdi and Handel. I cannot understand why a lack of music theory knowledge or a love of opera could lead to my thinking less of, or getting less enjoyment from, Bach.


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Bach was no inventor but a systematizer and perfector.


But then none of the famous pre-Romantic composers was really an inventor, if you judge them by the 19th/20th century standards.



Mandryka said:


> Is there anything with the structural elegance, the symmetry, of the Goldberg Variations?


This, though smaller in scale, is idiomatically similar to Bach's:


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## Mandryka

tdc said:


> Well...
> _"The collection was put together in Leipzig in the late 1720s and contained *reworkings* of prior compositions by Bach from earlier cantatas, organ works and chamber music as well as some *newly composed movements.*"_
> 
> _"The collection of sonatas is generally *regarded as one of Bach's masterpieces for organ*."_
> 
> _"*Bach created a unique compositional genre in this collection of sonatas*...Bach had in his possession many organ works by seventeenth century French organists such as Boyvin, Clérambault, Grigny, Lebègue and Raison who wrote trios, trios en dialogue and trios à trois claviers for two manuals and pedal, with distinctive registrations for each manual keyboard. *Bach's sonatas however, with their binary or ritornello form, owe very little to these French organ trios.*"_
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_Sonatas_(Bach)
> 
> Charles Rosen compares Bach's six organ sonatas to Mozart's string trio k. 563:
> 
> _"An essay in contrapuntal and harmonic richness, with a surface ease of manner that makes light of its ingenuity, this work (k.563) is a distillation of Mozart's technique and experience...*No other composer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ever understood the demands of writing for three voices as Mozart did, except for Bach in his six trio-sonatas for double manual and keyboard.*"_
> 
> _The Classical Style_ p. 280-281
> 
> I think perhaps you underestimate the trio sonatas?


What do you think of Telemann's six concerts et six suits?


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## tdc

Mandryka said:


> What do you think of Telemann's six concerts et six suits?


Telemann is a composer I don't often listen to. I do know that particular work was possibly an influence on the Bach organ sonatas. That is about it, I've never listened to the Telemann six concerts et six suits.


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## Mandryka

hammeredklavier said:


> But then none of the famous pre-Romantic composers can really be seen as an "inventor", if you judge them by the 19th/20th century standards.
> 
> This, though smaller in scale, is idiomatically similar to Bach's:


This is Glen Wilson's comment



> Gottsched's main concern was for order, unity, and "rational" rules in the arts, as a reflection of an ordered and rational view of the universe. The classic expression of this outlook is the French formal garden, in which nature is wedded to numbers and geometry. Across the street from the Thomasschule, behind the home of the patrician Bose family (with whom the Bachs were on godparent terms) was the most famous private garden in Leipzig - in the French style. From his workroom in the Thomasschule, Bach could look out across the river Pleisse and see a newly laid-out park with the same geometrical patterns
> 
> These influences from his closest surroundings must have suggested to Bach the well-known ground-plan of the Goldberg Variations. Its numerical rigor and strict symmetries, unparalleled in the history of music, have always been much emphasized; let us review its main points. The thirty Variations are flanked by the Aria and the Aria da capo, like a long facade with pavilions at each end, making a total of 32 movements. The central axis is marked by Variation 16, a French (!) Overture which opens the second half of the work. All the variations which are multiples of 3 (except no. 30) are canonic, with two upper voices in strict imitation and a free bass line. Variation 3 is a canon at the unison, Variation 6 a canon at the interval of a second, and so on, the interval of imitation increasing by step until at Variation 27 (3x3x3), a canon at the ninth (3x3), the accompanying bass voice drops away. Moreover, the Aria and each Variation is a microcosm of the whole, having 32 measures in two sections of sixteen bars, both to be repeated.


http://www.glenwilson.eu/musician.html


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## Mandryka

tdc said:


> Telemann is a composer I don't often listen to. I do know that particular work was possibly an influence on the Bach organ sonatas. That is about it, I've never listened to the Telemann six concerts et six suits.


Bach is a much better composer than Telemann!


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## fluteman

Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?
> 
> My music teacher upheld Bach as the greatest composer of all time. I like his work, but could never see why he was / is considered greater than Mozart or Beethoven. He despised Wagner who's works I find more moving than Bach's.
> 
> I can see that for Wagner, music was the expression of dramatic themes (hence, to some, not pure). I think that is why my teacher despised him (he had a low opinion of the Romantics generally but Wagner was his bete noire). I gave up music as an academic subject in third year (age 13), and my knowledge of music theory is minimal. For me, music as the development of purely musical themes is less important than its emotional effect. Hence what may be a partial 'blind spot' for Bach.
> 
> Does any of this strike a chord with others' response to music?
> 
> To the Bach lovers; how much music theory do you have, and how much do you think it has influenced your taste?


My love of Bach has nothing to do with theory. I fell in love with the C minor fugue, no. 2 from the Well Tempered Clavier, when I was five years old, the moment I heard it on a classics for children LP we had. It wasn't long after that that I became familiar with one of my all time Wagner favorites, Forest Murmurs, which was a theme for one of the regular programs on our local classical radio station. The trouble with Wagner was, later I learned that for me some of his operas were intolerable to sit all the way through, especially Meistersingers and Rienzi. Parsifal had too much complex symbolism to be dramatically compelling (though a member here is happy to explain it all) and also dragged. To this day, I enjoy the overtures and preludes, the Love Death scene from Tristan, Forest Murmurs, Rhine Journey, and various other Wagner highlights, but have little interest in entire operas in one sitting.

Whereas, I've always loved performing and listening to entire works of Bach. My musical training and experience had no impact on any of that.


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## hammeredklavier

tdc said:


> Charles Rosen


You keep relying on the pianist as an authority, but I find him very overrated as a critic and author in classical music. A lot of things he said strike me as excuses to cover up his lack of knowledge and interest in 18th century composers outside of J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel, F.J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart.


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## Mandryka

hammeredklavier said:


> You keep relying on the pianist as an authority, but I find him very overrated as a critic and author in classical music. A lot of things he said strike me as excuses to cover up his lack of knowledge and interest in 18th century composers outside of J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel, F.J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart.


I find him very overrated as a pianist.


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## tdc

hammeredklavier said:


> You keep relying on the pianist as an authority, but I find him very overrated as a critic and author in classical music. A lot of things he said strike me as excuses to cover up his lack of knowledge and interest in 18th century composers outside of J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel, F.J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart.


I find he is quite knowledgeable about those composers, and a good deal of other musical topics. I don't agree with him on all things, but have learned a lot from his writings in addition to the writings of many others. Do you refute the quote I posted in regards to Mozart's k.563 and Bach's organ sonatas?


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## tdc

Mandryka said:


> Bach is a much better composer than Telemann!


Well, yes, but for the record I didn't mean to imply that the only baroque composer worth listening to is Bach. I enjoy the music of Monteverdi, Frescobaldi, Vivaldi, Lully, Rameau, F. Couperin, Buxtehude, Biber, Purcell and more. For some reason Telemann's music doesn't really 'speak' to me.


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## Dimace

After 48 plus years in music, the only thing I could say for the Father is that his music is the necessary medicine if you want to survive in the (wild) world of music. You can not reach the Bahamas if you first you hadn't learned to swim... Bach will lead you to Beethoven, to Wagner and to every other great composer. His music is the esoteric continuum existing in almost every classical or romantic work. The eternal equilibrium which inspires and keeps the balance in the world of music. You like or you don't his music you must live with it, like the humans must live in an environment with oxygen to survive and to thrive.


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## Allegro Con Brio

Dimace said:


> After 48 plus years in music, the only thing I could say for the Father is that his music is the necessary medicine if you want to survive in the (wild) world of music. You can not reach the Bahamas if you first you hadn't learned to swim... Bach will lead you to Beethoven, to Wagner and to every other great composer. His music is the esoteric continuum existing in almost every classical or romantic work. The eternal equilibrium which inspires and keeps the balance in the world of music. You like or you don't his music you must live with it, like the humans must live in an environment with oxygen to survive and to thrive.


Like what Harold Bloom said about Shakespeare, Bach is the center of the Western musical canon. He is an unavoidable, inescapable presence over all music since then; encapsulating, apotheosizing, and foreshadowing all of his forerunners and forebears. In the B Minor Mass alone there is Gregorian chant (Credo and Confiteor), Palestrina (Gratias/Dona nobis pace), Baroque, Beethoven (the glorious Missa Solemnis-esque sonic washes of the Et exspecto and Sanctus), Mozart (Laudamus te, Domine Deus), and Romantic-modern chromaticism (Et incarnatus, Qui tollis, and the astounding transition in the second video below)).



Kreisler jr said:


> Bach was no inventor but a systematizer and perfector.


This is quite fair. However, these pieces almost certainly had no precedent, except maybe Gesualdo:






2:55-end here:










And I don't think the level of personal, poetic, individual-centered expression achieved in many of the cantata and Passion arias can be found elsewhere in the Baroque. Also, I always feel like the closing choruses of both Passions anticipate Schubert, Wagner, and Bruckner in their sumptuous circular melodicism, melting chromatic harmonies, sense of tragic longing; and shadowy, chameleon-like transformations.


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## Luchesi

Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?
> 
> My music teacher upheld Bach as the greatest composer of all time. I like his work, but could never see why he was / is considered greater than Mozart or Beethoven. He despised Wagner who's works I find more moving than Bach's.
> 
> I can see that for Wagner, music was the expression of dramatic themes (hence, to some, not pure). I think that is why my teacher despised him (he had a low opinion of the Romantics generally but Wagner was his bete noire). I gave up music as an academic subject in third year (age 13), and my knowledge of music theory is minimal. For me, music as the development of purely musical themes is less important than its emotional effect. Hence what may be a partial 'blind spot' for Bach.
> 
> Does any of this strike a chord with others' response to music?
> 
> To the Bach lovers; how much music theory do you have, and how much do you think it has influenced your taste?


For me, learning music theory is one of those marvelous understandings - of a whole being much greater than the sum of its individual parts. Many understandings in science are like this, but to me, it was unexpected in music (and in the other arts). You can greatly admire a musical work, and then, analyze it to actually see specifically how the composer did it! What more could we want?


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## tdc

Allegro Con Brio said:


> This is quite fair. However, these pieces almost certainly had no precedent...


To claim that Bach was 'no inventor' is 'quite fair'?

This is the definition of invent:

*To create or design (something that has not existed before); be the originator of.*

Bach created his own music that was without precedent, that is what invention is. Before Bach no one had fully worked out compositions in all 24 keys. In compiling the WTC Bach literally invented something that did not exist before, how much more simply can we break this down? Many other examples have already been given.


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## Allegro Con Brio

tdc said:


> To claim that Bach was 'no inventor' is 'quite fair'?
> 
> This is the definition of invent:
> 
> *To create or design (something that has not existed before); be the originator of.*
> 
> Bach created his own music that was without precedent, that is what invention is. Before Bach no one had fully worked out compositions in all 24 keys. In compiling the WTC Bach literally invented something that did not exist before, how much more simply can we break this down? Many other examples have already been given.


Yup. I took Kreisler jr's statement as meaning that Bach was more of a master of established forms and styles than a radical innovator like Beethoven, Wagner, or Schoenberg. I think he was but it's sometimes not as easy to observe without a music theory background. However, anyone who has spent a significant amount of time with the cantatas will tell you otherwise. I certainly don't disagree with anything in your post here.


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## Yabetz

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Yup. I took Kreisler jr's statement as meaning that Bach was more of a master of established forms and styles than a radical innovator like Beethoven, Wagner, or Schoenberg. ...


I don't know if even Beethoven was that much of a "radical innovator". He still worked within established forms just as Bach and Mozart did. It's what those composers did with those forms that we remember.


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## FrankE

No connection. Music theory might not help one appreciate music but it can help one explain why one likes it.

I was taught very little music theory at school because I played a modern instrument (Saxophone) not very suited to the classical repertoire and I didn't take music as an academic subject.
From the music theory I have I know I like the different types of music I do because e.g.
Bach I like the contrapunctality (complexity and texture in the 8 Elements of Music)
black metal which I've only very recently just developed a liking for the texture, timbre, modals and complexity (darned if I can understand the text.
Knowing a little music theory hasn't changed what I enjoy.
PS I only heard of the Elements of Music a couple of months back with a chance meeting with a music teacher outside a pub and the modals in Metal from a video I watched on Youtube today "The Modes Ranked by Brightness". I knew of some of the modes from cantorial music in synagogue and psy/Goa but wasn't aware they rarely featured between Bach and the romantic/post-romantic era where plain old major and minor scales were used. 

Shameful from a family of musicians but every day's a school day.


----------



## Mandryka

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Like what Harold Bloom said about Shakespeare, Bach is the center of the Western musical canon. He is an unavoidable, inescapable presence over all music since then; encapsulating, apotheosizing, and foreshadowing all of his forerunners and forebears. In the B Minor Mass alone there is Gregorian chant (Credo and Confiteor), Palestrina (Gratias/Dona nobis pace), Baroque, Beethoven (the glorious Missa Solemnis-esque sonic washes of the Et exspecto and Sanctus), Mozart (Laudamus te, Domine Deus), and Romantic-modern chromaticism (Et incarnatus, Qui tollis, and the astounding transition in the second video below)).
> 
> This is quite fair. However, these pieces almost certainly had no precedent, except maybe Gesualdo:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2:55-end here:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And I don't think the level of personal, poetic, individual-centered expression achieved in many of the cantata and Passion arias can be found elsewhere in the Baroque. Also, I always feel like the closing choruses of both Passions anticipate Schubert, Wagner, and Bruckner in their sumptuous circular melodicism, melting chromatic harmonies, sense of tragic longing; and shadowy, chameleon-like transformations.


What do you think of Froberger's suites?


----------



## Allegro Con Brio

Mandryka said:


> What do you think of Froberger's suites?


Never heard of the man until now. Will have to listen tomorrow. Thanks!


----------



## tdc

Yabetz said:


> I don't know if even Beethoven was that much of a "radical innovator". He still worked within established forms just as Bach and Mozart did. It's what those composers did with those forms that we remember.


Yes, what you're saying makes sense to me. To a large degree I see Beethoven's work as an extension of Haydn, Mozart and others building on their ideas in much the same way Bach built on ideas of his predecessors.

With some composers their uniqueness seems essentially a by product of their abilities, and with others there seems to be more of a conscious drive to be original. That I think is one difference in Bach and Beethoven. Beethoven I suspect consciously tried to be original more than Bach did. I think this is true of Wagner and Schoenberg as well. I suspect this desire for originality possibly stems from a kind of insecurity, but can yield good results and open up new avenues for exploration. (It can also yield poor results of course, though the same can be said for a lack of originality).

In terms of innovation I see them as comparable in certain ways. Bach closed out the baroque and Beethoven closed out the classical era. Some suggest Beethoven's innovations were more influential, because he was more influential on the composers that immediately succeeded him and the forms he used 'symphony', 'string quartet' etc. were in heavy use in the romantic era, however the similarities are fairly superficial. The romantic approach to structure differed substantially from the classical approach. Bach certainly had some influence in the classical era and even more in the romantic era, and more still in the modern era. I think his influence and impact on music has grown steadily over time. Time will tell if that is also true of Beethoven.


----------



## Xisten267

tdc said:


> Before Bach no one had fully worked out compositions in all 24 keys. In compiling the WTC Bach literally invented something that did not exist before, how much more simply can we break this down? Many other examples have already been given.





larold said:


> J.S. Bach is considered to have "invented" equal temperament with the 48 preludes and fugues. He also "invented" or perfected other music forms such as the fugue.


The claims above are actually false, for Bach didn't invent equal temperament, didn't invent the fugue, and wasn't the first to work out a composition in all 24 keys after all:

"The two figures frequently credited with the achievement of exact calculation of equal temperament are Zhu Zaiyu (also romanized as Chu-Tsaiyu. Chinese: 朱載堉) in 1584 and Simon Stevin in 1585. According to Fritz A. Kuttner, a critic of the theory, it is known that 'Chu-Tsaiyu presented a highly precise, simple and ingenious method for arithmetic calculation of equal temperament mono-chords in 1584' and that 'Simon Stevin offered a mathematical definition of equal temperament plus a somewhat less precise computation of the corresponding numerical values in 1585 or later.' The developments occurred independently.

(...)

Some of the first Europeans to advocate for equal temperament were lutenists Vincenzo Galilei, Giacomo Gorzanis, and Francesco Spinacino, all of whom wrote music in it.

Simon Stevin was the first to develop 12-TET based on the twelfth root of two, which he described in Van De Spiegheling der singconst (ca. 1605), published posthumously nearly three centuries later in 1884." - *Source here.*

"Although the Well-Tempered Clavier was the first collection of fully worked keyboard pieces in all 24 keys, similar ideas had occurred earlier. Before the advent of modern tonality in the late 17th century, numerous composers produced collections of pieces in all seven modes: Johann Pachelbel's magnificat fugues (composed 1695-1706), Georg Muffat's Apparatus Musico-organisticus of 1690 and Johann Speth's Ars magna of 1693 for example. Furthermore, some two hundred years before Bach's time, equal temperament was realized on plucked string instruments, such as the lute and the theorbo, resulting in several collections of pieces in all keys (although the music was not yet tonal in the modern sense of the word)." - *Source here*.

"Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, two complete sets of 24 Preludes and Fugues written for keyboard in 1722 and 1742, and often known as 'the 48', is generally considered the greatest example of music traversing all 24 keys. Many later composers clearly modelled their sets on Bach's, including the order of the keys.

(...)

While Bach can safely claim the title The Well-Tempered Clavier, he was not the earliest composer to write sets of pieces in all the keys:

(...)

In 1640, Angelo Michele Bartolotti wrote Libro primo di chitarra spagnola, a cycle of passacaglias that moves through all 24 major and minor keys according to the circle of fifths. Also in 1640, Antonio Carbonchi wrote Sonate di chitarra spagnola con intavolatura franzese for guitar.

In 1702, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer wrote a cycle of 20 organ pieces all in different keys in his Ariadne musica. These included E major as well as E in Phrygian mode and again in Dorian mode, but not E minor per se. They also excluded C♯/D♭ major, D♯/E♭ minor, F♯/G♭ major, G♯/A♭ minor, and A♯/B♭ minor. Bach modelled the sequence of his 48 Preludes on Fischer's example." - *Source here.*

"The term fuga was used as far back as the Middle Ages, but was initially used to refer to any kind of imitative counterpoint, including canons, which are now thought of as distinct from fugues. Prior to the 16th century, fugue was originally a genre. It was not until the 16th century that fugal technique as it is understood today began to be seen in pieces, both instrumental and vocal. Fugal writing is found in works such as fantasias, ricercares and canzonas.

'Fugue' as a theoretical term first occurred in 1330 when Jacobus of Liege wrote about the fuga in his Speculum musicae. The fugue arose from the technique of 'imitation', where the same musical material was repeated starting on a different note.

Gioseffo Zarlino, a composer, author, and theorist in the Renaissance, was one of the first to distinguish between the two types of imitative counterpoint: fugues and canons (which he called imitations). Originally, this was to aid improvisation, but by the 1550s, it was considered a technique of composition. The composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525?-1594) wrote masses using modal counterpoint and imitation, and fugal writing became the basis for writing motets as well.Palestrina's imitative motets differed from fugues in that each phrase of the text had a different subject which was introduced and worked out separately, whereas a fugue continued working with the same subject or subjects throughout the entire length of the piece.

It was in the Baroque period that the writing of fugues became central to composition, in part as a demonstration of compositional expertise. Fugues were incorporated into a variety of musical forms. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Johann Jakob Froberger and Dieterich Buxtehude all wrote fugues..." - *Source here.*

I think that the WTC is like Beethoven's _Pastoral_ symphony in the sense that both works are extremely influential due to their greatness and fame, but both works also have important precedents, not being totally groundbreaking like many may think.


----------



## Xisten267

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Like what Harold Bloom said about Shakespeare, *Bach is the center of the Western musical canon.* He is an unavoidable, inescapable presence over all music since then; encapsulating, apotheosizing, and foreshadowing all of his forerunners and forebears. In the B Minor Mass alone there is Gregorian chant (Credo and Confiteor), Palestrina (Gratias/Dona nobis pace), Baroque, *Beethoven (the glorious Missa Solemnis-esque sonic washes of the Et exspecto and Sanctus)*, Mozart (Laudamus te, Domine Deus), and Romantic-modern chromaticism (Et incarnatus, Qui tollis, and the astounding transition in the second video below)).


I agree that Bach is in the center of the Western musical canon - but together with Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Brahms and a few others, not alone. About Beethoven's _Missa Solemnis_ being influenced by Bach, I think that it's interesting to note that the inverse is also kind of true, in the sense that the Beethoven mass may have been a definitive influence in how we hear the Benedictus of Bach's Mass in B minor nowadays in some performances:

"Butt writes that Bach 'forgot to specify the instrument' for the obbligato; Stauffer adds the possibilities that Bach had not decided which instrument to use or that he was 'indifferent' and left the choice open. The Bach-Ausgabe edition assigned it to the violin, and Stauffer suggests this choice may have been influenced by Beethoven's use of the violin in the Benedictus of his Missa solemnis. Modern editors and performers have preferred the flute; as Butt notes, the part never uses the G-string of the violin, and modern commentators 'consider the range and style to be more suitable for the transverse flute.'" - *Source here.*


----------



## tdc

Xisten267 said:


> wasn't the first to work out a composition in all 24 keys after all:
> 
> "Although the Well-Tempered Clavier was the first collection of fully worked keyboard pieces in all 24 keys, similar ideas had occurred earlier. Before the advent of modern tonality in the late 17th century, numerous composers produced collections of pieces in all seven modes: Johann Pachelbel's magnificat fugues (composed 1695-1706), Georg Muffat's Apparatus Musico-organisticus of 1690 and Johann Speth's Ars magna of 1693 for example. Furthermore, some two hundred years before Bach's time, equal temperament was realized on plucked string instruments, such as the lute and the theorbo, resulting in several collections of pieces in all keys (although the music was not yet tonal in the modern sense of the word)." - *Source here*.
> 
> "Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, two complete sets of 24 Preludes and Fugues written for keyboard in 1722 and 1742, and often known as 'the 48', is generally considered the greatest example of music traversing all 24 keys. Many later composers clearly modelled their sets on Bach's, including the order of the keys.
> 
> (...)
> 
> While Bach can safely claim the title The Well-Tempered Clavier, he was not the earliest composer to write sets of pieces in all the keys:
> 
> (...)
> 
> In 1640, Angelo Michele Bartolotti wrote Libro primo di chitarra spagnola, a cycle of passacaglias that moves through all 24 major and minor keys according to the circle of fifths. Also in 1640, Antonio Carbonchi wrote Sonate di chitarra spagnola con intavolatura franzese for guitar.




Fair enough, I should have included the word 'keyboard'.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Xisten267 said:


> The Bach-Ausgabe edition assigned it to the violin, and Stauffer suggests this choice may have been influenced by Beethoven's use of the violin in the Benedictus of his Missa solemnis.


Or Beethoven and the Bach-Ausgabe editors might have been influenced by stuff like this, to choose the violin for the obbligato:




I think it's possible since it's also speculated he was influenced by 



, 



 in writing his own Et incarnatus est, which starts with a dramatic chordal gesture to signify a transition to the section (right before the harmonization of the Gregorian melody), like the examples above, (except the Beethoven is more "spacious")


----------



## Kreisler jr

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Like what Harold Bloom said about Shakespeare, Bach is the center of the Western musical canon. He is an unavoidable, inescapable presence over all music since then; encapsulating, apotheosizing, and foreshadowing all of his forerunners and forebears. In the B Minor Mass alone there is Gregorian chant (Credo and Confiteor), Palestrina (Gratias/Dona nobis pace),


But this is historically an extremely curious case. How can a piece like the b minor Mass that was at most partially performed during Bach's lifetime and virtually unknown for a century (unpublished until the 1820s, not performed except partially and rarely until another decade or two later) stand for "the center"? 
(And there are bits of Gregorian melodies and "stile antico" in lots of other 18th century church music.)

Bach is a retrospectively declared the summit or center from late 19th century ("evil German nationalist") musicology and even then this was not at all true in actual practice, because of course only very few works were performed and in shapes both Bach and ourselves would have had some difficulty recognizing (they cut the St. Matthew to shreds even in 1950s performances). It's not a completely wrong perspective, but it seems quite unhistorical to me.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio

Historical recognition/contemporary reception IMO has nothing to do with canonicity, which is inherent in the artist's work itself.



Kreisler jr said:


> Bach is a retrospectively declared the summit or center from late 19th century ("evil German nationalist") musicology


I would be interested in further explanation of this thought. From what I understand of it, I couldn't disagree more. I'm assuming you're not saying that Bach is commonly considered the best just because German nationalists said he was.


----------



## Kreisler jr

hammeredklavier said:


> But then none of the famous pre-Romantic composers was really an inventor, if you judge them by the 19th/20th century standards.


Monteverdi (seconda pratica, opera) and Vivaldi (high/late baroque solo concerto) were really inventors, probably a few more in the 17th century when you dig (and before as well, but I don't know enough about earlier music). E.g., one could say Purcell invented English opera.

Bach was very inventive within the framework he was handed historically, I am not denying this. And some pieces like the 5th Brandenburg as maybe the first real keyboard concerto or the organ trios or the violin/keyboard sonatas are justly emphasized.


----------



## Yabetz

Kreisler jr said:


> Monteverdi (seconda pratica, opera) and Vivaldi (high/late baroque solo concerto) were really inventors, probably a few more in the 17th century when you dig...


Didn't Vivaldi simply follow a form that Corelli also used?

By the way, Bach's B minor Mass was circulated via manuscript in the 18th century.


----------



## Mandryka

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Historical recognition/contemporary reception IMO has nothing to do with canonicity, which is inherent in the artist's work itself.
> 
> .


You may be wrong about that. But canonicity is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for quality. Whether something is part of the canon depends partly on accessibility, which has to do with the capabilities of the audience.

Machaut is as great a composer as Bach if not greater, but the music is too strange for the audience. From the other point of view, Brahms and Palestrina are in the canon.


----------



## Yabetz

Mandryka said:


> You may be wrong about that.


Maybe, but then the question would still be "why Bach?"


----------



## Mandryka

Yabetz said:


> Maybe, but then the question would still be "why Bach?"


I think Bach was very good at composing music. My point was that's not a sufficient condition for canonicity, and IMO not a necessary one either.


----------



## mmsbls

Mandryka said:


> You may be wrong about that. But canonicity is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for quality. Whether something is part of the canon depends partly on accessibility, which has to do with the capabilities of the audience.


I agree being in the canon is not necessary for music to be high quality, but I don't think I agree that being in the canon is not a sufficient condition for high quality. I consider all composers in the canon to have created high quality music. Of course that depends on where one sets the bar for high quality.



Mandryka said:


> Machaut is as great a composer as Bach if not greater, but the music is too strange for the audience. From the other point of view, Brahms and Palestrina are in the canon.


Machaut is in every canon I've seen that includes a reasonable number of composers. I'm not sure I understand your point about Brahms and Palestrina.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Monteverdi (seconda pratica, opera) and Vivaldi (high/late baroque solo concerto)


But also, these guys were virtually forgotten up until the 20th century.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> But this is historically an extremely curious case. How can a piece like the b minor Mass that was at most partially performed during Bach's lifetime and virtually unknown for a century (unpublished until the 1820s, not performed except partially and rarely until another decade or two later) stand for "the center"?
> (And there are bits of Gregorian melodies and "stile antico" in lots of other 18th century church music.)


"From the early 1800s Bach's B-minor Mass was easily accessible to connoisseurs in Vienna. A copy of the Mass is listed in Johann Traeg's sales catalogue of 1804. The entry on page 58 of the "First" and, as it were, last "supplement to the catalogue of manuscript and printed music which are to be had at the purveyors of art and music Johann Traeg and Son in Vienna" reads: [No.] 151 Bach, J. S. Missa a 5 Voci 2 Viol. 2 Fl. 2 Ob. 3 Trombe Tymp A e B. In the same catalogue Bach's Magnificat, a "Missa a 4 Voci con Stromenti', the six parts of the Christmas Oratorio, six chorale cantatas (BWV 101, 125, 133, 94, 69a [?], 14), the cantata Phoebus and Pan (BWV 201) and an "Aria" for two choirs and instruments (probably the final chorus of the St Matthew Passion) were also listed. The scoring "a 5 Voci" obviously refers to the B-minor Mass, whereas the setting "a 4 Voci" cannot yet be securely identified. Around the same time, the B-minor Mass shows up as No. 193 in "J. Haydn's Verzeichniss musicalischer Werke theils eigner, theils fremder Comp[o]sition': Joh: Sebastian Bach. Missa. 5 Voci, erster und zweyter Theil in der Partitur. The whereabouts of either manuscript copy formerly remained unknown. Until recently, a manuscript score copied after 1800, which later was given or sold to the avid Bach collector Georg Poelchau and finally ended up in his collection in the Königliche Bibliothek in Berlin (now the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preubischer Kulturbesitz; shelfmark Mus. ms. Bach P 11-12), was regarded as the earliest evidence of the B-minor Mass in Vienna."


----------



## hammeredklavier

(published in 1799)


----------



## Luchesi

Xisten267 said:


> The claims above are actually false, for Bach didn't invent equal temperament, didn't invent the fugue, and wasn't the first to work out a composition in all 24 keys after all:
> 
> "The two figures frequently credited with the achievement of exact calculation of equal temperament are Zhu Zaiyu (also romanized as Chu-Tsaiyu. Chinese: 朱載堉) in 1584 and Simon Stevin in 1585. According to Fritz A. Kuttner, a critic of the theory, it is known that 'Chu-Tsaiyu presented a highly precise, simple and ingenious method for arithmetic calculation of equal temperament mono-chords in 1584' and that 'Simon Stevin offered a mathematical definition of equal temperament plus a somewhat less precise computation of the corresponding numerical values in 1585 or later.' The developments occurred independently.
> 
> (...)
> 
> Some of the first Europeans to advocate for equal temperament were lutenists Vincenzo Galilei, Giacomo Gorzanis, and Francesco Spinacino, all of whom wrote music in it.
> 
> Simon Stevin was the first to develop 12-TET based on the twelfth root of two, which he described in Van De Spiegheling der singconst (ca. 1605), published posthumously nearly three centuries later in 1884." - *Source here.*
> 
> "Although the Well-Tempered Clavier was the first collection of fully worked keyboard pieces in all 24 keys, similar ideas had occurred earlier. Before the advent of modern tonality in the late 17th century, numerous composers produced collections of pieces in all seven modes: Johann Pachelbel's magnificat fugues (composed 1695-1706), Georg Muffat's Apparatus Musico-organisticus of 1690 and Johann Speth's Ars magna of 1693 for example. Furthermore, some two hundred years before Bach's time, equal temperament was realized on plucked string instruments, such as the lute and the theorbo, resulting in several collections of pieces in all keys (although the music was not yet tonal in the modern sense of the word)." - *Source here*.
> 
> "Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, two complete sets of 24 Preludes and Fugues written for keyboard in 1722 and 1742, and often known as 'the 48', is generally considered the greatest example of music traversing all 24 keys. Many later composers clearly modelled their sets on Bach's, including the order of the keys.
> 
> (...)
> 
> While Bach can safely claim the title The Well-Tempered Clavier, he was not the earliest composer to write sets of pieces in all the keys:
> 
> (...)
> 
> In 1640, Angelo Michele Bartolotti wrote Libro primo di chitarra spagnola, a cycle of passacaglias that moves through all 24 major and minor keys according to the circle of fifths. Also in 1640, Antonio Carbonchi wrote Sonate di chitarra spagnola con intavolatura franzese for guitar.
> 
> In 1702, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer wrote a cycle of 20 organ pieces all in different keys in his Ariadne musica. These included E major as well as E in Phrygian mode and again in Dorian mode, but not E minor per se. They also excluded C♯/D♭ major, D♯/E♭ minor, F♯/G♭ major, G♯/A♭ minor, and A♯/B♭ minor. Bach modelled the sequence of his 48 Preludes on Fischer's example." - *Source here.*
> 
> "The term fuga was used as far back as the Middle Ages, but was initially used to refer to any kind of imitative counterpoint, including canons, which are now thought of as distinct from fugues. Prior to the 16th century, fugue was originally a genre. It was not until the 16th century that fugal technique as it is understood today began to be seen in pieces, both instrumental and vocal. Fugal writing is found in works such as fantasias, ricercares and canzonas.
> 
> 'Fugue' as a theoretical term first occurred in 1330 when Jacobus of Liege wrote about the fuga in his Speculum musicae. The fugue arose from the technique of 'imitation', where the same musical material was repeated starting on a different note.
> 
> Gioseffo Zarlino, a composer, author, and theorist in the Renaissance, was one of the first to distinguish between the two types of imitative counterpoint: fugues and canons (which he called imitations). Originally, this was to aid improvisation, but by the 1550s, it was considered a technique of composition. The composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525?-1594) wrote masses using modal counterpoint and imitation, and fugal writing became the basis for writing motets as well.Palestrina's imitative motets differed from fugues in that each phrase of the text had a different subject which was introduced and worked out separately, whereas a fugue continued working with the same subject or subjects throughout the entire length of the piece.
> 
> It was in the Baroque period that the writing of fugues became central to composition, in part as a demonstration of compositional expertise. Fugues were incorporated into a variety of musical forms. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Johann Jakob Froberger and Dieterich Buxtehude all wrote fugues..." - *Source here.*
> 
> I think that the WTC is like Beethoven's _Pastoral_ symphony in the sense that both works are extremely influential due to their greatness and fame, but both works also have important precedents, not being totally groundbreaking like many may think.


We will accept them unthinkingly as true because the works are so good.

I remember reading long ago

Beethoven's IQ was 120 
while JsB was 135 
and Mozart came in at 165.
This sounded reasonable to me, but of course it's all just an opinion, I assume. I think they tried to use juvenilia.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Monteverdi (seconda pratica, opera) and Vivaldi (high/late baroque solo concerto) were really inventors, probably a few more in the 17th century when you dig (and before as well, but I don't know enough about earlier music). E.g., one could say Purcell invented English opera.


https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112602288
Schoenberg described Bach as the first twelve tone composer.





Dafne (1597) by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. 
Likewise, Vivaldi also followed Torelli's practice in the concerto.
I'm not sure if "English opera" is really that groundbreaking an invention from "opera". How groundbreaking an invention is the Deutsche hochamt/messe/requiem from the Latin setting of the ordinary and proper?


----------



## Xisten267

tdc said:


> Fair enough, I should have included the word 'keyboard'.


Mattheson's _Exemplarische Organisten-Probe_ is for keyboard (organ) and includes 48 figured bass exercises in all keys. It's from 1719, so it predates Bach's WTC by a few years. Pachelbel's _Fugen und Praeambuln über die gewöhnlichsten Tonos figuratos_, an even earlier work, is now lost but may have contained prelude-fugue pairs in all keys.



hammeredklavier said:


> https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112602288
> Schoenberg described Bach as the first twelve tone composer.


I checked the link you posted and the interview in it seems to imply that the A minor prelude from Bach's WTC contains a 12-tone row, but I asked someone who knows more music theory than me about this and was told that the said prelude actually contains a 10 note sequence that occurs over a bass line that repeats some of its notes and includes the two "missing" notes, what, according to him, doesn't really fit the modern idea of what a tone row actually is.



hammeredklavier said:


> (published in 1799)


So, C.H. Graun is more central to music than Mozart, and M. Haydn isn't central at all? Interesting.



Allegro Con Brio said:


> Like what Harold Bloom said about Shakespeare, Bach is the center of the Western musical canon.


I would be the first to agree that Bach is one of the central figures in all music I know, Western or not. But the idea of him as the one and only center, as if Bach had been a kind of "chosen one" of music, sounds a bit too dogmatic to me.


----------



## tdc

Xisten267 said:


> Mattheson's _Exemplarische Organisten-Probe_ is for keyboard (organ) and includes 48 figured bass exercises in all keys. It's from 1719, so it predates Bach's WTC by a few years. Pachelbel's _Fugen und Praeambuln über die gewöhnlichsten Tonos figuratos_, an even earlier work, is now lost but may have contained prelude-fugue pairs in all keys.


From your own post earlier in this thread and from wiki:

"Although *the Well-Tempered Clavier was the first collection of fully worked keyboard pieces in all 24 keys*, similar ideas had occurred earlier."

That was my source for that. Ultimately works that have staying power and end up as influential often get credited as "firsts", even if technically other works predated them. For example there were other attempts at opera before Monteverdi, yet Monteverdi generally gets credited as the originator of opera.


----------



## 59540

tdc said:


> From your own post earlier in this thread and from wiki:
> 
> "Although *the Well-Tempered Clavier was the first collection of fully worked keyboard pieces in all 24 keys*, similar ideas had occurred earlier."
> 
> That was my source for that. Ultimately works that have staying power and end up as influential often get credited as "firsts", even if technically other works predated them. For example there were other attempts at opera before Monteverdi, yet Monteverdi generally gets credited as the originator of opera.


It's because the scope and skill displayed in the WTC truly were unprecedented. The fact that it wasn't the "first" is just trivia.


----------



## Livly_Station

I love the _Well-Tempered Clavier_ -- but I don't really see the point of how it "consolidates" or "proves" equal-temperament just because he wrote preludes and fugues for all 24 keys.

Once you have the equal-temperement tuning system figured out (which was not Bach's invention), of course you can write pieces in all keys -- they're all the same!!! Writing a set of 24 works in all keys is just being _cute_, not inventive. Just so people don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that the WTC isn't a masterpiece, because it is!

Instead, a more convincing argument to claim that a work "proves" the usefulness of equal-temperament would be if this hypotethical work used all _harmonic resources_ and _modulations_ possible by equal-temperament in a single piece in a single key. In general, you could say that of Bach because he was a master of harmony, not only in the WTC, but in his entire oeuvre.


----------



## tdc

Livly_Station said:


> I love the _Well-Tempered Clavier_ -- but I don't really see the point of how it "consolidates" or "proves" equal-temperament just because he wrote preludes and fugues for all 24 keys.
> 
> Once you have the equal-temperement tuning system figured out (which was not Bach's invention), of course you can write pieces in all keys -- they're all the same!!! Writing a set of 24 works in all keys is just being _cute_, not inventive. Just so people don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that the WTC isn't a masterpiece, because it is!
> 
> Instead, a more convincing argument to claim that a work "proves" the usefulness of equal-temperament would be if this hypotethical work used all _harmonic resources_ and _modulations_ possible by equal-temperament in a single piece in a single key. In general, you could say that of Bach because he was a master of harmony, not only in the WTC, but in his entire oeuvre.


The only person that said wtc 'proves' equal temperament, is larold who occasionally comes into threads and makes false claims like Bach invented equal temperament and the fugue etc.

Aside from that, no, the keys are not all the same, as anyone that has composed or played through pieces in different keys will tell you.

I think it is fair to say Bach was inventive in all of the genres he worked with. I used the wtc as just one example of his inventiveness after first pointing out his creation of the organ trio sonatas and the keyboard concerto, the riddle canons etc. I did not hold it up as Bach's most inventive work or anything like that. Now it seems like people are conflating points.


----------



## 59540

Bach was advertising well temperament anyway, not equal temperament.


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## Livly_Station

In regards to Bach and the WTC, I'm not answering anyone in particular. I was just voicing my opinion on the discussion since many people were talking about it.



tdc said:


> Aside from that, no, the keys are not all the same, as anyone that has composed or played through pieces in different keys will tell you.


Well, in fact, it is not all the same: there are Major and Minor keys, so there are 2 types. Apart from that, I don't think there's anything substantially different from C major and E major other than pitch... or how your hands fit each key at the keyboard, but that's not a musical difference, but a mechanical difference for keyboardists.

Now, if you have synesthesia, maybe you can claim that each key has a different color/mood, but often enough people can't actually tell the difference even when they think they can. Just play a piano piece in another key and even other musicians won't notice the difference (if they're not looking at they keys).

At last, I must say that keys matter for orchestration, since many instruments in an orchestra (or the human voice) have a limited range of notes, so you have to be mindful to choose a key where people can play your ideas. This fact ends up having textural/timbral effects on the music, so it can influence on how someone perceives a key... but that's not something intrinsic to the pitch.


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## 59540

Livly_Station said:


> Well, in fact, it is not all the same: there are Major and Minor keys, so there are 2 types. Apart from that, I don't think there's anything substantially different from C major and E major other than pitch... or how your hands fit each key at the keyboard, but that's not a musical difference, but a mechanical difference for keyboardists.


Hm. You should look into well temperament. What you described is the effect of equal temperament.


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## Livly_Station

dissident said:


> Hm. You should look into well temperament. What you described is the effect of equal temperament.


Yeah, but that sounds like a pointless fact considering we don't know for sure how Bach tuned his keyboard, and most people just played (and still plays) the WTC in equal-temperament anyway.


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## 59540

Livly_Station said:


> Yeah, but that sounds like a pointless fact considering we don't know for sure how Bach tuned his keyboard, and most people just played (and still plays) the WTC in equal-temperament anyway.


Well we may not know the exact frequencies but we can know pretty well what relationship between pitches he thought of as good. The point is that well temperament is not the same as equal temperament.


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## Livly_Station

dissident said:


> Well we may not know the exact frequencies but we can know pretty well what relationship between pitches he thought of as good. The point is that well temperament is not the same as equal temperament.


I'm aware that well-temperament is different from equal-temperament, but since Bach didn't invent well-temperament either, then we could only understand what Bach contributed to well-temperament (like how he perceived the nuances of each key in that tuning) if we listened to the WTC with the right tuning. Otherwise, it's just a vague and pointless abstraction, and my previous arguments about the "WTC and equal-temperament" are still usable for the "WTC and well-temperament".


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## Xisten267

tdc said:


> From your own post earlier in this thread and from wiki:
> 
> "Although the Well-Tempered Clavier was the first collection of *fully worked* keyboard pieces in all 24 keys, similar ideas had occurred earlier."
> 
> That was my source for that. Ultimately works that have staying power and end up as influential often get credited as "firsts", even if technically other works predated them. For example there were other attempts at opera before Monteverdi, yet Monteverdi generally gets credited as the originator of opera.


It seems that the keywords in the context of the quote you cited are "fully worked". I understand that the WTC was not the first cycle of pieces for keyboard using all 24 keys, but it's the first great, sophisticated work by a major composer to do so.


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## tdc

Xisten267 said:


> It seems that the keywords in the context of the quote you cited are "fully worked". I understand that the WTC was not the first cycle of pieces for keyboard using all 24 keys, but it's the first great, sophisticated work by a major composer to do so.


Right and in the original post of mine you quoted (post #42) I said 'fully worked', I just failed to include the word 'keyboard'.


----------



## tdc

Livly_Station said:


> In regards to Bach and the WTC, I'm not answering anyone in particular. I was just voicing my opinion on the discussion since many people were talking about it.
> 
> Well, in fact, it is not all the same: there are Major and Minor keys, so there are 2 types. Apart from that, I don't think there's anything substantially different from C major and E major other than pitch... or how your hands fit each key at the keyboard, but that's not a musical difference, but a mechanical difference for keyboardists.
> 
> Now, if you have synesthesia, maybe you can claim that each key has a different color/mood, but often enough people can't actually tell the difference even when they think they can. Just play a piano piece in another key and even other musicians won't notice the difference (if they're not looking at they keys).
> 
> At last, I must say that keys matter for orchestration, since many instruments in an orchestra (or the human voice) have a limited range of notes, so you have to be mindful to choose a key where people can play your ideas. This fact ends up having textural/timbral effects on the music, so it can influence on how someone perceives a key... but that's not something intrinsic to the pitch.


Different keys have different compositional and performing quirks and challenges, and as mentioned by dissident in well-tempered tuning quite possibly had other subtle aural differences. Melodic ranges can vary by key. It is an interesting topic, for sure.


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## Mandryka

dissident said:


> Bach was advertising well temperament anyway, not equal temperament.


What is well temperament?


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## Mandryka

Xisten267 said:


> It seems that the keywords in the context of the quote you cited are "fully worked". I understand that the WTC was not the first cycle of pieces for keyboard using all 24 keys, but it's the first great, sophisticated work by a major composer to do so.


It's an interesting thought and strange if true, because there are earlier works which explored systematically all the modes - for example, Frescobaldi's Fantasias - which I think Bach would have been aware of. I just found this on the web which looks interesting in fact, there were loads of modal cycles

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...=onepage&q=titelouze magnificat cycle&f=false


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## hammeredklavier

"In Fugue 24 the chromatically altered tones are neither substitutes nor parts of scales. They possess distinctly an independence resembling the unrelated tones of the chromatic scale in a basic set of a twelve-tone composition. The only essential difference between their nature and modern chromaticism is that they do not take advantage of their multiple meaning as a means of changing direction in a modulatory fashion." -Arnold Schoenberg


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## 59540

Mandryka said:


> What is well temperament?


http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mrubinst/tuning/tuning.html


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## Xisten267

Luchesi said:


> We will accept them unthinkingly as true because the works are so good.
> 
> I remember reading long ago
> 
> Beethoven's IQ was 120
> while JsB was 135
> and Mozart came in at 165.
> This sounded reasonable to me, but of course it's all just an opinion, I assume. I think they tried to use juvenilia.


Someone told me once that Beethoven's IQ was 175, and Bach's and Mozart's were 160 (supposedly the same as Einstein's). Reasonable, but the exercise of trying to guess how intelligent these composers were is pointless in my opinion, for we just don't really know.


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## Xisten267

tdc said:


> With some composers their uniqueness seems essentially a by product of their abilities, and with others there seems to be more of a conscious drive to be original. That I think is one difference in Bach and Beethoven. Beethoven I suspect consciously tried to be original more than Bach did. I think this is true of Wagner and Schoenberg as well. I suspect this desire for originality possibly stems from a kind of insecurity, but can yield good results and open up new avenues for exploration. (It can also yield poor results of course, though the same can be said for a lack of originality).


I think that it's the opposite, it's the lack of originality that is a weakness. Those who avoid leaving their comfort zones to try something genuinely original in fear of others' criticisms are the insecure.


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## 59540

Xisten267 said:


> I think that it's the opposite, it's the lack of originality that is a weakness. Those who avoid leaving their comfort zones to try something genuinely original in fear of others' criticisms are the insecure.


I'd say that few things are "genuinely original". And anyway you can hide a lot of slop behind the "original" label. I think tdc above is onto something as regards Bach -- although I disagree with his apparently low opinion of Beethoven. Bach's focus I think was on *excellence* rather than the shockingly "original" for its own sake. I don't think the man was artistically insecure at all.


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## Xisten267

dissident said:


> I'd say that few things are "genuinely original". And anyway you can hide a lot of slop behind the "original" label. I think tdc above is onto something as regards Bach -- although I disagree with his apparently low opinion of Beethoven. Bach's focus I think was on *excellence* rather than the shockingly "original" for its own sake. I don't think the man was artistically insecure at all.


I think that Bach was very original. Not only he had his own musical voice, but he left the comfort zone in many moments - for example by making those singular instrumentations for the Brandemburg concertos, or by making very challenging and unique trio sonatas for organ, or by creating an elaborated compendium of keyboard pieces that use all the 24 keys. In my opinion, originality is a key factor in music appreciation, and to me it's natural that those who are too much derivative of others tend to be forgotten.

Note that by "genuinely original" I don't mean "without influences". And I didn't mean to call J.S. Bach an insecure artist at all.


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## 59540

Xisten267 said:


> I think that Bach was very original. Not only he had his own musical voice, but he left the comfort zone in many moments - for example by making those singular instrumentations for the Brandemburg concertos, or by making very challenging and unique trio sonatas for organ, or by creating an elaborated compendium of keyboard pieces that use all the 24 keys. In my opinion, originality is a key factor in music appreciation, and to me it's natural that those who are too much derivative of others tend to be forgotten.
> 
> Note that by "genuinely original" I don't mean "without influences". And I didn't mean to call J.S. Bach an insecure artist at all.


The ironic thing is that in 1751 a lot of European musicians might've said that Bach was too firmly planted in his own "comfort zone" of outdated polyphonic styles and forms.


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## Couchie

Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?
> 
> My music teacher upheld Bach as the greatest composer of all time. I like his work, but could never see why he was / is considered greater than Mozart or Beethoven. He despised Wagner who's works I find more moving than Bach's.
> 
> I can see that for Wagner, music was the expression of dramatic themes (hence, to some, not pure). I think that is why my teacher despised him (he had a low opinion of the Romantics generally but Wagner was his bete noire). I gave up music as an academic subject in third year (age 13), and my knowledge of music theory is minimal. For me, music as the development of purely musical themes is less important than its emotional effect. Hence what may be a partial 'blind spot' for Bach.
> 
> Does any of this strike a chord with others' response to music?
> 
> To the Bach lovers; how much music theory do you have, and how much do you think it has influenced your taste?


Well Bach and Wagner are my two favorite composers. And I don't get where the Wagner hate would come from, Wagner's writing is more contrapuntal than most of his operatic contemporaries.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> The ironic thing is that in 1751 a lot of European musicians might've said that Bach was too firmly planted in his own "comfort zone" of outdated polyphonic styles and forms.


More like it was because of the Baroque idiom of the Doctrine of the Affections than the polyphony and counterpoint. A lot of composers even after 1751 made their living by writing copious amount of "contrapuntal music"; Naumann, Aumann (influenced Bruckner), Brixi, Hasse, Richter, Pasterwitz, L. Mozart, Albrechtsberger, Adlgasser, Holzbauer, to name a few. No one called them "outdated" in their time; there was demand for their music in their own time, and its not for us in the 21th century to decide based on some dogmatic frame that it was "outdated". 
And also, the thinking that Handel was considered somehow modern in his time whereas Bach wasn't, is a modern-day delusion. In the late 18th century, Mozart and the British also called Handel's music "ancient" (see "Concerts of Antient Music in London"). I can point to numerous sections of the Bach Lutheran masses and cantatas that could only have been written in the late Baroque (early 18th century) and no other periods.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> More like it was because of the Baroque idiom of the Doctrine of the Affections than the polyphony and counterpoint.


I think it had less to do with that than the complexity and "obscurity" of Bach's music. See the criticism of Bach by his contemporary Johann Adolf Scheibe.


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## Livly_Station

dissident said:


> I think it had less to do with that than the complexity and "obscurity" of Bach's music. See the criticism of Bach by his contemporary Johann Adolf Scheibe.


One person is hardly enough to establish a pattern of how people thought of Bach at his time.

That said, Bach became "outdated" in the sense that _galant music_ was getting highly popular with aristocrats while Bach didn't do much in that style, so any patrons/employers who liked this new music would probably seek younger composers, like Bach's sons, instead of Bach himself. However, we're talking about a different era and we can't assume that people of that time acted like people of the present do in the way they regarded older styles. Besides, as we know, there was still demand for Bach's music (and for other composers more like him), and he was highly respected by his peers.


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## Allegro Con Brio

hammeredklavier said:


> More like it was because of the Baroque idiom of the Doctrine of the Affections


Yes, Bach is still quite respectful of this Baroque idea - he never innovated just for its own sake - but there are also many, many times where he challenges it; he was by no means confined to it.

"There are several explicit examples of word painting, one notably being the sustained high f on the word Kreuz--Cross (bars 35-6). But remarkable is the change of mood (from bar 43) for the words --Denn denen, die auf Jesum Hoffen--those putting faith in Jesus (for whom the doorway to salvation remains ever open). Here Bach temporarily abandons the established rhythmic characteristics of the first section in order to convey a semi-tranquil, less hectic mood. Minor becomes major, the phrases are more symmetrical and the unpredictable rhythmic outbursts are replaced by an even, flowing melodic line. Bach was not one of those Baroque composers who held rigidly to the theory of ′affect′ i.e. one movement sustaining fundamentally the same mood throughout. Whilst retaining full control over matters of structural unity, he was able to convey very different ideas and contrasting emotions within the one uniquely original movement. His various experiments with combined chorale, recitative, aria and ritornello principles further illustrate this point." - Julian Mincham on the tenor aria of BWV 178 

"The music is convoluted in thought and structure, but, nevertheless, maintains a remorseless logic...changes of texture, tempo, time signature and instrumentation follow each other rapidly, but with no loss of musical cohesiveness. If any evidence is required to dispute the view that Baroque movements were designed to express a single emotion or 'affect', it can be found here." - Bass recitative/aria of BWV 127


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## hammeredklavier

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Yes, Bach is still quite respectful of this Baroque idea - he never innovated just for its own sake - but there are also many, many times where he challenges it; he was by no means confined to it.


True. Look at the rhythm/tempo changes in this:




 (~11:10)


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## Mandryka

Livly_Station said:


> One person is hardly enough to establish a pattern of how people thought of Bach at his time.
> 
> That said, Bach became "outdated" in the sense that _galant music_ was getting highly popular with aristocrats while Bach didn't do much in that style, so any patrons/employers who liked this new music would probably seek younger composers, like Bach's sons, instead of Bach himself. However, we're talking about a different era and we can't assume that people of that time acted like people of the present do in the way they regarded older styles. Besides, as we know, there was still demand for Bach's music (and for other composers more like him), and he was highly respected by his peers.


But Bach wrote galant music, things like the trio sonata in Opfer. Is the first keyboard partita galant?


----------



## Ariasexta

Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?
> 
> My music teacher upheld Bach as the greatest composer of all time. I like his work, but could never see why he was / is considered greater than Mozart or Beethoven. He despised Wagner who's works I find more moving than Bach's.
> 
> I can see that for Wagner, music was the expression of dramatic themes (hence, to some, not pure). I think that is why my teacher despised him (he had a low opinion of the Romantics generally but Wagner was his bete noire). I gave up music as an academic subject in third year (age 13), and my knowledge of music theory is minimal. For me, music as the development of purely musical themes is less important than its emotional effect. Hence what may be a partial 'blind spot' for Bach.
> 
> Does any of this strike a chord with others' response to music?
> 
> To the Bach lovers; how much music theory do you have, and how much do you think it has influenced your taste?


You gave up music as the major this explains yourself, most people who are very OK and Fine with any type of music in fact do not seriously like music, however, there are some people who love music more than most of other things and their opinion about music would likely resemble your music teacher. But I do not look down on Wagner.

I do not need other sciences than music to know about the objective world, this is my take on music. Physical science is not trustworthy for me, it is rather specious however logical and empirical, but it deprives people of self-determination, always making people dependent on the authority, as if it is given impeccable priviledge just because it is called science.


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## 59540

Livly_Station said:


> One person is hardly enough to establish a pattern of how people thought of Bach at his time.
> 
> That said, Bach became "outdated" in the sense that _galant music_ was getting highly popular with aristocrats while Bach didn't do much in that style, so any patrons/employers who liked this new music would probably seek younger composers, like Bach's sons, instead of Bach himself. ...


So how was "galant music" different from Bach's usual style? You're essentially just restating the original premise.


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## pianozach

dissident said:


> I think it had less to do with that than the complexity and "obscurity" of Bach's music. See the criticism of Bach by his contemporary Johann Adolf Scheibe.


Whenever there is great art, whether it's music, paintings, sculpture, poetry, literature, film, or anything else, there will be someone just itching to be snarky about it.


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## SanAntone

It doesn't matter if along the way Bach's music was not popular. What matters is the standing of Bach today - which among the highest of any composer. His music has stood the test of time.


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## Mandryka

It's an interesting exercise to listen to Kuhnau's organ preludes, Kuhnau was Bach's predecessor at Leipzing. I think they're rather good, but really, when Bach played the Leipzig Chorales to an audience which had been weened on Kuhnau they must have gotten an enormous shock.


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## Livly_Station

Mandryka said:


> But Bach wrote galant music, things like the trio sonata in Opfer. Is the first keyboard partita galant?


As I said, _"Bach didn't do much in that style"_, which means he did a few things.


----------



## fluteman

SanAntone said:


> It doesn't matter if along the way Bach's music was not popular. What matters is the standing of Bach today - which among the highest of any composer. His music has stood the test of time.


Yes, to say the least. Bach spent much of his career as a church employee, producing an enormous amount of religious music, probably a lot more than survives today, even with his huge catalog. So, much as his music was respected and his greatness acknowledged in his own lifetime, one wouldn't necessarily expect him to have topped the popularity charts.

Similarly, while Beethoven was hailed as a genius in his own lifetime (of course) and was a star as well, once his increasing deafness took him from the concert stage and he became more of a hermit, his celebrity and the standing of his music (which he somehow continued to produce on an equally high or higher level) took a hit. His eccentric and irascible personality likely didn't help.

Once an artist has been dead and gone for a significant chunk of time, the circumstances of his life pretty much cease to matter, and only the work remains. As Somerset Maugham pointed out, an artist must achieve a certain minimal level of notoriety in his own time for his work to be available for posterity to judge. Beyond that, his life story matters little.


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## Livly_Station

dissident said:


> So how was "galant music" different from Bach's usual style?


Wikipedia and other articles will answer you better than I can without requiring me to write a bunch of stuff, so I'll let you do the research. That said, as I've stated above, Bach did write a few things in galant style.



> You're essentially just restating the original premise.


Yes, sort of, and that was intended -- I was just disagreeing with the means to your conclusion, because Scheibe isn't enough to answer for everybody in that time.


----------



## Livly_Station

fluteman said:


> Yes, to say the least. Bach spent much of his career as a church employee, producing an enormous amount of religious music, probably a lot more than survives today, even with his huge catalog. So, much as his music was respected and his greatness acknowledged in his own lifetime, one wouldn't necessarily expect him to have topped the popularity charts.


Sure. I'm not worried if Bach was popular or not, but interested in what was the case just from a historical point of view. It seems to me that, since the 19th century, a narrative was made that Bach was underrated until a hundred years after his death, which doesn't seem to be true.

The thing is that _celebrity culture_ and the _status of the musician_ hadn't yet reached the social peak it did later when music in general started to be more celebrated in society, thus more prominent in aristocrat and burgeois culture, which enabled a structure in which works were quickly disseminated throughout Europe soon after publication. That was first seen in the classical period, especially with Mozart and Beethoven, and even more during the romantic period when music solidified its status as the greatest art form.

Bach couldn't top the "popularity charts" because musical consumption in his era was mainly local, which means that employers mostly listened to the music of their employees and of other musicians of their region. Surely, it was possible for composers to get famous and for their name to be well-known elsewhere, but their work couldn't travel as much due to the logistics of the time, and there were not as many music academies/conservatoires across Europe to collect and spread music. So that's why it was impossible for composers from the early 18th century to get ultra popular -- and, in the case of Bach, his music was also difficult to play.

But what can we say about Bach's popularity in the region where he was employed? Well, Bach dominated Leipzig! He was even the director of the _Collegium Musicum_ besides his job at the Church. And he was respected by anyone acquainted with his name throughout Europe.



> Similarly, while Beethoven was hailed as a genius in his own lifetime (of course) and was a star as well, once his increasing deafness took him from the concert stage and he became more of a hermit, his celebrity and the standing of his music (which he somehow continued to produce on an equally high or higher level) took a hit. His eccentric and irascible personality likely didn't help.


It's true that Beethoven was slowly disappearing from the music scene when his production started to decrease after 1810 (he was almost absent for an entire decade). Meanwhile, obviously, new music was being published and played and getting popular, since things need to be moving forward, of course.

That said, I think Beethoven's stardom never really took a big hit -- the fact that he could get the resources for any project speaks for itself, the biggest example being the 9th Symphony and its famous premiere. He was like these legacy rock bands that can still play in stadiums. And his death...


----------



## fluteman

Livly_Station said:


> Sure. I'm not worried if Bach was popular or not, but interested in what was the case just from a historical point of view. It seems to me that, since the 19th century, a narrative was made that Bach was underrated until a hundred years after his death, which doesn't seem to be true.
> 
> The thing is that _celebrity culture_ and the _status of the musician_ hadn't yet reached the social peak it did later when music in general started to be more celebrated in society, thus more prominent in aristocrat and burgeois culture, which enabled a structure in which works were quickly disseminated throughout Europe soon after publication. That was first seen in the classical period, especially with Mozart and Beethoven, and even more during the romantic period when music solidified its status as the greatest art form.
> 
> Bach couldn't top the "popularity charts" because musical consumption in his era was mainly local, which means that employers mostly listened to the music of their employees and of other musicians of their region. Surely, it was possible for composers to get famous and for their name to be well-known elsewhere, but their work couldn't travel as much due to the logistics of the time, and there were not as many music academies/conservatoires across Europe to collect and spread music. So that's why it was impossible for composers from the early 18th century to get ultra popular -- and, in the case of Bach, his music was also difficult to play.
> 
> But what can we say about Bach's popularity in the region where he was employed? Well, Bach dominated Leipzig! He was even the director of the _Collegium Musicum_ besides his job at the Church. And he was respected by anyone acquainted with his name throughout Europe.
> 
> It's true that Beethoven was slowly disappearing from the music scene when his production started to decrease after 1810 (he was almost absent for an entire decade). Meanwhile, obviously, new music was being published and played and getting popular, since things need to be moving forward, of course.
> 
> That said, I think Beethoven's stardom never really took a big hit -- the fact that he could get the resources for any project speaks for itself, the biggest example being the 9th Symphony and its famous premiere. He was like these legacy rock bands that can still play in stadiums. And his death...


All true. But as for Bach, it shouldn't come as a great surprise that especially his religious music faded from view somewhat immediately after his death, only to become celebrated again, with -some- help from Mendelssohn, whose role in reviving the popularity of Bach's music seems to have been exaggerated.

As for Beethoven, yes, he remained respected after his deafness, contemporary documents support that, but there also was some negative criticism, and imagine how much greater his prestige would have been had he been able to continue at the highest level on the concert stage.

My point was, personal problems or the whims of fashion during the artist's lifetime have little remaining relevance a century after his death.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> So how was "galant music" different from Bach's usual style? You're essentially just restating the original premise.


Mood shifts within a single movement, Classical style orchestration/instrumentation, sections/phrases cleanly-cut with cadences. There are Classical period composers who wrote as much counterpoint as Bach throughout their lives and still no one called them "outdated" in their time. Church composers of each period wrote music for the church adhering to the style of their respective period. The Neapolitan style of Bach's masses is forward-looking, even compared to his contemporary, Zelenka. (Look at the gloria of the G major mass)
Livly is right in saying Bach often adhered to the trend of his time. Look at the Goldberg variations, the Italian concerto, the repeated bass notes in cantata BWV54. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41640497



dissident said:


> I think it had less to do with that than the complexity and "obscurity" of Bach's music. See the criticism of Bach by his contemporary Johann Adolf Scheibe.


See the criticism by an anonymous reviewer in a magazine, of Mozart's string quartets in 1789. ("Too complex and difficult to enjoy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haydn_Quartets_(Mozart)#Critical_reception ). Was Mozart "outdated" in his time? Not even Mattheson called Bach "outdated" in the early 18th century. Yes, people complained Bach was too complex, but never "outdated". In the 18th century, just cause something was considered "complex" it doesn't mean it was outdated in its time. Certain pseudo-experts have misinterpreted things based on their limited, distorted view of the period.


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## hammeredklavier

"Even before 1750, that legacy had begun to spread, slowly but steadily and irreversibly, primarily through his students and his sons, and first and foremost in circles of professional musicians. But knowledgeable admirers of Bach's art could be found outside German lands as well. A representative voice in this regard is that of the composer and theorist Padre Giovanni Battista Martini in Bologna, who wrote to a German colleague in April 1750, more than three months before Bach's death: "I consider it superfluous to describe the singular merit of Sig. Bach, for he is thoroughly known and admired not only in Germany but throughout our Italy. I will say only that I think it would be difficult to find someone in the profession who could surpass him, since these days he could rightfully claim to be among the first in Europe."" < Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician | Christoph Wolff · 2002 | P. 462 >


----------



## Livly_Station

fluteman said:


> All true. But as for Bach, it shouldn't come as a great surprise that especially his religious music faded from view somewhat immediately after his death, only to become celebrated again, with -some- help from Mendelssohn, whose role in reviving the popularity of Bach's music seems to have been exaggerated.


I'm not super knowledgeable on this topic, but I believe western society's relationship with older music changed in the 19th century, meaning that later it became more common to play older works. For example, nowadays we have recordings of basically anybody ever in history. In the 19th century, they were celebrating Bach and other baroque and classical composers. But what about before that? Was it usual to play music of the past or was it just the natural course for the music to "die" with the composer? Perhaps it was just the expected for Bach's church music to stop being played until the cultural paradigm changed and people started paying more attention to the past.



> As for Beethoven, yes, he remained respected after his deafness, contemporary documents support that, but there also was some negative criticism, and imagine how much greater his prestige would have been had he been able to continue at the highest level on the concert stage.
> 
> My point was, personal problems or the whims of fashion during the artist's lifetime have little remaining relevance a century after his death.


Well, Beethoven faced negative criticism throughout all his life, even at the height of his carreer, so it's no exception that it repeated in his later years. Obviously, there were new trends in music towards the end of his life and so his older music was already in the past despite still admired, but that's what happens to any music. Was he getting less performed? Of course, but the reason his music was not as ubiquitous in Vienna towards the end of his life is due to the scarcity of new works (and the extreme difficulty to play them, so it was hard to learn them at home, with the exception of pieces like the Bagatelles).

But you were talking about his _celebrity_, which never faded, which is shown by the fact that around 20 thousand people went to his funeral.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Mood shifts within a single movement, Classical style orchestration/instrumentation, sections cleanly-cut with cadences. There are Classical period composers who wrote as much counterpoint as Bach throughout their lives


As much as Bach? Who? Handel didn't even write as contrapuntally..


> and still no one called them "outdated" in their time.


Because they weren't following the Pachelbel-Froberger-Buxtehude tradition.


> Livly is right in saying Bach often adhered to the trend of his time. Look at the Goldberg variations, the Italian concerto, the repeated bass notes in cantata BWV54. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41640497


Compare any of the above to the clavier music of Handel, Scarlatti or Rameau.


> See the criticism by an anonymous reviewer in a magazine, of Mozart's dissonance quartet in 1789. ("Too complex and difficult to enjoy") Mozart was "outdated" in his time?


You're basing that on one work?


> Not even Mattheson called Bach "outdated" in the early 18th century. Yes, people complained Bach was too complex, but never "outdated". ...


So why didn't his sons emulate his style rather than run from it?


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## 59540

Livly_Station said:


> ...
> Yes, sort of, and that was intended -- I was just disagreeing with the means to your conclusion, because Scheibe isn't enough to answer for everybody in that time.


Scheibe is an example of some of the criticism of Bach's style in the era immediately after his death.


Mandryka said:


> But Bach wrote galant music, things like the trio sonata in Opfer. Is the first keyboard partita galant?


Bach may have done that because that was in accord with Frederick's tastes. Some of the preludes of WTC II show some "galant" tendencies too, or at least Scarlatti-ish compared to Book I.


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## 59540

,......,....,......deleted


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## fluteman

Livly_Station said:


> I'm not super knowledgeable on this topic, but I believe western society's relationship with older music changed in the 19th century, meaning that later it became more common to play older works. For example, nowadays we have recordings of basically anybody ever in history. In the 19th century, they were celebrating Bach and other baroque and classical composers. But what about before that? Was it usual to play music of the past or was it just the natural course for the music to "die" with the composer? Perhaps it was just the expected for Bach's church music to stop being played until the cultural paradigm changed and people started paying more attention to the past.
> 
> Well, Beethoven faced negative criticism throughout all his life, even at the height of his carreer, so it's no exception that it repeated in his later years. Obviously, there were new trends in music towards the end of his life and so his older music was already in the past despite still admired, but that's what happens to any music. Was he getting less performed? Of course, but the reason his music was not as ubiquitous in Vienna towards the end of his life is due to the scarcity of new works (and the extreme difficulty to play them, so it was hard to learn them at home, with the exception of pieces like the Bagatelles).
> 
> But you were talking about his _celebrity_, which never faded, which is shown by the fact that around 20 thousand people went to his funeral.


Again, OK. And maybe you've read better Beethoven biographies than I have. But my point was, none of his problems or difficulties, especially after his deafness became complete, matter any more. Another one was, apparently composition was a struggle for him. Beethoven despised Rossini and doubtless was jealous of his ability to whip up highly popular operas despite a famously suspect work ethic. And Beethoven had to have been disappointed with the unenthusiastic reception to his lone and difficult to perform opera Fidelio. Had he lived just slightly longer, he would have seen Rossini all but retire at age 37 after his biggest and most lucrative hit, William Tell. Ouch.

None of that matters now. Beethoven tops our lists, Rossini is a quite a ways further down.

And your points about church music in the 18th century are interesting too. But again, all that matters little now. Bach's sacred music is fully recognized and returned to standard repertoire today, despite the greater cost and logistics of mounting performances as compared with solo keyboard works, for example. I myself have sung and played in Bach cantatas that remain rather popular in and outside church.


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## Livly_Station

fluteman said:


> Again, OK. And maybe you've read better Beethoven biographies than I have. But my point was, none of his problems or difficulties, especially after his deafness became complete, *matter any more*.


It doesn't matter for my opinion of music. Are you getting from my posts that it does? I'm just trying to know the facts after you made an historical affirmation that Beethoven's _celebrity_ took a hit later in his life.



> Another one was, apparently composition was a struggle for him.


Was it?



> Beethoven despised Rossini and doubtless was jealous of his ability to whip up popular operas despite a famously suspect work ethic. Had Beethoven lived just slightly longer, he would have seen Rossini all but retire at age 37 after his biggest and most lucrative hit, William Tell. Ouch.


Well, Rossini was a more successful than Beethoven in general, not only in his final years.

In regards to wealth, I'd like to read more on the economics of classical music. I wonder what were the main sources of income. Since Rossini was a composer of operas (the most popular genre for the concert hall), I believe his main income was selling concert tickets. As for Beethoven, his most steady revenue was probably from patrons, eventual commissions and making deals with editors to sell the sheet music of his piano and chamber works.


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## SanAntone

Composers, especially successful composers, have well developed egos and are competitive regarding other successful composers. I generally ignore everything said by a composer since I perceive it as flowing through the prism of ego/competition. Bartok famously said (I think) that music is not a competition, that's for horse races. I agree 100%.

Almost all composers of record have something worthwhile to offer, and each has their unique gifts, strengths, and genius.

It has been my mission in life to remain open to any and all composers, even and sometimes especially, those whose music initially repulsed me.


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## fluteman

Livly_Station said:


> It doesn't matter for my opinion of music. Are you getting from my posts that it does? I'm just trying to know the facts after you made an historical affirmation that Beethoven's _celebrity_ took a hit later in his life.
> 
> Was it?
> 
> Well, Rossini was a more successful than Beethoven in general, not only in his final years.
> 
> In regards to wealth, I'd like to read more on the economics of classical music. I wonder what were the main sources of income. Since Rossini was a composer of operas (the most popular genre for the concert hall), I believe his main income was selling concert tickets. As for Beethoven, his most steady revenue was probably from patrons, eventual commissions and making deals with editors to sell the sheet music of his piano and chamber works.


Yes. Reliable sources I've read indicate Beethoven's stardom did take a hit later in life. In one reported episode there were hoots of derision in the concert hall when he unsuccessfully attempted to conduct his own music that he could not hear. That must have been painful for him, all the more so for how famous he was. And yes, Beethoven's inability to perform on stage later in his life doubtless cost him substantial income, though he wasn't careless and foolish with money the way Mozart sometimes was. And yes, he became more reclusive late in life. And yes, Rossini was highly successful professionally and financially despite his famous reputation for being a lazy composer. (From what I've read, I suspect Rossini was more a chronic procrastinator rather than being lazy per se, but that's another story.) And yes, Beethoven filled sketch books and rewrote his works repeatedly before they reached their final form. And yes, Rossini irritated him.

If your own research turns up other ideas, fine.

Finally, all of this may have mattered very much to Beethoven, and had a significant impact on his work and career, and is interesting to read about, but none of it matters now. His work speaks for itself.


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## Haydn70

fluteman said:


> Again, OK. And maybe you've read better Beethoven biographies than I have. But my point was, none of his problems or difficulties, especially after his deafness became complete, matter any more. Another one was, apparently composition was a struggle for him. *Beethoven despised Rossini *and doubtless was jealous of his ability to whip up highly popular operas despite a famously suspect work ethic. And Beethoven had to have been disappointed with the unenthusiastic reception to his lone and difficult to perform opera Fidelio. Had he lived just slightly longer, he would have seen Rossini all but retire at age 37 after his biggest and most lucrative hit, William Tell. Ouch.
> 
> None of that matters now. Beethoven tops our lists, Rossini is a quite a ways further down.
> 
> And your points about church music in the 18th century are interesting too. But again, all that matters little now. Bach's sacred music is fully recognized and returned to standard repertoire today, despite the greater cost and logistics of mounting performances as compared with solo keyboard works, for example. I myself have sung and played in Bach cantatas that remain rather popular in and outside church.


Beethoven greatly admired _Il barbiere di Siviglia_.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> As much as Bach? Who? Handel didn't even write as contrapuntally..


For instance, this contains all the "traits of Classicism" I described earlier ("Mood shifts within a single movement, Classical style orchestration/instrumentation, sections/phrases cleanly-cut with cadences, and through-composition, etc"):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbwNRKuVRo&t=4m57s (listen to the mood shifts at 5:32, 5:47, 6:30; it even reminds me of Mozart's K.543/i)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbwNRKuVRo&t=12m24s (13:13, 13:55; the "patrem omnipotentem" is derived from the "quoniam" of the previous movement).
Likewise, the concluding fugues also have their own "expositions" and "developments" in them;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbwNRKuVRo&t=9m37s (10:17; listen to the harmonies)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbwNRKuVRo&t=19m4s (19:52; actually the buildup to all this starts from 16:18)
I haven't got to discussing his dozens of other extended works and about 100 graduals, offertories, acapellas (that make Classical use of dynamics and cadences).



dissident said:


> Compare any of the above to the clavier music of Handel, Scarlatti or Rameau.


I don't think it's reasonable to compare church composers with secular ones in any period in the way you've done in the context of our discussion. As I said; "Church composers of each period wrote music for the church adhering to the style of their respective period." www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iKFi2DH-sA&t=8s



dissident said:


> You're basing that on one work?


Sorry, my bad; the reviewer meant all the 6 quartets.
"Early reception of the "Haydn" Quartets was both enthusiastic and disgruntled. An anonymous early reviewer, writing in Cramer's Magazin der Musik in 1789, gave a judgment characteristic of reaction to Mozart's music at the time, namely that the works were inspired, but too complex and difficult to enjoy:
"Mozart's works do not in general please quite so much [as those of Kozeluch] ... [Mozart's] six quartets for violins, viola, and bass dedicated to Haydn confirm ... that he has a decided leaning towards the difficult and the unusual. But then, what great and elevated ideas he has too, testifying to a bold spirit!"
Giuseppe Sarti later published an attack against the "Dissonance" quartet, describing sections as "barbarous", "execrable", and "miserable" in its use of whole-tone clusters and chromatic extremes. Around this same time, Fétis printed a revision of the opening of the "Dissonance" quartet, implying that Mozart had made errors. When the publishers, Artaria, sent the quartets to Italy for publication, they were returned with the report "the engraving is full of mistakes"."

And of course, those who are intimately familiar with Mozart's work know; the jarring intro consisting of chromatic fourths in the K.465 quartet can be seen as a more "mature" version of the "crucifixus" from Missa in C, sancti Trinitatis K.167, which he wrote at 17. I think it's about going beyond what's obvious and apparent on the surface, such as titles, forms, genres, and seeing the intrinsic qualities, values.
"One must be able to distinguish between the charm that comes from newness and the value that is intrinsic to a work." -Brahms



dissident said:


> So why didn't his sons emulate his style rather than run from it?


www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwZ01_Z3xwM&t=32m30s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgR9rGrqZkk&t=34m8s (written in 1757)


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## 59540

> I don't think it's reasonable to compare church composers with secular ones in any period in the way you've done in the context of our discussion.


That neat dividing line -- "church" vs "secular" -- doesn't really exist in Bach's music. The fugues in the WTC aren't "church music" per se, they're as "secular" as Rameau and Scarlatti. But musically they aren't all that different from the musical structures in the cantatas.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> That neat dividing line -- "church" vs "secular" -- doesn't really exist in Bach's music. The fugues in the WTC aren't "church music" per se, they're as "secular" as Rameau and Scarlatti. But musically they aren't all that different from the musical structures in the cantatas.


the same can be said about contrapuntal symphonies, divertimentos vs music by Boccherini, Salieri.


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## trazom

SanAntone said:


> Composers, especially successful composers, have well developed egos and are competitive regarding other successful composers. *I generally ignore everything said by a composer since I perceive it as flowing through the prism of ego/competition*.


If that's true, then why would you bother to interview so many, which is something you mentioned in a different thread?



SanAntone said:


> I have been interviewing contemporary composers since 2014, so I have first hand knowledge of what they are doing, what they think about their career potential; and how well they are doing. I have interviewed more than 70 composers so far, from those in their 20s and 30s to one in his 80s, and those working in a more traditional style to those whose work is experimental. Some have become well known since (certainly not because of) my interview, but most have become more successful since the time of my interview even if still not "well-known."


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## Mandryka

hammeredklavier said:


> For instance, this contains all the "traits of Classicism" I described earlier ("Mood shifts within a single movement,


Very common in Bach, for example BWV 656, 678, all the French Overtures, the toccata from the 6th keyboard partita, the prelude from the 6th cello suite, the D minor passagaglia . . . et j'en passe.



hammeredklavier said:


> through-composition
> [


You mean like BWV 18/4? If so I'll try to find others.


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## hammeredklavier

Mandryka said:


> Very common in Bach, for example BWV 656, 678, all the French Overtures, the toccata from the 6th keyboard partita, the prelude from the 6th cello suite, the D minor passagaglia . . . et j'en passe.


We're discussing in the context of the Baroque Doctrine of the Affections, so either you don't understand the concept or what I'm talking about, or you know it, but are just "disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing". We know things like sets of major-key (or minor-key) variations containing minor-key (or major-key) variations in them, or overtures/sinfonias that are simply fugues preceded by their introductions don't constitute valid counterexamples for this. "Very common in Bach?" Maybe you should show or explain which sections of Bach's movements of truly exemplary craftsmanship like the kyrie I from the B minor mass, or the opening choruses of the passions are evidences of Bach disobeying the Baroque idiomatic element.



Mandryka said:


> You mean like BWV 18/4? If so I'll try to find others.


How is that a "through-composition"? 


hammeredklavier said:


> (13:13, 13:55; the "patrem omnipotentem" is derived from the "quoniam" of the previous movement).
> 
> 
> 
> (19:52; actually the buildup to all this starts from 16:18)


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## Mandryka

That's a rather defensive reaction. Is BWV 656, the first on my list one of these?



hammeredklavier said:


> sets of major-key (or minor-key) variations containing minor-key (or major-key) variations in them, or overtures/sinfonias that are simply fugues preceded by their introductions .


I think there are probably heaps of examples from the stylus fantasticus, by the way.


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## Mandryka

hammeredklavier said:


> How is that a "through-composition"?


You'd better explain why it isn't through composed.


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## hammeredklavier

Mandryka said:


> Is BWV 656, the first on my list one of these?
> I think there are probably heaps of examples from the stylus fantasticus, by the way.
> You'd better explain why it isn't through composed.


There are individual movements each having different moods, but each movement itself doesn't really deal with contrasting moods ("mood shifts" within the form), or a sense of "transition" to the next. 












In the B minor mass, the "dona nobis pacem" is derived from the "gratias agimus tibi", but it is merely a "restatement", unlike Mozart K.220, K.243, K.317, where the ending, dona/miserere nobis develops on the material of the beginning, kyrie, or K.626 (the "D-C#-D-E-F" in the introitus, dies irae, amen (inverted downward)).
Bach just like other great composers, wrote great music in the idiomatic style of his own time, and one of the things that characterize pre-Classical period music is the Doctrine of the Affections. This is common knowledge.


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## Mandryka

hammeredklavier said:


> Bach just like other great composers, wrote great music in the idiomatic style of his own time, and one of the things that characterize pre-Classical period music is the Doctrine of the Affections. This is common knowledge.


One thing I've never been certain about is this: was there a consensus about the affect linked to a key, or was there a debate? Maybe you know

People have recently been experimenting with the idea of affect to determine an appropriate mood for JSB's keyboard and violin sonatas. Some interesting performance results there.


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## RICK RIEKERT

Mandryka said:


> One thing I've never been certain about is this: was there a consensus about the affect linked to a key, or was there a debate?


Rameau's detailed study of key signatures and their affective purposes in his _Traité de l'harmonie_ both summarized common uses of keys in Baroque music, and gave his opinion on which keys are appropriate for communicating different emotions ("The key of either C, D, or A in the major mode is suitable for songs of mirth and joy. Either F or B-flat is appropriate for tempests, furies, and such subjects. Either G or E is right for both tender and happy songs. Grandeur and magnificence can be expressed by the key of either D, A, or E. The minor mode in the key of either d, g, b, or e is apt for sweetness and gentleness. The key of either c or f minor is suitable for gentleness or laments; f or b-flat minor is appropriate for melancholy songs."). But not all Baroque philosophers and composers agreed upon a standard method of associating keys with affections. Many believed that each key could be used to express a variety of affections rather than one in particular. Johann Mattheson, who was a major proponent of the Doctrine of the Affections, stressed that his (Mattheson's) suggestions regarding the expressive nature of the keys were only his personal interpretations. He reinforces the importance of the key signature in creating affects, and even devotes an entire chapter of his _Der vollkommene Capellmeister_ to presenting his affective opinions of each key. Nevertheless, Mattheson emphasizes that his opinions are merely opinions, and must be treated as nothing more than a working summary. Although there were differing views concerning the relationship of keys to emotions, the Doctrine of Affections certainly influenced Baroque composers' choices of keys to produce the passions and affects that they intended.


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## Mandryka

It's a strange thing, on the wikipedia I just saw this quote from Matteson



> Since for example joy is an expansion of our soul, thus it follows reasonably and naturally that I could best express this affect by large and expanded intervals . . . Whereas if one knows that sadness is a contraction of these subtle parts of our body,then it is easy to see that the small and smallest intervals are the most suitable for this passion


It's alost a relapse into pre-enlightenment thinking. How could anybody as late as 1700 say something like "joy is an expansion of our soul" and then say that "it follows reasonably" that this is to be reflected in an expansion of musical intervals? What is his conception of "it follows reasonably"? Had these guys not read Descartes and Locke? Mattheson and Bach needed to do my Philosophy 101 course.

I suppose what it shows is that there's a huge gap between the thinking of university people and the thinking of musicians and ordinary folk. Bach, for all his stature as a composer, seemed to rely more on the Calov bible than on Aristotle and Descartes.


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## RICK RIEKERT

A better translation of Mattheson is “Joy is an expansion of our vital spirits..." Mattheson's guidelines are by no means comprehensive or exclusive, but they are affirmed in the the vast majority of Baroque music. And unlike some philosophers, he has the good sense to recognize his opinions for what they are - opinions.


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## Livly_Station

Mandryka said:


> One thing I've never been certain about is this: was there a consensus about the affect linked to a key, or was there a debate? Maybe you know


Besides what other people have answered you... I'd just like to remember that this was before equal-temperament, so the keys were effectivelly different in tuning.


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## Mandryka

RICK RIEKERT said:


> And unlike some philosophers, he has the good sense to recognize his opinions for what they are - opinions.


I hope you're not thinking of Descartes there!


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## Luchesi

Mandryka said:


> It's a strange thing, on the wikipedia I just saw this quote from Matteson
> 
> It's alost a relapse into pre-enlightenment thinking. How could anybody as late as 1700 say something like "joy is an expansion of our soul" and then say that "it follows reasonably" that this is to be reflected in an expansion of musical intervals? What is his conception of "it follows reasonably"? Had these guys not read Descartes and Locke? Mattheson and Bach needed to do my Philosophy 101 course.
> 
> I suppose what it shows is that there's a huge gap between the thinking of university people and the thinking of musicians and ordinary folk. Bach, for all his stature as a composer, seemed to rely more on the Calov bible than on Aristotle and Descartes.


For what it's worth, I've assumed that the identification of keys with specific emotional conditions and perspectives has mostly to do with the performer's experience with the LOOK of the key on the page. In other words, whatever the performer has experienced in the past within this key or that key unthinkingly arises in their mind as they begin to play.

So therefore, does any of this come through to the listener or the audience? I don't believe so. But of course we as humans project everything emotionally, in every facet of our lives and we don't really think about it much at all -- unless the emotions are intense (life changing).

Some years ago my friend and I were exploring this. He's a violinist, he's very good at transposing pieces very quickly. He said play this - he had transposed it up a minor third. Does it now have a different emotional impact on you? I said it does if we keep to these simple examples, and then only when I'm anticipating the effect. Nothing was resolved. haha Looking back I think we concluded that we're both half right..


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## Mandryka

I've got a feeling, but I'm not sure, that Rameau looked at musical examples -- the keys composers actually used to support a text expressing a certain state of mind. And he then universalised. 

As far as Mattheson having "the good sense" to know that his opinion is an opinion is concerned , as far as I know the essence of the idea of affect is that it's not an opinion, it's a fact about human nature, that a certain key fits a certain state of mind. That's why, according to the theory, it's possible for music to express something universally, not one thing for one person and another for another. 

I'm reminded of old arguments about the affect of the op131 fugue -- sad or noble or what? -- no one seems to be able to agree. Same for the first movement of Mozart symphony 40. There must have been the same sort of disagreement in the 18th and 17th century, just pushed under the carpet by the likes of Rameau and Mattheson.


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## RICK RIEKERT

Mandryka said:


> I hope you're not thinking of Descartes there!


It was Locke among others who accused Descartes of being ensnared by the "vanity of dogmatizing", not I.


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## Mandryka

RICK RIEKERT said:


> It was Locke among others who accused Descartes of being ensnared by the "vanity of dogmatizing", not I.


What do you think he meant?


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## Mandryka

Did Bach know about Rameau, by the way? I can't find a list of books from Bach's library.


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## RICK RIEKERT

Mandryka said:


> What do you think he meant?


In my opinion (or is it a fact?), Locke meant that Descartes had a dogmatic commitment to the erroneous belief that human reason can solve the various problems of metaphysical and natural philosophy.


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## Mandryka

RICK RIEKERT said:


> In my opinion (or is it a fact?), Locke meant that Descartes had a dogmatic commitment to the erroneous belief that human reason can solve the various problems of metaphysical and natural philosophy.


Ah, as opposed to empirical methods. I think if you'd put Locke and Descartes in a room they'd agree about scientific method, maybe not about epistemology and maybe not about God.

Anyway, I came back to say that there are NO MUSIC BOOKS listed in the inventory of Bach's estate! Just theological books (It's in Hans David and Arthur Mendel's _Bach Reader_)


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## RICK RIEKERT

Mandryka said:


> Anyway, I came back to say that there are NO MUSIC BOOKS listed in the inventory of Bach's estate! Just theological books (It's in Hans David and Arthur Mendel's _Bach Reader_)


Christoph Wolff calls it "highly peculiar" that Bach's music library (manuscript and printed music, books on music and music theory), were omitted from the estate inventory. The collection is also conspicuously absent in the probate hearing record. According to Wolff, "we must conclude...that these materials were neither evaluated nor distributed according to the established scheme of division."


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## 59540

Mandryka said:


> ...Had these guys not read Descartes and Locke? Mattheson and Bach needed to do my Philosophy 101 course.
> ...


I'm glad they didn't.


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## Luchesi

It's not the same issue, but I'm reminded of;
In the recent controversy, we should be tuning our instruments to 432 instead of 440? because it's more in tune with the ever-present vibrations of the planet, or something.


When a musician looks at a score - something clicks when they recognize the constellations of notes in that specific key. People I talk to you don't realize that every constellation and pattern is immediately recognized without any thought. They're like a whole word (and not just the individual letters) or even a whole sentence in most cases - for sight-reading.


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## Livly_Station

Luchesi said:


> It's not the same issue, but I'm reminded of;
> In the recent controversy, we should be tuning our instruments to 432 instead of 440? because it's more in tune with the ever-present vibrations of the planet, or something.


Dude, please, this is a hoax!!!!!!!!!!



> When a musician looks at a score - something clicks when they recognize the constellations of notes in that specific key. People I talk to you don't realize that every constellation and pattern is immediately recognized without any thought. They're like a whole word (and not just the individual letters) or even a whole sentence in most cases - for sight-reading.


It's just good visual design in order to facilitate easy and fluid reading. Truly beautiful.


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## 59540

Livly_Station said:


> Dude, please, this is a hoax!!!!!!!!!!


Well, that *is* the so-called Verdi tuning and I think it sounds pretty good.


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## Livly_Station

dissident said:


> Well, that *is* the so-called Verdi tuning and I think it sounds pretty good.


The 440hz example in the video doesn't sound well tuned. And sometimes an old piano naturally starts to have its pitches flatten and can't handle the standard tuning anymore (or even 432hz) because of the tension in some of its mechanisms, so it needs to be tuned way down.

Anyway, the hoax is not the choice for 432hz (you can use it if you want to), but all the nonsensical falsehoods in regards to the vibrations of the universe and whatever.


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## 59540

Livly_Station said:


> The 440hz example in the video doesn't sound well tuned. And sometimes an old piano naturally starts to have its pitches flatten and can't handle the standard tuning anymore (or even 432hz) because of the tension in some of its mechanisms, so it needs to be tuned way down.
> 
> Anyway, the hoax is not the choice for 432hz (you can use it if you want to), but all the nonsensical falsehoods in regards to the vibrations of the universe and whatever.


I've tried it on a guitar and cello. Well, more like 430 on the cello, actually. Still sounds better, to me anyway. But yeah I agree, I don't think it has any metaphysical significance.


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## thejewk

415 is the generally accepted Bach era pitch, no? That's certainly the pitch that most recorders from this period seem to have been tuned to.


----------



## 59540

thejewk said:


> 415 is the generally accepted Bach era pitch, no? That's certainly the pitch that most recorders from this period seem to have been tuned to.


From what I've read there wasn't one standard pitch. It varied from region to region. The 415 is a modern standardization.


----------



## thejewk

Oh for sure, like 460 or thereabouts for Vivaldi, I just assumed that 415 was generally accepted for Bach and late German baroque based on preserved instruments. That said, it's clear that Bach had to adapt the key of certain cantatas when he moved posts to adapt to the tuning of the organ, so I suppose it must be a convenient compromise.


----------



## RICK RIEKERT

Some church organs built during the time of Bach have A as low as 390Hz, and some chamber instruments (according to contemporary measurements) were as low as around 410Hz. The organs played by Bach in Hamburg, Leipzig and Weimar were pitched at A=480 Hz.


----------



## premont

Mandryka said:


> it's a fact about human nature, that a certain key fits a certain state of mind. That's why, according to the theory, it's possible for music to express something universally, not one thing for one person and another for another.


I am not sure this is quite true, because the affect (read effect) changes with the tuning and temperament. A=415 makes a big difference compared to a=440. And equal tuning makes a big difference to eg. meantone tuning, just to name the most common problems.


----------



## premont

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Some church organs built during the time of Bach have A as low as 390Hz, and some chamber instruments (according to contemporary measurements) were as low as around 410Hz. The organs played by Bach in Hamburg, Leipzig and Weimar were pitched at A=480 Hz.


Yes, that's true, these organs had different tuning and different temperament, and this shows that there was no "standard" affect related to a given key. So I tend to conclude, that the doctrine of mode related affects was at best an illusion.


----------



## Luchesi

premont said:


> Yes, that's true, these organs had different tuning and different temperament, and this shows that there was no "standard" affect related to a given key. So I tend to conclude, that the doctrine of mode related affects was at best an illusion.


I think Mozart said that he associated different colors with different keys. Other famous composers too. There again, I think it has something to do with a person's past experience with the commonly used keys.

Eflat always seems brown to me. Aflat is white. Fsharp is bright red. Bflat minor is black or dark gray, not surprising. Em is a nice light green. Dm is dirty yellow (brownish yellow). Emaj is a dark purple. Who knows why... Various experiences with those keys, mixed with the accompanying emotions.


----------



## 59540

Luchesi said:


> I think Mozart said that he associated different colors with different keys. Other famous composers too. There again, I think it has something to do with a person's past experience with the commonly used keys.
> 
> Eflat always seems brown to me. Aflat is white. Fsharp is bright red. Bflat minor is black or dark gray, not surprising. Em is a nice light green. Dm is dirty yellow (brownish yellow). Emaj is a dark purple. Who knows why... Various experiences with those keys, mixed with the accompanying emotions.


That idea is similar to something Schiff wrote about the WTC I:


> To me, Bach's music is not black and white; it's full of colours. In my imagination each tonality corresponds to a colour. The WTC with its 24 preludes and fugues in all the major and minor keys provides an ideal opportunity for this fanciful fantasy. Let's imagine that in the beginning there was innocence and therefore C-major (all white keys) is snow-white. The last piece of both books is in b-minor which is the key to death. Compare the fugue of Book 1 to the Kyrie of the b-minor mass. This has to be pitch-black. Between these two poles we have all the other colours, first the yellows, oranges and ochre (between c-minor and d-minor), all the shades of blue (E-flat major to e-minor), the greens (F-major to g-minor), pinks and reds (A-flat major to a-minor), browns (B-flat), grey (B-major) and finally black.


----------



## Mandryka

premont said:


> So I tend to conclude, that the doctrine of mode related affects was at best an illusion.


I'm sceptical of it as a psychological truth about human nature. However Bach and his peers may have believed it. And if he did, then it suggests that wherever he wrote music with a key signature, he intended that the music in performance be expressive, and indeed express those things which Mattheson and his ilk associated with the key. That's valuable guidance for historically informed performance.



premont said:


> Yes, that's true, these organs had different tuning and different temperament, .


Yes, but it still may be possible for the performer to give the music the Mattheson defined affect, by means of tempo, articulation etc. What I guess I'm saying is that the doctrine of affects functioned like an expression marking in 19th century music -- dolce, lacrimoso, maestoso etc.


----------



## RICK RIEKERT

Mandryka said:


> I'm sceptical of it as a psychological truth about human nature. However Bach and his peers may have believed it. And if he did, then it suggests that wherever he wrote music with a key signature, he intended that the music in performance be expressive, and indeed express those things which Mattheson and his ilk associated with the key.


An example of the influence of the Doctrine of Affections upon the choice of key signature can be found in Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. Throughout the entire work, which interweaves Matthew's Gospel story and Christ's crucifixion with choral movements and instrumental accompaniment, Bach used the key of E minor to represent and illustrate the crucifixion story. Musicologist Eric Chafe articulates, "E-minor passages coincide with the successive stages of the Crucifixion drama: Jesus' capture; the initial sentence of death from the Jews; the call for crucifixion; the scourging and delivering over of Jesus for crucifixion; the crucifixion itself." In regard to the key of E minor, Mattheson states, "Whatever one may do with it, it will remain pensive profound, sad, and expressive of grief; in such a way however, that some chance of consolation remains." Therefore, it seems as if this choice of key was an ideal fit for Bach's expression of Christ's suffering and grief, yet at the same time, for offering a glimpse of hope that lies in the resurrection.


----------



## Luchesi

dissident said:


> That idea is similar to something Schiff wrote about the WTC I:


Thanks for the quote. I wasn't aware of this conception or his opinion.

Do you think he was talking about the sound of the different keys? or the look/appearance of the different keys on the page? or what the performer experiences when they see (and feel) the keyboard?


----------



## pianozach

Luchesi said:


> I *think Mozart said that he associated different colors with different keys*. Other famous composers too. There again, I think it has something to do with a person's past experience with the commonly used keys.
> 
> Eflat always seems brown to me. Aflat is white. Fsharp is bright red. Bflat minor is black or dark gray, not surprising. Em is a nice light green. Dm is dirty yellow (brownish yellow). Emaj is a dark purple. Who knows why... Various experiences with those keys, mixed with the accompanying emotions.


That would put Mozart (and you as well) in the realm of synesthesia.

Of course for your light green Em, it might have an entirely different color for Mozart.



Mandryka said:


> I'm sceptical of it as a psychological truth about human nature. However *Bach* and his peers may have believed it. And if he did, then it suggests that wherever he wrote music with a key signature, he intended that the music in performance be expressive, and indeed express those things which Mattheson and his ilk associated with the key. That's valuable guidance for historically informed performance.
> 
> Yes, but it still may be possible for the performer to give the music the Mattheson defined affect, by means of tempo, articulation etc. What I guess I'm saying is that the doctrine of affects functioned like an expression marking in 19th century music -- dolce, lacrimoso, maestoso etc.


Bach likely aware that certain keys had "moods", caused by the slightly different intervals in each scale.

But he also championed Well-Tempered tuning, which caused all keys to have the same tunings between notes in the scale.

I'd like to know why it is that when I play a piece in C# it seems far more aggressive than a piece in Db.


----------



## Mandryka

pianozach said:


> well-Tempered tuning, which caused all keys to have the same tunings between notes in the scale.
> 
> .


Are you sure about that?


----------



## 59540

Luchesi said:


> Thanks for the quote. I wasn't aware of this conception or his opinion.
> 
> Do you think he was talking about the sound of the different keys? or the look/appearance of the different keys on the page? or what the performer experiences when they see (and feel) the keyboard?


My guess is that he's taking about the sound quality of each key.


----------



## pianozach

Mandryka said:


> Are you sure about that?


No, not sure. But better than what they'd had before, and Bach proved that all keys were playable with Well Tempered Tuning.

So, what is it that's standard now? "Even" Tempered?

I mean, we came out of the Middle Ages using the Pythagorean or Ptolemaic tunings.

Somewheres along the line after that came the Mean Temperament (16th C), Just Intonation, and Equal Temperament. I'm not sure just where "Well" tempered squeezes in . . . or is Well and Equal about the same?


----------



## 59540

pianozach said:


> No, not sure. But better than what they'd had before, and Bach proved that all keys were playable with Well Tempered Tuning.
> 
> So, what is it that's standard now? "Even" Tempered?
> 
> I mean, we came out of the Middle Ages using the Pythagorean or Ptolemaic tunings.
> 
> Somewheres along the line after that came the Mean Temperament (16th C), Just Intonation, and Equal Temperament. I'm not sure just where "Well" tempered squeezes in . . . or is Well and Equal about the same?


Equal temperament is "standard" now.


> Equal temperament, the modern and usually inappropriate system of tuning used in western music, is based on the twelfth root of 2. The ratio of frequencies for each semi tone is equal to the twelfth root of two. So, twelve semitones, one octave, gives a doubling of frequency. The uniformity that one gets by having each semitone equal allows one to freely modulate amongst the different keys. One main drawback to equal temperament is that all major thirds are quite a bit off from where they ought to be, roughly fourteen percent of a semitone. Perfect fifths are all pretty close. More importantly, though, other than pitch, nothing distinguishes the various keys.
> 
> The well temperaments used throughout the 17 and 18 hundreds also allow one to modulate amongst different keys. However, the octave is not divided into equal steps. Rather, some semi tones are smaller and some are larger. Overall, perfect fifths tend to be pretty close, while the quality of major thirds varies around the circle of fifths, with the more unstable major thirds tending to fall on the black keys, giving the various keys different characteristics.
> 
> Composers of the 17 and 18 hundreds used this in their music. When we listen to their music in our modern equal temperament, we are not hearing their harmonic intentions. Key color has been lost.


----------



## premont

Mandryka said:


> I'm sceptical of it as a psychological truth about human nature. However Bach and his peers may have believed it. And if he did, then it suggests that wherever he wrote music with a key signature, he intended that the music in performance be expressive, and indeed express those things which Mattheson and his ilk associated with the key. That's valuable guidance for historically informed performance.


If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the number of accidentals in the score was more important in deciding the subjective affect of a given piece of music, than how it actually sounded, not to mention the variable pitch (a). This is why I wrote that the doctrine of affects is an illusion, or one can say an ill-founded convention. But as you write also a good guidance for performers.


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## Mandryka

So if AoF is in D minor, it should all be devout, serious, grand, calming (according to Mattheson, according to Wikipedia)

Works in B minor on the other hand should be hard, unpleasant and desperate (listening to BWV 1002 with this in mind.)


----------



## hammeredklavier

hammeredklavier said:


> dissident said:
> 
> 
> 
> So why didn't his sons emulate his style rather than run from it?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (written in 1757)
Click to expand...

Also, take a look at this triple (organ) fugue by Emanuel: 













Likewise, I find these to be related:


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## wormcycle

"good music transcends our intellectual capacity and goes directly to our hearts/souls" 
Really? That means intellect does not play any role? Understanding of the music structure and texture does not add anything to our appreciation of music?
Well, the only one who really thought about it deeply was Aaron Copland, his book "What to listen to in music" is must read for every music theory ignorant, like me, and, from your response, it would be helpful to people with serious musical education.


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## Rogerx

wormcycle said:


> "good music transcends our intellectual capacity and goes directly to our hearts/souls"
> Really? That means intellect does not play any role? Understanding of the music structure and texture does not add anything to our appreciation of music?
> Well, the only one who really thought about it deeply was Aaron Copland, his book "What to listen to in music" is must read for every music theory ignorant, like me, and, from your response, it would be helpful to people with serious musical education.


Thanks for sharing, will do , go search like now for the book .


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## KevinW

There isn't a necessary relation. Bach's compositions are surely less emotional than later works and focus more on the relationship between different notes. Sometimes you will be surprised by Bach's compositions because you can hardly find emotions but the notes just sound very nice when being put together... And this is why many people believe Bach is the God. Therefore, I would recommend you to learn some kind of music theory when listening to Bach, if you want to learn more about his composition skills. Otherwise, just appreciate his music as a normal audience. Even for people without any musical background, his music is highly-appreciable and enjoying.


----------



## hammeredklavier

KevinW said:


> Bach's compositions are surely less emotional than later works and focus more on the relationship between different notes.


One of the most expressive passages ever written -- 8:02 "Et in terra pax"


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## JTS

KevinW said:


> There isn't a necessary relation.* Bach's compositions are surely less emotional than later works* and focus more on the relationship between different notes. Sometimes you will be surprised by Bach's compositions because you can hardly find emotions but the notes just sound very nice when being put together... And this is why many people believe Bach is the God. Therefore, I would recommend you to learn some kind of music theory when listening to Bach, if you want to learn more about his composition skills. Otherwise, just appreciate his music as a normal audience. Even for people without any musical background, his music is highly-appreciable and enjoying.


You obviously do not listen to the same JSB as I do!


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## hammeredklavier

Triplets said:


> Some Bach works were written at least partially for study, such as the Art of Fugue, but non musicians such as myself can find them moving.


I think the "cerebral qualities" of Bach's keyboard music are often overstated, compared to say, Handel's: 



 (~56:00)


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## KevinW

JTS said:


> You obviously do not listen to the same JSB as I do!


It does differ on compositions sometimes, but I think his compositions are generally less emotional compared to other people's. Not his fault though--Baroque music was still strongly related to religion and was only listened to by the upper class, so no doubt there are less emotional elements.


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## vtpoet

Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?


My 2 Cents. No.

When I was a child, I would stop whatever I was doing and stand next to the piano when Bach was played. Different periods of music will appeal to different people, like humor, food, women, men, art, poetry, novels, etc...


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## 59540

KevinW said:


> ...Not his fault though--Baroque music was still strongly related to religion and was only listened to by the upper class, so no doubt there are less emotional elements.


I don't think that's entirely true. He composed for church services that I assume were attended by more than the upper class. Plus I think the music published during his lifetime was aimed at middle-class amateurs and other professional musicians like himself, most of whom were not upper class either. I find Bach's music to be highly emotional, btw. It's emotion under the discipline of form, and it's part of what makes his work so great.


----------



## vtpoet

KevinW said:


> It does differ on compositions sometimes, but I think his compositions are generally less emotional compared to other people's.


Yeah, opposite for me. No composer brings me to tears like Bach. Only Bach does that.

There are moments in Beethoven-mid to late string quartets and the Allegretto of his 7th Symphony. Mozart very seldom -- the slow movement of his concerto for violin and viola given the right performance. But Bach? To me? Nobody communicates heart-wrenching sorrow, or jubilance or awe (Sanctus of the b minor Mass) like Bach.

*Edit:* Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Yeah, opposite for me. No composer brings me to tears like Bach. Only Bach does that.
> 
> There are moments in Beethoven-mid to late string quartets and the Allegretto of his 7th Symphony. Mozart very seldom -- the slow movement of his concerto for violin and viola given the right performance. But Bach? To me? Nobody communicates heart-wrenching sorrow, or jubilance or awe (Sanctus of the b minor Mass) like Bach.
> 
> *Edit:* Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus.


Yes, and the Magnificat, Cum sancto spiritu from the B minor Mass, BWV 21 and 34 or any number of cantatas...the list is seemingly endless. In fact BWV 21 is an emotional incline from despondency to joy. What begins like this...





...ends like this.


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## Allegro Con Brio

Bach's music and the philosophy behind it doesn't jive with the ideology of modernity. But the enduring power of his music, even stripped of its cultural and philosophical context (which I believe is a mistake, but that's fine if you just want to hear it as "pure music") speaks for itself with its perfect marriage of opposite qualities which no other composer has merged as gracefully—song and dance, head and heart, abstract and concrete, universal and particular, energy and lyricism, earthiness and loftiness, strict rigor and rhapsodic freedom.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Bach's music and the philosophy behind it doesn't jive with the ideology of modernity.


Care to elaborate?


----------



## Allegro Con Brio

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Care to elaborate?


Probably can't fully do so without risking breaking the terms and conditions here, but in a nutshell: Pre-Enlightenment ideas of "harmonies of the spheres," the concept that music is a sort of mirror of divinity, a refusal to innovate for its own sake, the belief that music actually has something to express beyond itself, and an intended sublimation of the artist's ego under what he believed to be his higher duty. James Gaines's _Evening in the Palace of Reason_ expresses it in fuller form.


----------



## SanAntone

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Bach's music and the philosophy behind it doesn't jive with the ideology of modernity. But the enduring power of his music, even stripped of its cultural and philosophical context (which I believe is a mistake, but that's fine if you just want to hear it as "pure music") speaks for itself with its perfect marriage of opposite qualities which no other composer has merged as gracefully-song and dance, head and heart, abstract and concrete, universal and particular, energy and lyricism, earthiness and loftiness, strict rigor and rhapsodic freedom.
> 
> 
> 
> BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:
> 
> 
> 
> Care to elaborate?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Allegro Con Brio said:
> 
> 
> 
> Probably can't fully do so without risking breaking the terms and conditions here, but in a nutshell: Pre-Enlightenment ideas of "harmonies of the spheres," the concept that music is a sort of mirror of divinity, a refusal to innovate for its own sake, the belief that music actually has something to express beyond itself, and an intended sublimation of the artist's ego under what he believed to be his higher duty. James Gaines's _Evening in the Palace of Reason_ expresses it in fuller form.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Then "modernity" does not represent progress.


----------



## Mandryka

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Probably can't fully do so without risking breaking the terms and conditions here, but in a nutshell: Pre-Enlightenment ideas of "harmonies of the spheres," the concept that music is a sort of mirror of divinity, a refusal to innovate for its own sake, the belief that music actually has something to express beyond itself, and an intended sublimation of the artist's ego under what he believed to be his higher duty. James Gaines's _Evening in the Palace of Reason_ expresses it in fuller form.


That's the philosophy behind the music and what you say isn't implausible. But you also said was that the music itself doesn't jive with the ideology of modernity (do you mean the contemporary? It's a nightmare of terms obviously, but modernity to me is something which kind of died about 40 years ago.) Anyway, I don't see the clash between either the contemporary or the modern and Bach's music.

It just occurred to me that you may think of the c19 century as "modern" If so God help you and I have nothing more to say.


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## Allegro Con Brio

I mean everything from Enlightenment onward to today.

I bow out of the discussion.


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## vtpoet

Allegro Con Brio said:


> I mean everything from Enlightenment onward to today.
> 
> I bow out of the discussion.


Wow. I feel like a totally clueless tourist in the Japanese quarter when the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Sumiyoshi-kai and the Inagawa-kai all show up and there's all this tension in the room and I'm like: What? Did I order the wrong sushi?


----------



## Mandryka

Allegro Con Brio said:


> I mean everything from Enlightenment onward to today.
> 
> I bow out of the discussion.


Well before you take the final curtain call let me recommend this (difficult) book to you

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/bachs-dialogue-with-modernity/9494CB1D4428D1CE8991AA9A6E0FD99A


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## 59540

Mandryka said:


> That's the philosophy behind the music and what you say isn't implausible. But you also said was that the music itself doesn't jive with the ideology of modernity (do you mean the contemporary? It's a nightmare of terms obviously, but modernity to me is something which kind of died about 40 years ago.) Anyway, I don't see the clash between either the contemporary or the modern and Bach's music.


"Modernity" is the here and now, suffused with "postmodernist", relativist doctrine that would be anathema to Bach. And vice versa: Bach would be booted off the stage today as a religious fanatic and a believer in "absolutes". That's the difference.


----------



## Mandryka

dissident said:


> In name only, in my opinion. But that's getting into a political thicket.
> "Modernity" is the here and now, suffused with "postmodernist", relativist doctrine that would be anathema to Bach. And vice versa: Bach would be booted off the stage today as a religious fanatic and a believer in "absolutes". That's the difference.


Well, one of my old teachers thought modernity began with Descartes and I can see where he was coming from. But even he acknowledged that the issue was complex because the pendulum swings. Post Descartes there were profoundly anti modern tendencies like the Sturmer und Dranger and the Romantics. Romanticism - Wordsworth, Hugo -- is a sort of anti-modernism IMO. They all went back to the idea that the world was a place which, if we paid heed, would guide us morally.


----------



## 59540

Mandryka said:


> ... They all went back to the idea that the world was a place which, if we paid heed, would guide us morally.


I don't think that's where Bach is coming from.


----------



## SanAntone

dissident said:


> "Modernity" is the here and now, suffused with "postmodernist", relativist doctrine that would be anathema to Bach. And vice versa: Bach would be booted off the stage today as a religious fanatic and a believer in "absolutes". That's the difference.


Bach is hardly anathema to the audiences of today. His music remains popular, including those works with a clear Christian subject matter and orientation. Only the most simple-minded atheist would allow _his_ belief system to get in the way of enjoying the _Messe in B-Moll_.


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## Mandryka

dissident said:


> I don't think that's where Bach is coming from.


No, nor do I!

sv.l;kxsdnmv/.lsednmj vd;.lxsbvnmj xsd;.bvm


----------



## 59540

SanAntone said:


> Bach is hardly anathema to the audiences of today. His music remains popular, including those works with a clear Christian subject matter and orientation. Only the most simple-minded atheist would allow _his_ belief system to get in the way of enjoying the _Messe in B-Moll_.


But in a sense that Mass in B Minor wasn't written for atheists, except maybe in an evangelizing sense. I don't want to get into a religious debate, but once on another forum an atheist said that he could actually enjoy Bach's music *more* since it is now "liberated" from a theological context. But that's always seemed to me like examining Shakespeare solely on the basis of his grammar. That isn't really "liberation". I think a lot of the misunderstanding of Bach arises from either an ignorance or dismissal of evangelical Christian attitudes. SanAntone, if Bach were commenting on this forum he'd be banned forthwith.


----------



## vtpoet

dissident said:


> "Modernity" is the here and now, suffused with "postmodernist", relativist doctrine that would be anathema to Bach. And vice versa: Bach would be booted off the stage today as a religious fanatic and a believer in "absolutes". That's the difference.


That's too simplistic of course. There appears to have been some tension in the family when JC Bach converted to Catholicism. So, one might conclude from this that Bach was a committed Lutheran. In other words, while it's tempting to think that Bach was more spiritual than religious, it's not unreasonable to speculate that he was, in fact, "religious". On the other hand, Bach seemed untroubled by the thought of composing Catholic liturgical music. He didn't have the reputation that Zelenka had, for "Catholic zealotry" (I think that's how a music historian put it once). Bach's earliest and happiest years, it's said, were spent in the secular employ of Cöthen. When he moved to Leipzig, once gets the sense that the move was more practical than religious (that's how Gardiner put it in his biography I believe). There was schooling for his children and the opportunity to compose in such forms as the Cantata, the Mass and the Passion; but judging by the testimony (and his own letters to the authorities) he approached religion/spirituality through music rather than the other way around. All this is to say, I don't think Bach was a religious fanatic. There were other composers who did have this reputation and were noted for it at the time.


----------



## Mandryka

I don't think anyone knows why the B minor mass was written. As far as I remember there's no evidence that it was written for performance of any kind, concert or liturgical.


----------



## 59540

vtpoet said:


> That's too simplistic of course. There appears to have been some tension in the family when JC Bach converted to Catholicism. So, one might conclude from this that Bach was a committed Lutheran. In other words, while it's tempting to think that Bach was more spiritual than religious, it's not unreasonable to speculate that he was, in fact, "religious". On the other hand, Bach seemed untroubled by the thought of composing Catholic liturgical music. He didn't have the reputation that Zelenka had, for "Catholic zealotry" (I think that's how a music historian put it once). Bach's earliest and happiest years, it's said, were spent in the secular employ of Cöthen. When he moved to Leipzig, once gets the sense that the move was more practical than religious (that's how Gardiner put it in his biography I believe). There was schooling for his children and the opportunity to compose in such forms as the Cantata, the Mass and the Passion; but judging by the testimony (and his own letters to the authorities) he approached religion/spirituality through music rather than the other way around. All this is to say, I don't think Bach was a religious fanatic. There were other composers who did have this reputation and were noted for it at the time.


Compared to the typical contemporary composer or even academic, Bach wouid indeed be considered a religious fanatic.


----------



## 59540

Mandryka said:


> I don't think anyone knows why the B minor mass was written. As far as I remember there's no evidence that it was written for performance of any kind, concert or liturgical.


Well it wasn't composed just to be tossed away the day after, we can tell that much. And the Kyrie and Gloria were apparently intended for public performance.


----------



## Mandryka

There is absolutely no connection whatsoever between belief in God or practice of religion and modernism. Some of the most important modernists were believers (Descartes, Schoenberg, Webern, Michael Finnissy, Maxwell Davies.) I dare say that some of the most important anti-modern reactionaries were not believers, but I never bother with any of them myself so . . .


----------



## 59540

Mandryka said:


> There is absolutely no connection whatsoever between belief in God or practice of religion and modernism. Some of the most important modernists were believers (Descartes, Schoenberg, Webern, Michael Finnissy, Maxwell Davies.) I dare say that some of the most important anti-modern reactionaries were not believers, but I never bother with any of them myself so . . .


No, I don't equate "modernism" with atheism, but the overall artistic Zeitgeist would I think be completely alien to Bach, as Bach the person would be to a contemporary music fan. The philosophical underpinnings of the past 60 years are water we fish are swimming around in, whether we acknowledge it or not. These "debates" in these threads about "artistic value" and so on bear witness to it.


----------



## vtpoet

dissident said:


> Compared to the typical contemporary composer or even academic, Bach wouid indeed be considered a religious fanatic.


I disagree, though it's all speculation. I think he would be considered religious, by our own standards, but not a _fanatic_. In a certain sense he wasn't considered religious _enough_ in his own day. The Leipzig authorities criticized Bach for his overly improvisatorial accompaniments on the organ which ended with the congregation in a muddle. That's not a man who lived to serve church elders.


----------



## 59540

vtpoet said:


> I disagree, though it's all speculation. I think he would be considered religious, by our own standards, but not a _fanatic_. In a certain sense he wasn't considered religious _enough_ in his own day. The Leipzig authorities criticized Bach for his overly improvisatorial accompaniments on the organ which ended with the congregation in a muddle. That's not a man who lived to serve church elders.


I'll just say that in my experience, any religious commitment is viewed by some as fanaticism. And I'll leave it at that.


----------



## Mandryka

dissident said:


> No, I don't equate "modernism" with atheism, but the overall artistic Zeitgeist would I think be completely alien to Bach, as Bach the person would be to a contemporary music fan. The philosophical underpinnings of the past 60 years are water we fish are swimming around in, whether we acknowledge it or not. These "debates" in these threads about "artistic value" and so on bear witness to it.


I think you're raising an interesting issue, and I don't have an opinion. I'll just mention something that crossed my mind: Michael Finnissy, Peter Maxwell Davies are two prima facie modern composers whose music is stuffed with symbolism and with intertextual references, including "spiritual" ones - like Bach's. So there he'd have seen something in common, wouldn't he?

So I think your post is the start of an investigation - and IMO I'm not qualified to do it, and this isn't the place for it.

I echo a previous sentiment:

I bow out of the discussion.


----------



## SanAntone

dissident said:


> But in a sense that Mass in B Minor wasn't written for atheists, except maybe in an evangelizing sense. I don't want to get into a religious debate, but once on another forum an atheist said that he could actually enjoy Bach's music *more* since it is now "liberated" from a theological context. But that's always seemed to me like examining Shakespeare solely on the basis of his grammar. That isn't really "liberation". I think a lot of the misunderstanding of Bach arises from either an ignorance or dismissal of evangelical Christian attitudes. SanAntone, if Bach were commenting on this forum he'd be banned forthwith.


The B Minor Mass can easily be appreciated on musical grounds alone. The language is not readily understood and though we all know what the Mass means, we don't have to think about it. I was raised Catholic and yet I never think of the Mass text when I listen to any liturgical music, Bach or especially the Renaissance composers.


----------



## 59540

SanAntone said:


> The B Minor Mass can easily be appreciated on musical grounds alone. The language is not readily understood and though we all know what the Mass means, we don't have to think about it. I was raised Catholic and yet I never think of the Mass text when I listen to any liturgical music, Bach or especially the Renaissance composers.


But as with the Magnificat and elsewhere in Bach's writing the text is important in that it's being musically described. Again that's like saying that the 1623 Folio can be appreciated on the basis of grammar and orthography alone. It's...probably not what Bach intended. Honestly I'd say that those who have a problem with the religious belief expressed in Bach's vocal music might be better off with the instrumental works. Just my opinion, to each his own. (And many do just that.)


----------



## SanAntone

dissident said:


> But as with the Magnificat and elsewhere in Bach's writing the text is important in that it's being musically described. Again that's like saying that the 1623 Folio can be appreciated on the basis of grammar and orthography alone. It's...probably not what Bach intended. Honestly I'd say that those who have a problem with the religious belief expressed in Bach's vocal music might be better off with the instrumental works. Just my opinion, to each his own. (And many do just that.)


I don't think a religious musical work, with a text, by Bach can be compared to a purely text based work by Shakespeare. I know a "devout" atheist who listens every Sunday to Beethoven's 9th (I think he said he has over 200 recordings). He said he has no problem divorcing the text from his enjoyment.

Regarding Bach being banned from this forum, I think Bach was intelligent enough to avoid falling into that trap if he truly found the forum a valuable destination (that is more questionable). The specifics of why Bach might be TC ban-worthy have more to do with our post-belief age and a concern for heated discussions crossing over into abusive behavior, than Bach's beliefs in of themselves.


----------



## 59540

SanAntone said:


> I don't think a religious musical work, with a text, by Bach can be compared to a purely text based work by Shakespeare.


I think it can. Shakespeare is context as well as "purely text". The context of Bach's vocal work is intertwined with the text that he is setting. 


> I know a "devout" atheist who listens every Sunday to Beethoven's 9th (I think he said he has over 200 recordings). He said he has no problem divorcing the text from his enjoyment.


That's great, although I don't think Beethoven would enjoy that kind of divorce.


> Regarding Bach being banned from this forum, I think Bach was intelligent enough to avoid falling into that trap if he truly found the forum a valuable destination (that is more questionable). The specifics of why Bach might be TC ban-worthy have more to do with our post-belief age and a concern for heated discussions crossing over into abusive behavior, than Bach's beliefs in of themselves.


All it would take is a few reports of Bach's absolutist viewpoint and a few 4-on-1 scrums to get at least a suspension. :lol:


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## fbjim

The Schiller text is a bit weird to place in a modern context since it is a part of a cultural moment for enlightenment-era theology which doesn't really exist anymore, at least not in the form that it did back then (possibly Unitarianism qualifies). Certainly the concept of universal brotherhood and general spiritualism divorced from organized religions have persisted, even if nobody calls themselves a deist or theosophist anymore.


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## 59540

fbjim said:


> . Certainly the concept of universal brotherhood and general spiritualism divorced from organized religions have persisted


I'm not so sure that it's "*divorced* from organized religion" any more than the Missa solemnis is though. An irritating thing is when "modern" thinking is attributed to characters in the past. Beethoven wasn't a Catholic firebrand, but I don't think he was fashionably agnostic either.


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## hammeredklavier

Some of the libretti of Bach's cantatas criticize Catholicism, but then he also wrote Catholic masses (with some of the music derived from the cantatas). So when he used the libretti criticizing Catholicism, did he do it cause he was sincere with it?

"On 1 February 1733, Augustus II the Strong, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Elector of Saxony, died. Five months of mourning followed, during which all public music-making was suspended. Bach used the opportunity to work on the composition of a Missa, a portion of the liturgy sung in Latin and common to both the Lutheran and Roman Catholic rites. His aim was to dedicate the work to the new sovereign Augustus III, a convert to Catholicism, with the hope of obtaining the title "Electoral Saxon Court Composer"."

Also consider:

"I would say that in an opera the poetry must be altogether the obedient daughter of the music. Why are Italian comic operas popular everywhere - in spite of the miserable libretti? … Because the music reigns supreme, and when one listens to it all else is forgotten. An opera is sure of success when the plot is well worked out, the words written solely for the music and not shoved in here and there to suit some miserable rhyme ... The best thing of all is when a good composer, who understands the stage and is talented enough to make sound suggestions, meets an able poet, that true phoenix; in that case, no fears need be entertained as to the applause - even of the ignorant." -Mozart, in letter to his father, 13 October 1781


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## fbjim

dissident said:


> I'm not so sure that it's "*divorced* from organized religion" any more than the Missa solemnis is though. An irritating thing is when "modern" thinking is attributed to characters in the past. Beethoven wasn't a Catholic firebrand, but I don't think he was fashionably agnostic either.


that's enlightenment-era thinking, which is different than the state of religion (and atheism) nowadays. I don't know if you can ascribe one specific philosophy to Beethoven, as it probably changes depending on how old he was, but a general belief in a creator God apart from organized religions as they existed back then (read: the Papacy) would not have been a foreign concept to educated people of his day.

This is off topic to Bach except to point out that the 9th has remained incredibly popular even as the cultural prominence of the Enlightenment has faded into history.


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## hammeredklavier

Cantata BWV 126, "Erhalt uns durch deine Gute"

Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort
und steur' des Papsts und Turken mord
Die Jesum Christum, deinen Sohn,
sturzen wollen von seinem Thron.

Uphold us, Lord, in Thy word
And fend off murderous Papists and Turks
Who wish to topple from his Throne
Jesu Christ, Thy son.


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## fbjim

hammeredklavier said:


> Cantata BWV 126, "Erhalt uns durch deine Gute"
> 
> Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort
> und steur' des Papsts und Turken mord
> Die Jesum Christum, deinen Sohn,
> sturzen wollen von seinem Thron.
> 
> Uphold us, Lord, in Thy word
> And fend off murderous Papists and Turks
> Who wish to topple from his Throne
> Jesu Christ, Thy son.


Well that would definitely get Bach banned from most forums.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Cantata BWV 126, "Erhalt uns durch deine Gute"
> 
> Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort
> und steur' des Papsts und Turken mord
> Die Jesum Christum, deinen Sohn,
> sturzen wollen von seinem Thron.
> 
> Uphold us, Lord, in Thy word
> And fend off murderous Papists and Turks
> Who wish to topple from his Throne
> Jesu Christ, Thy son.
> ..


I would think that in 1542, the date of the chorale, those were considered very real dangers by Lutherans. Akin to "From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us". Also akin to...BWV 80.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> I would think that in 1542, the date of the chorale, those were considered very real dangers by Lutherans. Akin to "From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us". Also akin to...BWV 80.


kind of reminds me of this (written by the member 'Dick Johnson' in the thread 'Why do you NOT like Wagner?'):

5. After immersing myself in Wagner biographies for a few months, I am less inclined to believe the commonly held opinion that Wagner was an anti-Semitic proto-Nazi monster. The man had some seriously bad opinions but I do enjoy the work of others with equally bad opinions. Unlike most of those, however, Wagner put his bad opinions in print - so we are forced to come to terms with them. Regarding the opinions themselves, I think it is possible to view some of them within the cultural milieu of 19th century Europe. He was a German nationalist at a time when the future of German culture and nationhood seemed very uncertain - essentially the opposite of the view we may have when we look in reverse at developments in Germany after his time. Other contemporary composers were equally nationalistic about their own respective nations - but did not have the weight of shameful historical catastrophes pass judgement on the at the time unforeseen results of their nationalism.


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## hammeredklavier

fbjim said:


> Well that would definitely get Bach banned from most forums.


But he would always be Bach.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> kind of reminds me of this (written by the member 'Dick Johnson' in the thread 'Why do you NOT like Wagner?'):
> 
> 5. After immersing myself in Wagner biographies for a few months, I am less inclined to believe the commonly held opinion that Wagner was an anti-Semitic proto-Nazi monster. The man had some seriously bad opinions but I do enjoy the work of others with equally bad opinions. Unlike most of those, however, Wagner put his bad opinions in print - so we are forced to come to terms with them. Regarding the opinions themselves, I think it is possible to view some of them within the cultural milieu of 19th century Europe. He was a German nationalist at a time when the future of German culture and nationhood seemed very uncertain - essentially the opposite of the view we may have when we look in reverse at developments in Germany after his time. Other contemporary composers were equally nationalistic about their own respective nations - but did not have the weight of shameful historical catastrophes pass judgement on the at the time unforeseen results of their nationalism.


Well there is an overall point there: A follower of Luther wouldn't have found them politically incorrect at all. The Ottoman Turks besieged Vienna just a couple of years before Bach's birth. And if the Catholic Church had had its way in 1542 there's no doubt that Luther would've met the same fate that befell 300-some-odd dissenters in England a little over a decade later. Context is important. Yeah Wagner was an antisemite and an insufferable egomaniac. But then I don't know if very many could pass modern political-correctness tests.


> hammeredklavier said:
> 
> 
> 
> But he would always be Bach.
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe as HandelLover1685 or something.
Click to expand...


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> Cantata BWV 126, "Erhalt uns durch deine Gute"
> 
> Uphold us, Lord, in Thy word
> And fend off murderous Papists and Turks
> Who wish to topple from his Throne
> Jesu Christ, Thy son.


Also worth mentioning. Bach didn't get to pick and choose his librettists or the subject matter. He approached the cantatas, in certain respects, as a tradesman. It was his job to put the text to music, not his job to editorialize (though if you read Gardiner's biography, Gardiner makes the argument that this is precisely what Bach does and through the music itself - speculation of course-turning the ostensible meaning of a dry religious excoriation on its head). It's a fool's errand to base Bach's temperament or thoughts on the kinds of libretti some mediocre poet served him up. Sometimes he'd make changes on the basis of the music he preferred to compose. There are examples but I don't have them at the tip of my fingers.


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## Kreisler jr

dissident said:


> No, I don't equate "modernism" with atheism, but the overall artistic Zeitgeist would I think be completely alien to Bach, as Bach the person would be to a contemporary music fan. The philosophical underpinnings of the past 60 years are water we fish are swimming around in, whether we acknowledge it or not. These "debates" in these threads about "artistic value" and so on bear witness to it.


True. But this would not have been at all unique to Bach. As Lewis points out in "The abolition of man" (in the 1940s, I think) the late modernist/postmodernist relativistic stance (in values and later on everywhere) is an historical aberration that only existed in small pockets in (broadly speaking) academia before the 20th century. I don't think the popularity or status of most artists of the past have any clear connection with how close they are to (post)modernism in their attitudes/philosophy.


----------



## 59540

Kreisler jr said:


> True. But this would not have been at all unique to Bach. As Lewis points out in "The abolition of man" (in the 1940s, I think) the late modernist/postmodernist relativistic stance (in values and later on everywhere) is an historical aberration that only existed in small pockets in (broadly speaking) academia before the 20th century. I don't think the popularity or status of most artists of the past have any clear connection with how close they are to (post)modernism in their attitudes/philosophy.


Aberration or not, I could link post after post showing the influence.


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## Kreisler jr

I am not denying the influence on (semi)educated people today. 
But do you really think Bach or any other artist from the past who worked within a not at all modern/postmodern framework appears difficult for this reason? I think people just ignore the "dissonance". It's also easy to do this, because appreciation of anything is supposedly dependent only on purely subjective (personal whim) or culturally contingent (sociohistorical whim), not on recognizing some objective qualities in the object of appreciation. It does not matter that Bach's (or others) philosophical, religious, aesthetic stance was so different (or wrong, if something can be wrong), because all that matters is that one likes the sounds the music makes and the pleasant personal states it evokes.


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## fbjim

even if one is religious, it is difficult to be religious in the same way Bach was, because he lived in an era where religion and the importance of organized religion on daily life was so far different than most of us today. 

the idea of Bach as an "evangelical Christian" is deeply weird for that reason- i don't know if that was the intended use of the term but "evangelical christian" has a specific meaning related to American Christianity that would be just as foreign to Bach as anything else.


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## SanAntone

dissident said:


> No, I don't equate "modernism" with atheism, but the overall artistic Zeitgeist would I think be completely alien to Bach, as Bach the person would be to a contemporary music fan. The philosophical underpinnings of the past 60 years are water we fish are swimming around in, whether we acknowledge it or not. These "debates" in these threads about "artistic value" and so on bear witness to it.


Well, I mean, why don't you state the obvious.  Why single out Bach in this regard, the world of the 18th century is so very different the world of the 21st that no one from back then would recognize much about our time.

However, I am among those who do not see progress as the inevitable by-product of the mere passage of time. While we have made our lives more convenient with indoor plumbing, electricity, and other technology - our world has grown coarser because of technology as well.

The sound of the environment is polluted by traffic, low level electronic hum, and electric lights robbing the night sky of much of its beauty. There are times when I fantasize about living in a world before the invention of the automobile and the telephone.


----------



## Mandryka

SanAntone said:


> The sound of the environment is polluted by traffic, low level electronic hum, and electric lights robbing the night sky of much of its beauty. There are times when I fantasize about living in a world before the invention of the automobile and the telephone.


You'd be whining about the sound of the mule and the washer women at the river, not to mention the smog belching from chimneys of the dark satanic mills. How can you fall into the trap of a golden age which never was?

I personally see progress as inevitable - progress brought us the covid vaccine; progress will no doubt bring us huge mirrors to divert the sun's rays and save the planet from warming; progress brought us the end of the illusion of religion, that vast moth-eaten musical brocade created to pretend we never die; progress emancipated us from common practice harmony, it showed us that all notes are equal; it brought us Spotify and Bluetooth; it brought is Big Macs and KFC and Red Bull; progress will bring us Modern Monetary Theory soon I hope.


----------



## Guest

SanAntone said:


> Well, I mean, why don't you state the obvious.  Why single out Bach in this regard, the world of the 18th century is so very different the world of the 21st that no one from back then would recognize much about our time.
> 
> However, I am among those who do not see progress as the inevitable by-product of the mere passage of time. While we have made our lives more convenient with indoor plumbing, electricity, and other technology - our world has grown coarser because of technology as well.
> 
> The sound of the environment is polluted by traffic, low level electronic hum, and electric lights robbing the night sky of much of its beauty. There are times when I fantasize about living in a world before the invention of the automobile and the telephone.


Your last paragraph reminds me of a part of this speech from "Inherit the Wind", at 2 minutes here:


----------



## SanAntone

Mandryka said:


> You'd be whining about the sound of the mule and the washer women at the river, not to mention the smog belching from chimneys of the dark satanic mills. How can you fall into the trap of a golden age which never was?


There is no need for you to be rude; I wasn't "whining" to begin with and I do not believe in a "golden age" but have my opinion about the cost:benefit of the technological developments in the last 150 years.



> I personally see progress as inevitable - progress brought us the covid vaccine; progress will no doubt bring us huge mirrors to divert the sun's rays and save the planet from warming; progress brought us the end of the illusion of religion, that vast moth-eaten musical brocade created to pretend we never die; progress emancipated us from common practice harmony, it showed us that all notes are equal; it brought us Spotify and Bluetooth; it brought is Big Macs and KFC and Red Bull; progress will bring us Modern Monetary Theory soon I hope.


I do not share your rosy view of technology especially how it is being used for surveillance, medical interventions, controlling information, and brainwashing, i.e. convincing us that what the oligarchs and private actors influencing elected officials are up to is all for our own good.

I won't get sucked into a discussion that is verging on the political.


----------



## Mandryka

SanAntone said:


> I do not share your rosy view of technology especially how it is being used for surveillance, medical interventions, controlling information, and brainwashing, i.e. convincing us that what the oligarchs and private actors influencing elected officials are up to is all for our own good.
> 
> I won't get sucked into a discussion that is verging on the political.


Ok we can end it there after I've said this: I think control of the majority by a small minority was an even greater feature in past times. I don't believe things have got worse in that respect, on the contrary.


----------



## 59540

Mandryka said:


> Ok we can end it there after I've said this: I think control of the majority by a small minority was an even greater feature in past times. I don't believe things have got worse in that respect, on the contrary.


I'd disagree. I think it's gotten worse. How many *real* media companies are there in the US? How many independent (non-Gannett or other conglomerate-owned) daily newspapers? What's the influence of Google, Twitter and Facebook? Who influences Google, Twitter and Facebook? Who owns the Washington Post? Fox News? NBC? The number of *real* media/communications players in this country is very small and power is growing ever more concentrated. That's probably also true for Europe and Japan, and certainly China. The result is an illusory near-unanimity on certain issues where there is none. A hive mentality.


SanAntone said:


> Why single out Bach in this regard[?]


I'll refer you to the thread title.


----------



## Luchesi

dissident said:


> I'm not so sure that it's "*divorced* from organized religion" any more than the Missa solemnis is though. An irritating thing is when "modern" thinking is attributed to characters in the past. Beethoven wasn't a Catholic firebrand, but I don't think he was fashionably agnostic either.


Was Bach intelligent enough to accept the current view that we're an extremely improbable emergence?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Mandryka said:


> You'd be whining about the sound of the mule and the washer women at the river, not to mention the smog belching from chimneys of the dark satanic mills. How can you fall into the trap of a golden age which never was?
> 
> I personally see progress as inevitable - progress brought us the covid vaccine; progress will no doubt bring us huge mirrors to divert the sun's rays and save the planet from warming; progress brought us the end of the illusion of religion, that vast moth-eaten musical brocade created to pretend we never die; progress emancipated us from common practice harmony, it showed us that all notes are equal; it brought us Spotify and Bluetooth; it brought is Big Macs and KFC and Red Bull; progress will bring us Modern Monetary Theory soon I hope.


You sound like a consultant. Not a negative comment btw.

Odd that you'd say this after espousing the independence of modernity and religion.


----------



## Mandryka

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Odd that you'd say this after espousing the independence of modernity and religion.


Why?

Ex,,no,Manx,s


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

You say the following:
Progress is inevitable
+
Progress brought us the end of religion
Progress brought us modernity in music (and I assume in other areas as well)

So at the very least Bayes' Law tells us they should be correlated and logically there isn't "no connection whatsoever" between them.


----------



## Mandryka

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> You say the following:
> Progress is inevitable
> +
> Progress brought us the end of religion
> Progress brought us modernity in music (and I assume in other areas as well)
> 
> So at the very least Bayes' Law tells us they should be correlated and logically there isn't "no connection whatsoever" between them.


Ah yes, I distinguish between modernity and modernism. Progress, modernism, signifies the end of religion, individual musical modernists may cling onto vestiges of the obsolete way of thinking. There's also possibly a reason to distinguish between religion and spirituality - by the former I mean the moral and ontological institutions like Christianity and Judaism etc which have controlled the people up to now. By the later I mean the altered states of mind which some of their rituals induced. Some modernists may still enjoy those states of mind, and even (mistakenly) see them as revelatory.

Descartes, who I mentioned as a religious modernist because he believed that God exists, was a different case and his type is rare these days. He thought it was provable. He was simply mistaken, his proofs are not valid. His mistake was one of logic.


----------



## 59540

Mandryka said:


> BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:
> 
> 
> 
> You say the following:
> Progress is inevitable
> +
> Progress brought us the end of religion
> Progress brought us modernity in music (and I assume in other areas as well)
> 
> 
> 
> Ah yes, I distinguish between modernity and modernism. Progress, modernism, signifies the end of religion, individual musical modernists may cling onto vestiges of the obsolete way of thinking. There's also possibly a reason to distinguish between religion and spirituality - by the former I mean the moral and ontological institutions like Christianity and Judaism etc which have controlled the people up to now. By the later I mean the altered states of mind which some of their rituals induced. Some modernists may still enjoy those states of mind, and even (mistakenly) see them as revelatory.
> 
> Descartes, who I mentioned as a religious modernist because he believed that God exists, was a different case and his type is rare these days. He thought it was provable. He was simply mistaken, his proofs are not valid. His mistake was one of logic.
Click to expand...

But religion hasn't by any means "ended" except among perhaps the "intelligentsia", natural or self-appointed, and Europe. And that attitude is labeled "progress". Who judges that? That could very well be a manifestation of a cultural imperialism of another kind.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

I can't get into this too much on TC, but I would say spiritual states of mind may possess valid claims if being revelatory even if primarily subjectively, and that I agree with dissident that the dogmatic shift in attitude towards religion is indeed likely a manifestation of cultural imperialism.

I don't personally resonate with any ontological, moral, or anecdotal "argument" for God. Teleological arguments seem more reasonable and while I don't agree with their conclusions per se, I think the arguments used to try to dismantle them (e.g. "the God of the gaps") are founded on shakier premises, evidence of corrupt ideology. Truth is, we don't know and can't know any of this, not even in a probabilistic sense. Science math and logic are fundamentally relational and fundamentally incomplete. Some issues necessarily exist outside the domain of empirical investigation and rationality. It comes down to belief, that is all. The "problems" (intellectual, moral) emerge when people try to interpret God and His will, not when they believe His existence.


----------



## Mandryka

dissident said:


> But religion hasn't by any means "ended" except among perhaps the "intelligentsia", natural or self-appointed, and Europe. And that attitude is labeled "progress". Who judges that? That could very well be a manifestation of a cultural imperialism of another kind.


Absolutely. It is indeed a cultural imperialism. The end of religion and such like is only for those who value truth above falsity, science above superstition. It is the imperialism of reason.


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Mandryka said:


> Absolutely. It is indeed a cultural imperialism. *The end of religion and such like is only for those who value truth above falsity, science above superstition*. It is the imperialism of reason.


Nonsense. Many use dismissive skepticism as a way to channel their own arrogance or sense of superiority. Same attitudes, different conduit.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

The OP is about Bach and music theory, let's return to that topic


----------



## SanAntone

Mandryka said:


> Absolutely. It is indeed a cultural imperialism. The end of religion and such like is only for those who value truth above falsity, science above superstition. It is the imperialism of reason.


You present a monochromatic view of our reality. Science is not settled, that's the last thing a system of inquiry can ever be. Conclusions evolve as new data appears and discoveries are made. Nothing is absolutely true or false, everything is relative.

And science has well defined limits of knowledge. It tells us nothing about good and evil. And science cannot address aspects of reality which are the most mysterious, usually called metaphysical things.

I prefer a world with people of faith as well as skeptics.

I see humanity grouped along a spectrum of belief of one kind or another: belief in God and faith in a divine plan and purpose, or belief in science and the need to live morally in the absence of a divine law-giver - or - belief in the autonomy of man, freed from societal constraints, acting without conscience or morality other than one of his own creation.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory? My music teacher upheld Bach as the greatest composer of all time. I like his work, but could never see why he was / is considered greater than Mozart or Beethoven. He despised Wagner who's works I find more moving than Bach's.


Why isn't the same thing said about other Baroque composers such as Handel or Telemann? Listen to the fugue from the Dixit dominus: 



. It sounds like Zelenka without the melodic chromatic twists. No gradation in dynamics, no variation in rhythm. Just Continual successions of imitations and cycles of sequences. (I know they are Baroque aesthetic traits, but why do people always point out these things in Bach, but not in Handel or Telemann, for example?)
I would argue that the Amen fugue can be seen as a bit "dry", "cold", and "academic", lacking the "color" of Bach. (To me, being simply "pompous" all the way is different from being "dramatic" with subtlety, btw.) Nowhere does Handel have the "warmth" like the "Et in terra pax" from Bach's G minor mass, which I posted earlier. (Some of the vocal arias are expressive, but those are not what I mean by "warmth" here, and are a different animal in terms of ensemble texture.)


hammeredklavier said:


> I think the "cerebral qualities" of Bach's keyboard music are often overstated, compared to say, Handel's:
> 
> 
> 
> (~56:00)


----------



## vtpoet

One could replace all the libretti of Bach's cantatas with passages from Einstein's Relativity or Hawkings' "A Brief History of Time". And two thoughts on that. First, apart from native German speakers, 99% of listeners would _probably_ never know. Second, the results could be stunningly beautiful and allow one to experience his music and the text, especially, in much the same way Bach and the congregation experienced it (as contemporaneous and relevant). In this case, though, it would be Bach's wonder, jubilance and profundity in the service of the human mind and the wonders of the physical universe.


----------



## hammeredklavier




----------



## Mandryka

SanAntone said:


> You present a monochromatic view of our reality. Science is not settled, that's the last thing a system of inquiry can ever be. Conclusions evolve as new data appears and discoveries are made. Nothing is absolutely true or false, everything is relative.
> .


I thought you'd bowed out!

One helpful concept is justified assertability, which is relative to the state of understanding. Scientific method, I propose, is the paradigm process for arriving at justifiably assertable propositions. And as a matter of fact, science doesn't need a religious ontology to develeop its explanatory and predictive theories.

The relation of justifiable assertability and truth is a complex one, and is perhaps the central question of modern metaphysics. If you're interested google anti-realism and Michael Dummett.


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## vtpoet

Mandryka said:


> Scientific method, I propose, is the paradigm process for arriving at justifiably assertable propositions.


That strikes me as thinly veiled Metaphysical Naturalism. Science isn't a religion, strictly speaking, but in a figurative sense it most definitely _can_ be (in that, like Religion, Scientism asserts belief rather than evidence). It can have its own doctrine and dogma based on what are deemed "justifiable assertions". Metaphysical Naturalism turns into Scientism when it proselytizes. Many of the hard atheists are members of the Church of Scientism-making belief-based assertions for which they have no evidence. (Although there's nothing easier than being an Abrahamic Atheist.)

Science is just a methodology. That's all it is.

Any scientist (like the late Oliver Sacks) telling you that consciousness is, as a factual matter, a purely neurological by-product is blowing smoke-expressing their beliefs-no different than saying that consciousness is proof of an eternal soul.

Whenever I'm cornered, I opt for Methodological Naturalism. There's a method for collecting and assessing data and all the rest is speculation and/or expressions of belief.


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## fbjim

vtpoet said:


> One could replace all the libretti of Bach's cantatas with passages from Einstein's Relativity or Hawkings' "A Brief History of Time". And two thoughts on that. First, apart from native German speakers, 99% of listeners would _probably_ never know. Second, the results could be stunningly beautiful and allow one to experience his music and the text, especially, in much the same way Bach and the congregation experienced it (as contemporaneous and relevant). In this case, though, it would be Bach's wonder, jubilance and profundity in the service of the human mind and the wonders of the physical universe.


even if one is not religious i think it's entirely legitimate, and often-done, to appreciate a religious text, even if there is necessarily a distancing effect from not being a "true believer". to an extent there will always be a distancing effect anyways, simply from the fact that we are listening to liturgical music outside of its original context, in time and space.

there may be people who are almost literally allergic to religious texts but i correlate this mindset with a strain of hard atheism which is less popular nowadays, ironically because of relativistic attitudes.


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## mmsbls

Please refrain from purely religious comments whether pro or con. The thread concerns Bach and music theory. Please return to that topic.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> One could replace all the libretti of Bach's cantatas with passages from Einstein's Relativity or Hawkings' "A Brief History of Time". And two thoughts on that. First, apart from native German speakers, 99% of listeners would _probably_ never know. Second, the results could be stunningly beautiful and allow one to experience his music and the text, especially, in much the same way Bach and the congregation experienced it (as contemporaneous and relevant). In this case, though, it would be Bach's wonder, jubilance and profundity in the service of the human mind and the wonders of the physical universe.


I would strongly disagree. Whether you approve of the texts or not, part of the greatness of Bach's vocal music is his word-painting. It would be like watching a foreign-language film without knowing the language and with no subtitles. Bach wasn't inspired by Einstein or Hawking.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> I would strongly disagree. Whether you approve of the texts or not, part of the greatness of Bach's vocal music is his word-painting. It would be like watching a foreign-language film without knowing the language and with no subtitles. Bach wasn't inspired by Einstein or Hawking.


Such nonsense. Bach used to do it all the time. He'd take pieces originally written for one text and use them for another. That's how his Lutheran Masses and the B minor Mass were written (among others, including other cantatas that we both know and probably don't know about).

Outside of native German speakers, the world has only the faintest notion what Bach's cantatas are going on about unless they read the libretti, and even then the word painting will be lost on them simply because it's a foreign language and they haven't the faintest notion when or how the word is being sung. They listen for the music. So, you can disagree, but it's like disagreeing that the sun rises in the East. Go right ahead. Do it strongly. Have fun.

If Bach's music were put to Einstein, Hawkings, or what have you, it would be no different than what Bach _himself_ did.

And no, it would not be like watching a foreign language film without knowing the language or subtitles. That's a rubbish analogy. I've been listening to Bach's cantatas all my life, have listened to all the cycles from beginning to end, and though I may have once read the libretti, and though I speak German, I hardly ever bother sorting out what they're actually singing. I go for the music.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Such nonsense. Bach used to do it all the time. He'd take pieces originally written for one text and use them for another. That's how his Lutheran Masses and the B minor Mass were written (among others, including other cantatas that we both know and probably don't know about).


HE would take pieces and use them for another purpose. I don't see how that would justify setting _A Brief History of Time_ to the B Minor Mass. That sounds like one of Peter Sellars' loopier ideas.


> Outside of native German speakers, the world has only the faintest notion what Bach's cantatas are going on about unless they read the libretti, and even then the word painting will be lost on them simply because it's a foreign language and they haven't the faintest notion when or how the word is being sung. They listen for the music.


Most recordings I've seen, particularly of individual cantatas, include the text with a translation.



> If Bach's music were put to Einstein, Hawkings, or what have you, it would be no different than what Bach _himself_ did.
> 
> And no, it would not be like watching a foreign language film without knowing the language or subtitles. That's a rubbish analogy. I've been listening to Bach's cantatas all my life, have listened to all the cycles from beginning to end, and though I may have once read the libretti, and though I speak German, I hardly ever bother sorting out what they're actually singing. I go for the music.


Just because you choose to listen in ignorance doesn't mean everyone else should. Or cares to.


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## SanAntone

It has been widely acknowledged that Martin Luther developed ideas which in modern times have been considered stridently anti-Semitic. Since Bach used Luther's translation of the Bible for his Passion setting, as well as add some free texts expanding and commenting on the Gospel, his St. John Passion and some cantatas have come under the same criticism.

However, during Luther's and Bach's time these views were not only acceptable, but thought a straight forward reading of the Gospel. Further, the term "anti-semitism" was unknown during Bach's time, and did not come into existence until towards the end of the 19th century. Classic anti-Semitism, embraced by Hitler and others, was based not on religious grounds but on race. This is entirely different from how Luther and Bach thought, more accurately described as anti-Judaism, which was religious dogma found in the Gospel itself, for rejecting Jesus as Messiah and having a hand in his execution.

IMO it is anachronistic to attack Bach on this issue.


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## 59540

SanAntone said:


> It has been widely acknowledged that Martin Luther developed ideas which in modern times have been considered stridently anti-Semitic. Since Bach used Luther's translation of the Bible for his Passion setting, as well as add some free texts expanding and commenting on the Gospel, his St. John Passion and some cantatas have come under the same criticism.
> 
> However, during Luther's and Bach's time these views were not only acceptable, but thought a straight forward reading of the
> Gospel. Further, the term "anti-semitism" was unknown during Bach's time, and did not come into existence until towards the end of the 19th century. Classic anti-Semitism, embraced by Hitler and others, was based not on religious grounds but on race. This is entirely different from how Luther and Bach thought, more accurately described as anti-Judaism, which was religious dogma found in the Gospel itself, for rejecting Jesus as Messiah and having a hand in his execution.
> 
> IMO it is anachronistic to attack Bach on this issue.


Rereading your comment more carefully I would agree with most of what you said so NOW I'll leave it at that.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> HE would take pieces and use them for another purpose. I don't see how that would justify setting _A Brief History of Time_ to the B Minor Mass.


Your objection was that any "word painting" would be utterly lost; and my point was that this is a demonstrably irrelevant objection given Bach's own habits. Bach's music didn't and doesn't live or die when its taken from its original context.



dissident said:


> Most recordings I've seen, particularly of individual cantatas, include the text with a translation.


And I repeat: "Outside of native German speakers, the world has only the faintest notion what Bach's cantatas are going on about unless they read the libretti, and even then the word painting will be lost on them simply because it's a foreign language and they haven't the faintest notion when or how the word is being sung. "



dissident said:


> Just because you choose to listen in ignorance doesn't mean everyone else should. Or cares to.


Where did I make any of those assertions? I didn't.

All I originally wrote is that substituting Hawking or Einstein for the original religious texts "could be stunningly beautiful and allow one to experience his music and the text, especially, in much the same way Bach and the congregation experienced it (as contemporaneous and relevant)."

That's it. I didn't say we should permanently replace the original texts with Einstein or Hawking. But apparently you have a flaming little bee in your bonnet when it comes to me. So set fire to your next straw man.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Your objection was that any "word painting" would be utterly lost; and my point was that this is a demonstrably irrelevant objection given Bach's own habits. Bach's music didn't and doesn't live or die when its taken from its original context.


If you'll examine the parodies of earlier cantata movements in the Mass, you'll find that they're overall pretty congruent with their earlier settings. In his religious works, Bach doesn't seem to be in the habit of churning out things that could be mixed and matched and could serve as a Sanctus today and then be used as a setting of Newton's Principia tomorrow, and then a tavern song the next. Just because he recycled doesn't mean anything went. Bach often used some of his secular music in a religious context, for example the fourth Orchestral Suite as the basis of the opening of BWV 110. But read the text and listen to the music. I can't think of instances though where he recycled music that was originally religious into something secular, though there may be some. The reverse was the usual procedure. Here's the opening chorus of BWV 110, "Unser Mund sei voll Lachens", and since you speak German I don't need to translate. Can't you hear the laughter in there?







> All I originally wrote is that substituting Hawking or Einstein for the original religious texts "could be stunningly beautiful and allow one to experience his music and the text, especially, in much the same way Bach and the congregation experienced it (as contemporaneous and relevant)."


But that isn't really true. Using that reasoning, you could beautify some passages from anything by just providing some Bachian accompaniment. Maybe, but you've lost the original context. You've obviously never really investigated very deeply the relationship between text and music in Bach's vocal works. What on earth from Einstein and Hawking would go with this?


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> Bach often used some of his secular music in a religious context


Also think of the chorale prelude and hymn from Die zauberflote, for example.


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## hammeredklavier

hammeredklavier said:


> Why isn't the same thing said about other Baroque composers such as Handel or Telemann? Listen to the fugue from the Dixit dominus:
> 
> 
> 
> .






"I've repeated this theme enough times, so ummmmm..... I'll now do it with a sustained tone in the soprano........ since I've repeated this enough times, so ummmmmmmm.......... so now, I'll do it with fugal strettos, and since I've repeated this enough times............so ummmmmmmmm....... I'll juxtapose it with other material..."
It seems like there's too much "thinking" (music theory) involved. The seemless flow and continuity/spontaneity of ideas Bach presents in the F sharp minor fugue from WTC II lack this sort of artificiality.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> You've obviously never really investigated very deeply the relationship between text and music in Bach's vocal works. What on earth from Einstein and Hawking would go with this?


You obviously are not very imaginative. Parody texts can be made to work beautifully _as demonstrated by Bach himself_. But for your hide-bound eristic posturing, there's no reason to think one couldn't devise a modern text that would work beautifully with Bach's word painting. And no, no one is saying that the original texts should be discarded. And no, no one is saying that anything goes. And I wouldn't be surprised if there are cantata movements that you would possessively cherish for their word painting that are actually parodies of lost originals. I wouldn't be surprised at all.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> But for your hide-bound eristic posturing, there's no reason to think one couldn't devise a modern text that would work beautifully with Bach's word painting.


But it isn't necessary. It would be ersatz and a travesty. Find some modern-day Bach to set Hawking or Einstein or whatever secular text to music.


> And I wouldn't be surprised if there are cantata movements that you would possessively cherish for their word painting that are actually parodies of lost originals. I wouldn't be surprised at all.


That could very well be. But the changes and adaptations would be Bach's.


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## Luchesi

dissident said:


> But it isn't necessary. It would be ersatz and a travesty. Find some modern-day Bach to set Hawking or Einstein or whatever secular text to music.
> That could very well be. But the changes and adaptations would be Bach's.


I can say that the words do help me with the emotional devices in the music. But I'm open-minded about Jesus.


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## Kreisler jr

Setting science prose to Bach would be silly nonsense; this is hardly worth discussing. Using modern poetry would be little better. The texts are what they are. Some are great biblical poetry like psalms, some are decent Lutheran chorals or paraphrases of bible verses, some are stilted baroque poetry. Even native speakers probably struggle with a few phrases and passages (as is to be expected by 300+ year old poetic texts with a huge religious and cultural context, a lot of which is barely known to present listeners).
As for parodies; they range from virtually identical texts ("Gratias agimus..." and "Wir danken dir.." are literal translations) or very close ("Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen Zagen" etc and Crucifixus have the same sad affekt) to rather distant ones. E.g. the beautiful "Bereite Dich Zion" from the Christmas oratorio had a totally different text with reference to snakes (I think the ones killed by baby Hercules) in the middle section, or the "Echo piece" that makes little sense in the Christmas version.


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## vtpoet

Kreisler jr said:


> Setting science prose to Bach would be silly nonsense...


That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I personally would love to see something like this done. I can imagine many fans of Bach or just casual listeners who would love it.

A fainting couch could be arranged for you and others, I suppose.


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## vtpoet

Also, Bach might even endorse it.

Bach was untroubled parodying Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and was also, thankfully, untroubled by the sniping and indignation of an 18th century dissident (*But it's not Pergolesi!!! But the word painting!!! Oh the humanity!!!*).


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## Luchesi

vtpoet said:


> That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I personally would love to see something like this done. I can imagine many fans of Bach or just casual listeners who would love it.
> 
> A fainting couch could be arranged for you and others, I suppose.


So the history and the cultural slap in the face isn't part of your appreciation? I take another look at the beliefs and the history that came from those beliefs when I listen. They're all part of the rewarding process, for me.


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## vtpoet

Luchesi said:


> So the history and the cultural slap in the face isn't part of your appreciation? I take another look at the beliefs and the history that came from those beliefs when I listen. They're all part of the rewarding process, for me.


Your appeal to "history" and your loaded description of the text's replacement as a "cultural slap" has the strong whiff of conservative politics-as if what's really offensive isn't the parody (since Bach himself did that) but the thought that science, a secular and ostensibly liberal endeavor, could ever lay claim to the traditional supremacy of religion as a legitimate source for awe, wonder and intrinsic cultural value.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I personally would love to see something like this done. I can imagine many fans of Bach or just casual listeners who would love it.
> 
> A fainting couch could be arranged for you and others, I suppose.


What's stopping you?


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> What's stopping you?


I just need to know what color fainting couch you prefer. Lavender? Some smelling salts to revive you?


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> I just need to know what color fainting couch you prefer. Lavender? Some smelling salts to revive you?


I wouldn't faint. Like just about everyone else I wouldn't be interested. Knock yourself out.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> I wouldn't faint. Like just about everyone else I wouldn't be interested. Knock yourself out.


I had no idea you spoke for just about everyone else. None! On what other topics do you speak for just about everyone else? Inquiring minds want to know.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> I had no idea you spoke for just about everyone else. None! On what other topics do you speak for just about everyone else? Inquiring minds want to know.


I had no idea you spoke for "many Bach fans" who are craving for weird bowdlerizations. Anyway prove "us" wrong. Get to it.


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## Bulldog

vtpoet said:


> Your appeal to "history" and your loaded description of the text's replacement as a "cultural slap" has the strong whiff of conservative politics-as if what's really offensive isn't the parody (since Bach himself did that) but the thought that science, a secular and ostensibly liberal endeavor, could ever lay claim to the traditional supremacy of religion as a legitimate source for awe, wonder and intrinsic cultural value.


But it was Bach's source for those values. I can't see using someone else's source.


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## hammeredklavier

This actually ties into what talked about in some threads (ie. that certain moods portrayed in opera or secular oratorio/cantata, for instance, had their religious music "equivalents", throughout the 18th century)



hammeredklavier said:


> Think of "Ach, ich fühl's":
> 
> 
> 
> (~12:28)





hammeredklavier said:


> I think this bit (9:51) from Mozart's K.257 is like a "prototypical" expression of this bit (10:57) from Don Giovanni, and this bit from K.220 is of this bit from La Clemenza di Tito.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Your appeal to "history" and your loaded description of the text's replacement as a "cultural slap" has the strong whiff of conservative politics-as if what's really offensive isn't the parody (since Bach himself did that) but the thought that science, a secular and ostensibly liberal endeavor, could ever lay claim to the traditional supremacy of religion as a legitimate source for awe, wonder and intrinsic cultural value.


If science can inspire that kind of awe and wonder in artists, then it will. Why do you have to appropriate Bach for the purpose?


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## Kreisler jr

vtpoet said:


> A fainting couch could be arranged for you and others, I suppose.


I am not the one who gets their knickers in a twist about the original texts...

do you seriously think that a mediocre pop science book like "Brief history of time" would make a good song text? It would be pretentious dadaistic nonsense worse than stuff that has long been done such as rapping the Communist Manifesto or Wittgenstein's Tractatus. But these were at least obvious jokes, not supposed to be "awe inspiring".

And if you can't see the difference between such nonsense and editing a contemporary piece like the Pergolesi Stabat Mater with a text within the same religion and emotional affekt, there is no use of any further discussion, I fear.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> I had no idea you spoke for "many Bach fans" who are craving for weird bowdlerizations. Anyway prove "us" wrong. Get to it.


There you go, with another one of your straw men. I notice you strategically left out the rest of what I wrote. "_I can imagine_ many fans of Bach..." I wrote, and I could be wrong, but I would never presume to speak for "just about everyone else". (Speaking for yourself is probably exhausting enough.) Beyond that, I don't object to the possibility that, in fact, you _could_ be right! Maybe _just about_ everyone _would_ hate it. That's okay. "Just about" isn't everyone. But what I object to are your historically ignorant assertions that somehow "word painting" and historical context are inviolable attributes (when Bach himself hardly treated his own or others music that way). And that includes putting music he composed for the church into secular cantatas.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> If science can inspire that kind of awe and wonder in artists, then it will. Why do you have to appropriate Bach for the purpose?


Why shouldn't I or anyone? What gives you ownership over Bach's music?


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## vtpoet

Kreisler jr said:


> do you seriously think that a mediocre pop science book like "Brief history of time" would make a good song text?


Have you ever actually read any of the cantata libretti? A single one? I doubt you would be posturing over mediocrity if you had. I got news for you: It's not the sententious religious pablum that makes Bach's cantatas works of genius. As I intimated at the very outset of this thread, slim to none outside Germany understand the arias while they're being sung and probably a small minority have actually bothered to read and remember the texts.



Kreisler jr said:


> It would be pretentious dadaistic nonsense worse than stuff that has long been done such as rapping the Communist Manifesto or Wittgenstein's Tractatus. But these were at least obvious jokes, not supposed to be "awe inspiring".
> 
> And if you can't see the difference between such nonsense and editing a contemporary piece like the Pergolesi Stabat Mater with a text within the same religion and emotional affekt, there is no use of any further discussion, I fear.


And there we have it.

The truth comes out: The indignation at the thought that science could ever rival religion's majesty or claim to artistic and cultural hegemony. It's not for me to argue you out of your politics, just to point them out.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> The truth comes out: The indignation at the thought that science could ever rival religion's majesty or claim to artistic and cultural hegemony. It's not for me to argue you out of your politics, just to point them out.


Bach was a religious man and his greatest works were inspired by his faith. Deal with it in some way other than by glomming onto him.


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## SanAntone

Just a reminder what the OP asked:

*Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?*

While I definitely do not think there is a connection between loving Bach's music and knowing music theory, I think a good understanding of forms like fugue and Baroque suites, and counterpoint will help to digest his music.

Bach's sacred music is one of the greatest achievements in music. The fact that he wrote so much, and of such a consistently high artistic quality, is a constant source of awe for me. I admit to these days listening mainly to his instrumental works - the keyboard music, the solo violin, and cello works - but there was a time when the B Minor Mass, the Passions, and the Cantatas were a huge part of my life.

Two sets of works which I no longer enjoy are the Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites. But other than that, among Bach's very deep catalog there are a number of the greatest works ever written, and you needn't know any music theory to find his music accessible and enriching.


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## mmsbls

Recently the thread has become a bit too personal. Please comment on thread content and not on other members.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> Bach was a religious man and his greatest works were inspired by his faith. Deal with it in some way other than by glomming onto him.


One listens to Bach for the universality of his music, not the 18th century religious sentiments of the librettists, deal with people like me in some other way than by gloming onto the 18th century.


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## vtpoet

SanAntone said:


> Two sets of works which I no longer enjoy are the Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites. But other than that, among Bach's very deep catalog there are a number of the greatest works ever written, and you needn't know any music theory to find his music accessible and enriching.


I've recently purchased some newer performances of the Brandenburgs and the Orchestral Suites. That's greatly refreshed them for me. It's easy for me to think that I've grown tired of the music when sometimes it's really the interpretation that I've grown tired of.

As for Bach and music theory, I _would_ say that a knowledge of music theory, and the ability to analyze Bach at that level, really helps to understand why and how, _at an objective level_, Bach's artistry and music greatly exceeds that of his peers. Bach's reputation is _not_ simply a result of subjective preference among otherwise equal composers, but a reflection of his demonstrable melodic and harmonic genius.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> One listens to Bach for the universality of his music, not the 18th century religious sentiments of the librettists, deal with people like me in some other way than by gloming onto the 18th century.


What gives you the right to speak for every listener?

"Who can be said to approach more nearly the spirit of Bach: a European who does not attend church and carries his Christian cultural heritage mostly on the subconscious level, or an Asian who is active in his faith although the influence of Christianity on his national culture is small?"

-- Masaaki Suzuki, who knows a bit more about Bach's work than either of us.


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## fbjim

What if you're a "papist"? Can catholics get Bach? 

This isn't a rhetorical question, just to say that the conception of "Christianity" in Bach's day was completely different than what we have now.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> What gives you the right to speak for every listener?


I don't. I speak for the evidence.

All else being equal, if listeners were interested in the liturgy rather than the music, we would have multiple recordings of all the other cantata cycles still in existence, including those by Telemann and what's left of the 14 cycles written by Johann Kuhnau for example. And there are other cantata cycles, whose librettists were far more talented than Bach's librettists; but we're very unlikely to hear this liturgy because the music is mediocre at best. Those simple facts tell you that in the 21st century liturgy takes a back seat to the music. And the simple fact that most anyone (besides a German speaker) is unlikely to comprehend what's being sung tells you that it doesn't matter. One can thoroughly enjoy the cantatas without knowing or caring what's being sung.

As to Suzuki's comment, the context for that arose from a degree of racism (directed at Suzuki). There's more to his comment than simply the assertion that a Christian is going to "get Bach" more than an atheist. If one is going to be directing and producing the complete Bach cantata cycle, then yes, one must absolutely be cognizant of the historical and religious context in which he created his music (insofar as it informs his music); but such knowledge is patently unnecessary for any ten year who falls in love with Bach. It's the music.


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## 59540

fbjim said:


> What if you're a "papist"? Can catholics get Bach?
> 
> .


It depends on the individual listener. My reflex is to say of course they can...but thinking about it, maybe not. I love Palestrina and Gabrieli, but I'm not Catholic and didn't grow up with Catholic liturgy, so maybe indeed I can love those composers and others like them but never fully "get" them. At the same time I don't have an urge to turn them into something I find more "comfortable" or familiar.

Years ago I came across this video of an Italian ensemble performing BWV 80 and I assume there are at least some "papists" in there. They seem to "get" Bach pretty well. They don't seem to have substituted Gramsci for the original text anyway:





For that matter, so do these Koreans:







vtpoet said:


> All else being equal, if listeners were interested in the liturgy rather than the music, we would have multiple recordings of all the other cantata cycles still in existence, including those by Telemann and what's left of the 14 cycles written by Johann Kuhnau for example.


What do you mean "all else being equal"? It's not either/or. Plus there is interest in liturgical music by Telemann and Kuhnau and especially Zelenka, although I don't know how well the movement is going to change the texts of such works to Einstein and Hawking. Or maybe Sartre or Kerouac. Why not?


> As to Suzuki's comment, the context for that arose from a degree of racism (directed at Suzuki). There's more to his comment than simply the assertion that a Christian is going to "get Bach" more than an atheist.


There may be more, but there isn't less. The quote is the quote.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> Plus there is interest in liturgical music by Telemann and Kuhnau and especially Zelenka...


 Yes, dissident, the music, the liturgical _*music*_, *not* the liturgy. I suspect very few give a damn about the liturgy and plenty of Bach lovers don't give a damn about God (with a capital 'G') or religion. Like me. If they did, and all else being equal (you'll just have to struggle with that phrase on your own), there would be as much interest in a cantata cycle by Kuhnau as by Bach. But it just ain't so.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Yes, dissident, the music, the liturgical _*music*_, *not* the liturgy. I suspect very few give a damn about the liturgy and plenty of Bach lovers don't give a damn about God (with a capital 'G') or religion. Like me.


Well if that's a problem for you go listen to some Shostakovich. The fact is Bach did indeed care about God and religion, and it's reflected in his work. Your desired appropriation of Bach to fit something more in line with your anti-religious views would be as much a travesty as setting some Baptist hymn texts to Shostakovich. I love Shostakovich as well even though I don't share his apparently pessimistic, "godless" outlook. But I don't have to remake him in my image.


> If they did, and all else being equal (you'll just have to struggle with that phrase on your own), there would be as much interest in a cantata cycle by Kuhnau as by Bach. But it just ain't so.


The liturgical language along with the music was conceived as a total package. If people despised the liturgical language as much as you apparently do, there wouldn't be any interest in any of it at all, or the texts would've already been changed to Lucretius or something. I'll let you struggle with that. Otherwise the premise that if people love the language as much as the music, they'd love Kuhnau or Telemann as much as Bach is idiotic. The ones who have such a profound problem with the texts are apparently very few, since I can't recall any notable recordings with the libretti changed to modern science texts. Again, deal with it.


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## fbjim

We have already done more than enough to change the conception of liturgical music by the mere fact of listening to it and discussing it outside of a liturgical service. Anyone who purchases a recording of a mass and listens to it for pleasure is doing something radically different than what was intended for the music. Somehow this works out, because for many listeners the interest in the music is artistic/aesthetic.


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## 59540

fbjim said:


> We have already done more than enough to change the conception of liturgical music by the mere fact of listening to it and discussing it outside of a liturgical service. Anyone who purchases a recording of a mass and listens to it for pleasure is doing something radically different than what was intended for the music. Somehow this works out, because for many listeners the interest in the music is artistic/aesthetic.


Liturgical use and aesthetic quality aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Bach could've written the B Minor Mass as purely an expression of his own beliefs and musical thought without ever expecting it to serve as strictly liturgical music to be performed only in a church. A waltz is a waltz whether someone dances to it or not.


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## hammeredklavier

vtpoet said:


> And there are other cantata cycles, whose librettists were far more talented than Bach's librettists;


8:05
"It is the ancient law; you must die!"
Yes, yes, yes, come, Lord Jesus, yes, yes, yes, yes"


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## hammeredklavier

fbjim said:


> We have already done more than enough to change the conception of liturgical music by the mere fact of listening to it and discussing it outside of a liturgical service. Anyone who purchases a recording of a mass and listens to it for pleasure is doing something radically different than what was intended for the music. Somehow this works out, because for many listeners the interest in the music is artistic/aesthetic.


In the early Romantic period, Mozart's Requiem was actually used in opera.
"Nevertheless, for Berlioz, Mozart's main achievement as an opera composer is Don Giovanni. Like other contemporary writers, he calls Mozart 'l'auteur de Don Juan'. It is amazing, however, to observe his limited and one-sided view of this work, too. He wrote quite extensive reviews of Don Giovanni in 1834-35, when the opera was given for the first time at the Opéra (previously it was performed at the Théâtre Italien and at the Odéon), in a new French version by Deschamps and a musical adaptation by Castil-Blaze, which was an important event in Parisian musical life of the 1830s.
This performance is described in detail in Katharine Ellis's 1994 article. The music was transposed to suit Adolphe Nourrit (the great tenor singer of the day) in the role of Don Giovanni, originally a baritone part. Mozart's two-act opera was divided into five, and the plot changed considerably: Anna commits suicide at the end and Don Juan has a nightmare foretelling his own death. The 'scena ultima' was cut and the opera ended, after Don Giovanni's destruction, with Anna's funeral, to the sound of 'O voto tremendo' from Idomeneo and the 'Dies irae' from the Requiem."
Mozartian Undercurrents in Berlioz | Benjamin Perl | P.26~27


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> "Who can be said to approach more nearly the spirit of Bach: a European who does not attend church and carries his Christian cultural heritage mostly on the subconscious level, or an Asian who is active in his faith although the influence of Christianity on his national culture is small?"
> 
> -- Masaaki Suzuki, who knows a bit more about Bach's work than either of us.





dissident said:


> There may be more, but there isn't less. The quote is the quote.


Yeah. Okay. The quote doesn't mean what you think it does.

If you interpreted it the way you'd like, you would essentially be endorsing racism. In other words, there was some question as to whether the Japanese (as in Suzuki and his Japanese ensemble) could really interpret Bach like a European ensemble or conductor. One could construe that as racism or, less damningly, as the assumption that to perform or truly appreciate Bach one should be born into Bach's "European culture". Is that racism? I'm not sure. Some say it is and some don't but there you have it.

Anyway, if Suzuki's quote means what you think it does, then he's saying that a Christian has a greater claim to appreciating Bach than someone born in Europe who is not a Christian but is imbued by that culture. This would essentially be endorsing the potentially racist criticism of Suzuki. In other words, the way you're reading his quote, the only reason Suzuki's "Japaneseness" isn't an issue is because he's a Christian.

That's potentially racist. And that's the exact opposite of Suzuki's meaning.

He never says one is superior to the other. He asks the rhetorical question: "Who can be said to approach more nearly the spirit of Bach?" The European Atheist or the Japanese Christian. I'll expect you'll squawk that Suzuki never said "atheist". But his comment is open to and invites that assumption. An atheist, though an atheist, will by definition still carry his or her "Christian cultural heritage [even if] mostly on the subconscious level".

What he's trying to suggest is that both the European Atheist/Non-Church-Goer and the Japanese/Non-European Church-Going Christian are equally capable of "approaching the spirit of Bach".

One doesn't need to know music theory to appreciate Bach and one doesn't need to be a Christian.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> Your desired appropriation of Bach to fit something more in line with your anti-religious views...


There you go again, with your straw-man insinuations. I'm not anti-religious. If you keep that up I'm going to have another word with the moderator.



dissident said:


> The liturgical language along with the music was conceived as a total package.


No it wasn't. Bach's secular works were sometimes put to liturgical use after the fact like BWV 174 or BWV 194r. It's argued that many of his lost Cöthen works made their way into Cantatas-in movements whose forms are more like those of a concerto. You keep wanting to dance around the inconvenient historical fact of Bach's own habits, but history is history.



dissident said:


> If people despised the liturgical language as much as you apparently do....


More straw-man accusations. It's a really cheap and malicious way to score points. I'm just going to hang these sorts of assertions out to dry every time you make them.



dissident said:


> ...there wouldn't be any interest in any of it at all, or the texts would've already been changed to Lucretius or something.


What's obvious to me is that you've blown my initial suggestion out of all proportion. It's simply not all that controversial to say that Bach's Lutheranism is gone. Nobody in the 21st century is going to connect with the often trite and mediocre sentiments expressed in Bach's Cantatas the way Bach's congregation did. (There are exceptions of course, like "Ich habe Genug".) Further, everyone at St. Thomas understood what was being sung. Bach is now listened to worldwide and though you keep refusing to acknowledge the simple fact, outside of German speakers, few to none understand what is being sung while listening to the music. They don't care and they don't need to know. It could be Einstein or the latest EU trade agreements for all they know.



dissident said:


> Otherwise the premise that if people love the language as much as the music, they'd love Kuhnau or Telemann as much as Bach is idiotic.


Why is that? Is it because Bach's music is the only reason anyone listens to those cantatas (let alone records several complete cycles)? Keep going. You're almost there. You're _*so*_ close.



dissident said:


> The ones who have such a profound problem with the texts are apparently very few, since I can't recall any notable recordings with the libretti changed to modern science texts.


You're just not understanding what I'm writing. You keep flailing at arguments I'm not making. I don't have a profound problem with the original texts and neither does anyone I'm aware of. All I wrote is that it would be an interesting experiment to put a modern text to Bach's cantatas, one that might be meaningful to a modern audience in the way that the original texts were meaningful to Bach's congregation.


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## pianozach

SanAntone said:


> Just a reminder what the OP asked:
> 
> *Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?*
> 
> While I definitely do not think there is a connection between loving Bach's music and knowing music theory, I think a good understanding of forms like fugue and Baroque suites, and counterpoint will help to digest his music.
> 
> Bach's sacred music is one of the greatest achievements in music. The fact that he wrote so much, and of such a consistently high artistic quality, is a constant source of awe for me. I admit to these days listening mainly to his instrumental works - the keyboard music, the solo violin, and cello works - but there was a time when the B Minor Mass, the Passions, and the Cantatas were a huge part of my life.
> 
> Two *sets of works which I no longer enjoy* are the Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites. But other than that, among Bach's very deep catalog there are a number of the greatest works ever written, and you needn't know any music theory to find his music accessible and enriching.


I've found that one can recapture a lost love of a classical work by finding a live rendition of it on Youtube.

Especially the Brandenburgs . . . for instance, watching a performance where the performers are playing period instruments, or the soloist is especially dynamic.

Like this . . .


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Yeah. Okay. The quote doesn't mean what you think it does.


So not only are you an authority on Bach to the extent that you feel free to alter his work, but you can read Suzuki's thoughts as well. He said what he said. The fact that it was in response to racist attitudes makes ZERO difference.



> Anyway, if Suzuki's quote means what you think it does, then he's saying that a Christian has a greater claim to appreciating Bach than someone born in Europe who is not a Christian but is imbued by that culture.


It seems pretty clear to me that's exactly what Suzuki is saying.


> This would essentially be endorsing the potentially racist criticism of Suzuki.


Christianity isn't a race. He's tacitly implying that a Japanese Christian can come nearer "the spirit of Bach" than a secular European. Period. Now you may not agree, but take that up with him.


> One doesn't need to know music theory to appreciate Bach and one doesn't need to be a Christian.


No, you just have to swallow that bile and deal with the texts as they are.


> It's simply not all that controversial to say that Bach's Lutheranism is gone.


In every single minute detail, probably. But evangelical Christianity is quite alive and well. It's myopic, wishcasting delusion to think otherwise.


> Why is that? Is it because Bach's music is the only reason anyone listens to those cantatas (let alone records several complete cycles)? Keep going. You're almost there. You're so close.


No, it's Bach's skill in setting *text*. It's the two together as a whole. I don't think many would have all that much interest in arrangements of entire cantatas with instruments filling in for the vocal parts.


> Bach is now listened to worldwide and though you keep refusing to acknowledge the simple fact, outside of German speakers, few to none understand what is being sung while listening to the music.


There's this neat little thing called "translation".


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> Christianity isn't a race. He's tacitly implying that a Japanese Christian can come nearer "the spirit of Bach" than a secular European. Period. Now you may not agree, but take that up with him.


Yeah. You _really_ don't get what he said. You're unwittingly endorsing the racism directed at Suzuki. To interpret Suzuki the way you do is to say that only someone "who is active in his faith" can approach Bach. That's no different than the next person saying that only a European with European "cultural heritage" can approach Bach (which some would consider racist).



dissident said:


> I don't think many would have all that much interest in arrangements of entire cantatas with instruments filling in for the vocal parts.


That's okay. You're entitled to hold that opinion. You may or may not be right. My only objection is when you try to rationalize it with misleading and fallacious references to Bach, music history and poorly understood quotes by Suzuki. And you're dead wrong by the way. There are numerous instrumental arrangements of Bach's cantatas, contemporary and historical, that have proven quite popular and durable. I recent example would be Albrecht Mayer's arrangements (not to mention Yo Yo Ma's).


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Yeah. You _really_ don't get what he said. You're unwittingly endorsing the racism directed at Suzuki. To interpret Suzuki the way you do is to say that only someone who is "who is active in his faith" can approach Bach. That's no different than the next person saying that only a European with European "cultural heritage" can approach Bach.


No, it's saying exactly the opposite. It's saying that whatever cultural background, someone approaching Bach's music from the standpoint of personal faith is more apt to come close to the spirit of Bach.


> That's okay. You're entitled to hold that opinion. You may or may not be right. My only objection is when you try to rationalize it with misleading and fallacious references to Bach, music history and misunderstood quotes by Suzuki.


I'll leave with an interesting little snippet:


> "I fit into this category," said my interpreter Azusa, a twenty-five-year-old law student. She pulled a CD out of her handbag. It was a recording of Bach's cantata Vergnügte Ruh', beliebte Seelenlust, whose lyrics explain that God's real name is love. "This has taught me what these two words mean to Christians," she explained, "and I like it so much that I play this record whenever I can."


Not Hawking or Einstein.


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## fbjim

dissident said:


> Liturgical use and aesthetic quality aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Bach could've written the B Minor Mass as purely an expression of his own beliefs and musical thought without ever expecting it to serve as strictly liturgical music to be performed only in a church. A waltz is a waltz whether someone dances to it or not.


Yes, and this is in itself a big deal. Berlioz wasn't catholic but wrote a Requiem, probably out of fascination with the aesthetics of a requiem mass (and also to get paid). An enormous amount of music written in dance forms are not only listened to without dancing, but were never intended for dance.

How many people could possibly say they have a conception of Christianity as Bach did? Not just the text, but the context of what it meant to be German Lutheran in his day, or the experience of religion being as central to culture as it was for him? None of us, I wager. Bach's music has stayed of interest because it is of enormous aesthetic importance outside of its original context.


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## Guest

vtpoet said:


> It's simply not all that controversial to say that Bach's Lutheranism is gone. Nobody in the 21st century is going to connect with *the often trite and mediocre sentiments expressed in Bach's Cantatas* the way Bach's congregation did. (There are exceptions of course, like "Ich habe Genug".) Further, everyone at St. Thomas understood what was being sung. Bach is now listened to worldwide and though you keep refusing to acknowledge the simple fact, outside of German speakers, few to none understand what is being sung while listening to the music. They don't care and they don't need to know. It could be Einstein or the latest EU trade agreements for all they know.


In case you don't know, there is still a strong Lutheran religious tradition being practiced. The texts are, of course, esoteric - especially for secularists. But Bach wrote much secular music and, as you rightly point out, re-badged some of that music for religious purposes - for example, the B Minor Mass.

But Bach's professional role was primarily to provide a "well-regulated church music" acceptable to the employer for whom he composed. It was his PRIMARY job of work and, like many of us, he had external jobs and options. That he was able to incorporate his own piety into some of the greatest works of any composer in human history is our great good fortune. If you weren't intrinsically moved by the religious sentiments in the music you'd pretty soon discover its transcendent aesthetic - which can NEVER be explained away.


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## 59540

Incidentally here's more of that Suzuki quote:

"... [T]he God in whose service Bach laboured and the God I worship today are one and the same. In the sight of the God of Abraham, I believe that the two hundred years separating the time of Bach from my own day can be of little account. This conviction has brought the great composer very much closer to me. We are fellows in faith, and equally foreign in our parentage to the people of Israel, God's people of Biblical times. Who can be said to approach more nearly the spirit of Bach: a European who does not attend church and carries his Christian cultural heritage mostly on the subconscious level, or an Asian who is active in his faith although the influence of Christianity on his national culture is small?"


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## 59540

fbjim said:


> Yes, and this is in itself a big deal. Berlioz wasn't catholic but wrote a Requiem, probably out of fascination with the aesthetics...


But it's a Requiem. It's liturgical music, whatever Berlioz believed or didn't.


> How many people could possibly say they have a conception of Christianity as Bach did? Not just the text, but the context of what it meant to be German Lutheran in his day, or the experience of religion being as central to culture as it was for him? None of us, I wager. Bach's music has stayed of interest because it is of enormous aesthetic importance outside of its original context.


Statements like that betray an ignorance of evangelical Christianity. Bach's basic faith is still vital to millions upon millions upon millions. It didn't disappear in the 18th century, and Bach's essential beliefs are the same held by evangelical Christians today.


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## fbjim

The magic of empathy is to attempt to put ourselves in the shoes of another. We can, if we wish, use our knowledge of German and religious history to try to give ourselves an understanding on how Bach's feeling about the texts he was setting to music informed the emotional affect he was trying to communicate. Or we can not. I certainly don't look up the biography of every composer I listen to, unless I have an enormous interest in their music and life. We all bring our own baggage to art, and how we want to appreciate Bach is ultimately our own choice. Some may want a spiritual experience and some may get more pleasure out of his pure craftsmanship, and it's silly to claim that one of these approaches is the "correct" way to appreciate Bach.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> No, it's saying exactly the opposite. It's saying that whatever cultural background, someone approaching Bach's music from the standpoint of personal faith is more apt to come close to the spirit of Bach.


Right, I know that's how you misunderstand it.

The problem for you is that Suzuki doesn't say "whatever cultural background". Suzuki specifically draws a comparison between a European who's Christianity is "mostly on the subconscious level" and a Japanese/Asian person who is "active in his faith". In the event you didn't know, Suzuki was likely referring to John Eliot Gardiner, who is a European atheist and also conducted a complete Cantata Cycle. Does Suzuki think Gardiner was and is unable to "approach" Bach? No. So clearly he meant that he himself is as able to approach Bach because of his faith as Gardiner because of his cultural heritage. Race/Religion/Culture have nothing to do with it, which is Suzuki's point. Gardiner even states, outright, that one doesn't need to be religious to approach Bach.


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## 59540

fbjim said:


> ...Some may want a spiritual experience and some may get more pleasure out of his pure craftsmanship, and it's silly to claim that one of these approaches is the "correct" way to appreciate Bach.


It's only "silly" if you want to downplay the spiritual aspect just because it isn't your cup of tea. What's silly us to pretend that that aspect wasn't central for Bach.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> . Does Suzuki think Gardiner was and is unable to "approach" Bach?


That isn't what was said, and your face-saving hairsplitting games got old a long time ago. Buh-bye.


> Varga: One last question-are you a believer?
> 
> Kurtág: I do not know. I toy with the idea. Consciously, I am certainly an atheist, but I do not say it out loud, because if I look at Bach, I cannot be an atheist. Then I have to accept the way he believed. His music never stops praying. And how can I get closer if I look at him from the outside? I do not believe in the Gospels in a literal fashion, but a Bach fugue has the Crucifixion in it-as the nails are being driven in. In music, I am always looking for the hammering of the nails…. That is a dual vision. My brain rejects it all. But my brain isn't worth much.


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> That isn't what was said, and your face-saving hairsplitting games got old a long time ago. Buh-bye.


There you go again. I didn't say that's what was said. I said that it was likely that Suzuki was referring to Gardiner since Gardiner is "a European who does not attend church and carries his Christian cultural heritage mostly on the subconscious level" and asked the rhetorical question: Does Suzuki think Gardiner was and is unable to 'approach" Bach? I seriously doubt that Suzuki would claim that Gardiner shouldn't be conducting Bach.


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## fbjim

dissident said:


> But it's a Requiem. It's liturgical music, whatever Berlioz believed or didn't.
> 
> Statements like that betray an ignorance of evangelical Christianity. Bach's basic faith is still vital to millions upon millions upon millions. It didn't disappear in the 18th century, and Bach's essential beliefs are the same held by evangelical Christians today.


The modern conception of evangelical Christianity as the term is used today dates from the 19th century in the United States. The conception and cultural context of Billy Graham and it's place in culture and politics is completely different than Lutheranism was to Bach. Even if one wants to take a wider definition of "evangelical", I mean - if you could transport Bach into a modern day evangelical Baptist church, do you really think his concept of God would fit right in with the modern evangelical concept of Church as a political actor?


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## fbjim

There are all sorts of ways to approach art. The idea that one must inhabit the mindset of the artist is only one way, and the idea that we must treat the artists intent above all is only that - a way to approach art.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> There you go again. I didn't say that's what was said. I said that it was likely that Suzuki was referring to Gardiner since Gardiner is "a European who does not attend church and carries his Christian cultural heritage mostly on the subconscious level" and asked the rhetorical question: Does Suzuki think Gardiner was and is unable to 'approach" Bach? I seriously doubt that Suzuki would claim that Gardiner shouldn't be conducting Bach.


You'd have to ask Suzuki. I would say that Suzuki would think that since he's coming from a standpoint of a faith shared with Bach he could come closer to Bach's spirit than a non-believing conductor, yes. And I'd agree.


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## 59540

fbjim said:


> The modern conception of evangelical Christianity as the term is used today dates from the 19th century in the United States. The conception and cultural context of Billy Graham and it's place in culture and politics is completely different than Lutheranism was to Bach. Even if one wants to take a wider definition of "evangelical", I mean - if you could transport Bach into a modern day evangelical Baptist church, do you really think his concept of God would fit right in with the modern evangelical concept of Church as a political actor?


Good grief, please quit trying to sound like a textbook. The tenets of the faith predate the 19th century.

But yes, I think in the essentials Bach would be much more at home with a group of modern evangelicals than on the faculty of Yale, certainly.


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## Snowbrain

Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?
> 
> My music teacher upheld Bach as the greatest composer of all time. I like his work, but could never see why he was / is considered greater than Mozart or Beethoven. He despised Wagner who's works I find more moving than Bach's.
> 
> I can see that for Wagner, music was the expression of dramatic themes (hence, to some, not pure). I think that is why my teacher despised him (he had a low opinion of the Romantics generally but Wagner was his bete noire). I gave up music as an academic subject in third year (age 13), and my knowledge of music theory is minimal. For me, music as the development of purely musical themes is less important than its emotional effect. Hence what may be a partial 'blind spot' for Bach.
> 
> Does any of this strike a chord with others' response to music?
> 
> To the Bach lovers; how much music theory do you have, and how much do you think it has influenced your taste?


*Response to the Original Question on Bach and Music Theory*
Both my parents were classical music lovers. My dad was a musician trained at the Eastman School in Rochester, studied plenty of music theory, but hated Bach (and most Baroque music). My mother really never studied music theory and has adored Bach all her life. So go figure. Knowledge can enhance your love of something but there are deeper emotional-experiential reasons why a person finds meaning in things or not. My dad for example hated all religions which contributed to his disdain due to Bach's religious music. Mom wasn't a church-goer, wasn't so anti-religious, and so was able to find the beauty in many of Bach's works. Dad felt Baroque music was monotonous. I'm with my mom - Bach is one of our favorite composers of all time and we've shared his music for many decades.

Knowledge of something doesn't ensure love of something. But if there's love of something, more knowledge about it will definitely enhance the love of it. This principle goes with most things. So I'd say no, knowledge of music theory doesn't give one a love of Bach unless one already loves Bach for other reasons.

And remember, Bach's music is so closely connected with music theory because of how musically technical it is with intricate structures, harmonies, fantastic counterpoint, and genius interplay with all the elements of music. If you want to know more about why Bach's music is associated with music theory, read books on the history of math and music (going back to Pythagoras), about the harmony of the spheres in astronomy, about sacred geometry, and the history of temperament such as in this excellent book by Isacoff: _Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization_.

Enjoy the journey!


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## fbjim

also - enlightenment philosophy and it's own view of God are barely alive now - if at all - yet I've never heard it expressed that nobody is able to appreciate the 9th Symphony because of this. In fact the 9th Symphony is the most revered of all classical works. Do none of us "get" it?


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## 59540

fbjim said:


> also - enlightenment philosophy and it's own view of God are barely alive now - if at all - yet I've never heard it expressed that nobody is able to appreciate the 9th Symphony because of this. In fact the 9th Symphony is the most revered of all classical works. Do none of us "get" it?


It isn't inextricably linked to Enlightenment anything, and "Enlightenment philosophy" isn't really dead either. There's still a belief in inherent rights and natural law embedded in our legal system. By the way, more to the point above,


> if you could transport Bach into a modern day evangelical Baptist church, do you really think his concept of God would fit right in...


Yes.


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## vtpoet

"Kepler reportedly said, amid the massacres of religious wars, the laws of elliptical motion belong to no man or principality.' The same could be said of music."

~ John Eliot Gardiner, Bach: _Music in the Castle of Heaven _


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## vtpoet

*Just to be clear about what M Suzuki thinks on the subject.*

Asserting, as I do, that music doesn't need to be attached to religious words to do the work of salvation, Suzuki says:

'_Bach knew this. It's why he didn't mind taking a melody originally written to convey a specific theological message and reusing it in an entirely different work. The Art of Fugue is as much part of his spiritual edifice as the St Matthew Passion._'

'_The music is a miracle of God, but there's nothing personal - I want it to speak for itself, and most of my musicians aren't Christian._'

~ M Suzuki

_'Any type of church music must be appropriate to our age. For example, Bach's cantatas would not work as worship in church anywhere in the modern world. Not even in Germany, where Lutheranism is now so different than in Bach's day.'_

~ M Suzuki
_
'Calvin saw music as part of God's creation in this world, part of the wonderful grace that He has sent for us. It doesn't need to be sung as worship to glorify God - and it doesn't lose its spiritual power because the performers or the audience aren't Christians.'_

~ M Suzuki


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## Art Rock

Once again, a reminder of the thread topic:



Bellerophon said:


> Is there a connection between a love of Bach and a knowledge of music theory?


This thread is not in the _Politics and Religion in Classical Music _sub-forum, and extensive discussion of the religious aspects of the music is therefore not appropriate. Please return to the thread topic.


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## hammeredklavier

Snowbrain said:


> And remember, Bach's music is so closely connected with music theory because of how musically technical it is with intricate structures, harmonies, fantastic counterpoint, and genius interplay with all the elements of music. If you want to know more about why Bach's music is associated with music theory, read books on the history of math and music (going back to Pythagoras), about the harmony of the spheres in astronomy, about sacred geometry, and the history of temperament such as in this excellent book by Isacoff:


I think one big misconception people have about music theory is that it is all about dissecting intricacies of harmony and counterpoint, or it is only about examining music like Bach's. I made the point earlier with Handel. (It also happens to be a topic we're currently talking about in Is 1 chord per bar really better than 1 chord per eighth note?). Another example:




(#29 in E (finale), #65 in A (minuet), and #80 in d minor (finale)).
There are people moved by the deep sense of religiosity and devotion of the C#minor from WTC book 1, the F#minor, G minor from book 2 upon hearing them for the first time, but don't see the musical merit of the example above (think the symphonies "all sound the same", don't "get" what's so "hilarious" or "rhythmically ingenious" about any of them) until they see the score dissected neatly with colors as above. How can we say Bach is more about music theory, in this case?


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## Luchesi

vtpoet said:


> Your appeal to "history" and your loaded description of the text's replacement as a "cultural slap" has the strong whiff of conservative politics-as if what's really offensive isn't the parody (since Bach himself did that) but the thought that science, a secular and ostensibly liberal endeavor, could ever lay claim to the traditional supremacy of religion as a legitimate source for awe, wonder and intrinsic cultural value.


Thanks, I want to hear what posters think I mean. Because, as in this case, I was feeling that I was expressing the opposite of what you got from the post. This must happen in about 20 or 30% of online chatting. But look how it turned out. We need more human signals.


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## wormcycle

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Probably can't fully do so without risking breaking the terms and conditions here, but in a nutshell: Pre-Enlightenment ideas of "harmonies of the spheres," the concept that music is a sort of mirror of divinity, a refusal to innovate for its own sake, the belief that music actually has something to express beyond itself, and an intended sublimation of the artist's ego under what he believed to be his higher duty. James Gaines's _Evening in the Palace of Reason_ expresses it in fuller form.


"Evening in the Palace of Reason" is a great book. And it is really strange to try to detach the music in Germany, and Thuringia in particular where the Bach family of musicians lived, from the Reformation and very strong religious education.


----------

