# Why Bach is wretched: An homage



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

If composers can write tributes to other composers, then we can start threads as tributes to other threads. And there have been a few dillies lately. So I ask:

Why does anybody listen to Bach? I mean OK, the guy could write several tunes diddling along at the same time. But so what? It's kind of like watching a dog walk on its hind legs -- amusing, but it grows tiresome quickly.

Your views are welcomed and will be considered for fully what they're worth!


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Actually, now you mention the dog walking along, I'm convinced. I hadn't noticed before, and now I do. Bach has been getting a free ride for too long! It's blimming ridiculous!


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## Guest (Jul 27, 2013)

I like Bach because I don't feel like I've missed much if I have to make a quick run to the bathroom in the middle of a performance. 

Not even when I'm sitting in the middle of the row and have to wake up a few of the other audience members getting in and out of my seat.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

KenOC said:


> If composers can write tributes to other composers, then we can start threads as tributes to other threads. And there have been a few dillies lately. So I ask:
> 
> Why does anybody listen to Bach? I mean OK, the guy could write several tunes diddling along at the same time. But so what? It's kind of like watching a dog walk on its hind legs -- amusing, but it grows tiresome quickly.
> 
> Your views are welcomed and will be considered for fully what they're worth!


KenOC, ever since Bach took your job, you've been raving incoherently.

I prescribe a little Vitamin "B Minor Mass", to be taken with a generous helping of Vitamin A[lcohol].


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

The way he embedded his own name in his music--what a narcissist.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

1. His name is "Bach": Impossible to anglicize it without sounding like an idiot, impossible to say it properly without sounding like a pretentious poof.

2. His over-the-top and likely insincere humility: "_I have worked hard_" says Bach, "_anyone who works just as hard will go just as far_." Not likely. What an ***. Composers, if you die without having joined the ranks of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, well maybe you shouldn't have been such a useless slacker.

3. His arrogant, putrid religiosity: "_The sole purpose of harmony is the Glory of God; all other use is but idle jingling of Satan_."

4. Hundreds upon hundreds of mindless cantatas, need I say more? Thank god most of them were lost.

5. Never had the balls to write opera. Content I suppose with pompous oratorios and his polyphonic sudoku puzzles.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Blancrocher said:


> The way he embedded his own name in his music--what a narcissist.


Forkel wrote that Bach also carved his name into picnic tables, spray-painted it on concrete walls and abandoned buildings, and so forth. In this, Bach was an inspiration to Shostakovich.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Couchie, sheer genius! I take back what I said about Wagner (though of course it's still true...)


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Novelette said:


> I prescribe a little Vitamin "B Minor Mass", to be taken with a generous helping of Vitamin A[lcohol].


That's beautiful. I'd like to make that my tagline.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Forkel wrote that Bach also carved his name into picnic tables, spray-painted it on concrete walls and abandoned buildings, and so forth. In this, Bach was an inspiration to Shostakovich.


Bach was a bad influence on DSCH, in my opinion. Total delinquent.


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

Couchie said:


> polyphonic sudoku puzzles.


Brilliant!

On a broader note, this thread gets five stars from me. Maybe now we need one on why Beethoven sucks. Mozart and Bach and Brahms might get lonely on their own. Might as well fill in the third B...


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Ok, so Bach wrote a cantata every single week. Ok, so most of his music has two or more tunes going on at the same time. Ok, so he could write a fugue with his eyes closed. So what? Big deal. _Anybody_ could do those things.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

If Bach is so great, why is he universally boycotted by the following instrumentalists: clarinet, saxophone, harp, trombone, tuba, Wagner tuba, all percussion except for tympani, synthesizer, electric guitar, ukulele, balalaika, gamelan orchestra, panpipes, sitar, pi-pa, shakuhachi, koto, thumb piano, didgeridoo, vibraphone, steel drums, bagpipes (thank God!), and skiffle band? That's a huge percentage of the world's population that won't play the guy's music.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Not unless somebody arranges his music for them.


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## nightscape (Jun 22, 2013)

I mean, if I came across a herd of sheep grazing, and they appeared safe enough, I suppose Bach would be appropriate. But other than that, I don't see his use.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

And, seriously, I tried using the chorale from "Sleepers Awake" for my alarm clock. Slept right through it and showed up to work an hour late...


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Unlike Mozart in Vienna, you can't find little chocolates in the shape of Bach's head for sale everywhere in Leipzig.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Twenty kids! Seriously, how much of the world's overpopulation is the result of this oversexed satyr? He probably killed his first wife from all the births done in dirty rags, cleaned up by a bucket of river water. Twenty!!! Did he even know all their names, or did he just say "nummer siebzehn, komm hier!"


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

"Ah! how sweet coffee tastes!
Lovelier than a thousand kisses,
smoother than muscatel wine.
Coffee, I must have coffee,
and if anyone wants to give me a treat,
ah!, just give me some coffee!"

Sellout.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

SimonNZ said:


> "Ah! how sweet coffee tastes!
> Lovelier than a thousand kisses,
> smoother than muscatel wine.
> Coffee, I must have coffee,
> ...


Definitely. Bach was deeply into the product placement game. What a scuzz. That Andrew Lloyd von Weber guy's got nothing on him.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

waldvogel said:


> If Bach is so great, why is he universally boycotted by the following instrumentalists: clarinet, saxophone, harp, trombone, tuba, Wagner tuba, all percussion except for tympani, synthesizer, electric guitar, ukulele, balalaika, gamelan orchestra, panpipes, sitar, pi-pa, shakuhachi, koto, thumb piano, didgeridoo, vibraphone, steel drums, bagpipes (thank God!), and skiffle band? That's a huge percentage of the world's population that won't play the guy's music.


Actually the first Bach I remember hearing was on synthesizer, and I have part of one of the French Suites played on ukelele. I think I may also have something of his on steel drums, though it's scarcely listenable -- and don't forget The Swingle Singers versions!

I mean after all, he didn't specify what instruments are to be used for the Art of the Fugue, so he surely must have been looking ahead to the electric guitar and the rock band.


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## musicphotogAnimal (Jul 24, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Couchie, sheer genius! _*I take back what I said about Wagner*_ (though of course it's still true...)


I wouldn't go THAT far.  Ken.

And if we're talking about Bach's pretentiousness... just take a look at his seal. Aspirations to royalty, I presume.












> Bach's estate included five Clavecins, two lute-harpsichords, three violins, three violas, two cellos, a viola da gamba, a lute and a spinet, and 52 "sacred books", including books by Martin Luther and Josephus


What a horrendous waste of money for that time. Good heavens, if he was making that many brats, surely he could have fed them much better than he did. But then again the excuse was that he was poor and his music languished after his death until Felix Mendelssohn made it popular. Evidently he had a penchant for monopolizing the trade in Thuringia as the situation there was "if you weren't a Bach, you had no business playing music". A thoroughly horrid situation for any person with any semblance of music talent who was not a Bach, y'know. I guess they just had to become a factory worker.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

If Bach was really great, we'd be calling him Meer.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Blancrocher said:


> If Bach was really great, we'd be calling him Meer.


A Beethoven reference...instead of stagnierenden graben?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

(You want a "homage" thread? :devil

I see a lot of TV and movies, but I noticed, never is there Sebastian Bach's life in a movie, and why did I think this! When I was in Viking Teutonic times of 700 B.C. I saw Bach and his family and many of their contemporaries. Leipzig's world is very similar to my own town, Dublin, and I started to wonder that perhaps if Bach and his large family extended actually live in Dublin had emigrated during the Viking Teutonic times of 700 B.C.. I talked to a lot of people such as Bach's second wife, Anna Magdalena, she plays the piano and to explain me Leipzig, including many similarities with streets and buildings of many aspects of life in Dublin. But I seek not Thomaskirche Church church! Puzzle no one can introduce me to this important site and ask politely, they have refused to discuss it, Emmanuel Bach seems to be saying about me to be embarrassing for polite society, but this time, he was only two years, so I do not take it seriously! Why don't they show me the Thomaskirche Church church, this was Bach's life so important? But to not have the Thomaskirche Church church in Dublin Viking Teutonic times of 700 B.C., perhaps this is the reason why! It was not there, so they can't take me! Later, it becomes more clear, I better understood their language, which was as Irish German. And then, I talk to many times Telemann, visiting them, on what he said from Hamburg is a bicycle. Again, it is confusing! But he showed me his bicycle, including the saddle-bag, which holds many of his manuscripts. He stopped his trip, every half hour, sat by the road, where he composed another overture. Bach, listened and found this funny, told me that he himself had a secret overtures store, as no one's ever heard of and even! I would politely ask, seeing them, he has a responsibility. That is why, I'm delighted, he declared that we will participate in the Café Zimmerman new concert, so we climbed up the bicycle and across the Liffey riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

I find a Bach to be a bit spartan now I'm getting older. I prefer running water etc.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

And don't get me started on the whole lazy and cynical "recycling" thing, either. After we've shelled out our hard-earned dollars for Brandenburgs No.1 and 3, does he seriously believe we're going to reach for our wallets to pay for the same music again in cantatas 52 and 174? Does he think we won't notice? Does he really think we're that stupid?


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Nereffid said:


> (You want a "homage" thread? :devil
> 
> I see a lot of TV and movies, but I noticed, never is there Sebastian Bach's life in a movie, and why did I think this! When I was in Viking Teutonic times of 700 B.C. I saw Bach and his family and many of their contemporaries. Leipzig's world is very similar to my own town, Dublin, and I started to wonder that perhaps if Bach and his large family extended actually live in Dublin had emigrated during the Viking Teutonic times of 700 B.C.. I talked to a lot of people such as Bach's second wife, Anna Magdalena, she plays the piano and to explain me Leipzig, including many similarities with streets and buildings of many aspects of life in Dublin. But I seek not Thomaskirche Church church! Puzzle no one can introduce me to this important site and ask politely, they have refused to discuss it, Emmanuel Bach seems to be saying about me to be embarrassing for polite society, but this time, he was only two years, so I do not take it seriously! Why don't they show me the Thomaskirche Church church, this was Bach's life so important? But to not have the Thomaskirche Church church in Dublin Viking Teutonic times of 700 B.C., perhaps this is the reason why! It was not there, so they can't take me! Later, it becomes more clear, I better understood their language, which was as Irish German. And then, I talk to many times Telemann, visiting them, on what he said from Hamburg is a bicycle. Again, it is confusing! But he showed me his bicycle, including the saddle-bag, which holds many of his manuscripts. He stopped his trip, every half hour, sat by the road, where he composed another overture. Bach, listened and found this funny, told me that he himself had a secret overtures store, as no one's ever heard of and even! I would politely ask, seeing them, he has a responsibility. That is why, I'm delighted, he declared that we will participate in the Café Zimmerman new concert, so we climbed up the bicycle and across the Liffey riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.


Brilliant! It's almost like you were there with them!


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## Bas (Jul 24, 2012)

Bach is my all time favourite composer, but this thread is awesome. Especially couchie's post!


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

waldvogel said:


> Twenty kids! Seriously, how much of the world's overpopulation is the result of this oversexed satyr? He probably killed his first wife from all the births done in dirty rags, cleaned up by a bucket of river water. Twenty!!! Did he even know all their names, or did he just say "nummer siebzehn, komm hier!"


The modern Germans with their declining birth rate could use guys like that, especially if some of their children go on to be musicians as well.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

What a ripoff this Bach guy was. First of all, I hired some musicians to play his Trio Sonatas BV 1036-1039. And you know what - FOUR musicians showed up, and tried to con me into paying all of them. I think Bach was just trying to find work for some of his shiftless relatives, using some obsolete union regulations to hire someone to do nothing. 

And that's not the worst of it. The next gig was for a concert of Bach's Trio Sonatas BWV 525-530. I made sure that this time four guys weren't going to show up. Paid the advance, and guess what happened at the concert date? ONE player showed up. HUH? You think I'm stupid? One guy to play a trio sonata?


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

The next gig was for his Italian Concerto - hey, that sounded nice, kind of like Vivaldi maybe. So I hired the orchestra, AND THE MUSIC WAS FOR A SOLO HARPSICHORD PLAYER! Some concerto - look up the definition - and what an insult to Italian people, as if they're too cheap to hire an orchestra, or too stupid to not notice that the orchestra did absolutely nothing during the entire piece!


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

So I buy a CD of Two and Three Part Inventions. I figure this should be cool, like a lever is a two-part invention, and a coupled pulley is a three-part invention. I expected some good German ingenuity. And you know what I got - a bunch of harpsichord music with these confusing tunes crossing over each other. Some inventions. Give me Edison any day - now THAT'S what I call an inventor.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

I only have three more words to add: Es ist genug.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Couchie said:


> *idle jingling of Satan **
> 
> 4. Hundreds upon hundreds of mindless cantatas, need I say more? Thank god most of them were lost.
> 
> 5. Never had the balls to write opera. Content I suppose with pompous oratorios and his polyphonic sudoku puzzles.


comedy gold!

* I love 18th century lingo


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

waldvogel said:


> Unlike Mozart in Vienna, you can't find little chocolates in the shape of Bach's head for sale everywhere in Leipzig.


Leipzigers don't know how to honour their own!


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Is it my imagination or does the central section of Bach's personal seal look like a raspberry?


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

waldvogel said:


> If Bach is so great, why is he universally boycotted by the following instrumentalists: clarinet, saxophone, harp, trombone, tuba, Wagner tuba, all percussion except for tympani, synthesizer, electric guitar, ukulele, balalaika, gamelan orchestra, panpipes, sitar, pi-pa, shakuhachi, koto, thumb piano, didgeridoo, vibraphone, steel drums, bagpipes (thank God!), and skiffle band? That's a huge percentage of the world's population that won't play the guy's music.


He's definitely not boycotted on electric guitar .


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

waldvogel said:


> And, seriously, I tried using the chorale from "Sleepers Awake" for my alarm clock. Slept right through it and showed up to work an hour late...


whoa, waldvogel is going on a rampage, hehe.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

c'mon guys, I think we shouldn't spin Bach so much in his grave, he could produce enough electricity to kill us all!


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## chrisco97 (May 22, 2013)

Lol, I love this thread. xD


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

waldvogel said:


> Twenty!!! Did he even know all their names, or did he just say "nummer siebzehn, komm hier!"


I wouldn't be surprised, because it is sure easier than saying "Carl Philip Emmanuel Gottfried Mikael Johann Christian Sebastianianowitz Josef Wilhelm Erik Lipschitz Schweinefleisch Adolf Hermann Heinrich Dittersdorfling komm hier!"

But we should not complain too much: seven melodies simultaneously means you get seven times as much music for the same price, unless he charged per melody rather than per minute of music. Plus, he never wrote a bloody opera, which certainly raises him in my esteem.

Still, all that counterpoint. And what's worse, protestant counterpoint. On the whole, I think he had way too few children. Twenty or thirty more, and we might well have been spared half the melodies. Perhaps his wives didn't like his organ all that much...


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

And was a plagiarist!:

"_J. S. BACH_"'s Concerto for four harpsichords in A minor: 




but 



.

Glenn Gould Plays "_Bach_"'s Concerto BWV 974: 




but 



.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

aleazk said:


> And was a plagiarist!


Obviously Bach thought nobody would notice. But he's been found out, and now everybody will know his shame!


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

And look at all the monsters who sprang from this Leipzigian nightmare: C. P. E. Bach, Johann Christian Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, not to mention P. D. Q. Bach...

No wonder it's called the Baroque (broke) Era.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> c'mon guys, I think we shouldn't spin Bach so much in his grave, he could produce enough electricity to kill us all!


Between him and Wagner spinning in his grave whenever his operas are murdered by the likes of Katharina and Hans Neuenfels they might produce just enough electricity for Germany to stop pumping gas from Russia and become self-sufficient.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Also, if you say the name _Bach _backwards, with the proper accent, it's pronounced _Scab_. Horrible man!


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

Weston said:


> I mean after all, he didn't specify what instruments are to be used for the Art of the Fugue, so he surely must have been looking ahead to the electric guitar and the rock band.


Interestingly enough, I've seen that exact argument used on this board as the reason why Beethoven's late sonatas should be played on a modern grand piano.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Geo Dude said:


> Interestingly enough, I've seen that exact argument used on this board as the reason why Beethoven's late sonatas should be played on a modern grand piano.


Well it should, shouldn't it?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Couchie said:


> 1. His name is "Bach": Impossible to anglicize it without sounding like an idiot, impossible to say it properly without sounding like a pretentious poof.
> 
> 2. His over-the-top and likely insincere humility: "_I have worked hard_" says Bach, "_anyone who works just as hard will go just as far_." Not likely. What an ***. Composers, if you die without having joined the ranks of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, well maybe you shouldn't have been such a useless slacker.
> 
> ...


Hmm! I wondered what Brunnhilde was thinking when she rode into the pyre! Now I'll cheer a bit more every time I hear her immolated.


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## aszkid (May 12, 2013)

aleazk said:


> And was a plagiarist!:
> 
> "_J. S. BACH_"'s Concerto for four harpsichords in A minor:
> 
> ...


They are both transcriptions 

Probably joking, but my insides burn so bad :devil:


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Bach didn't give enough credit to his wives for composing so many children. Having merely one is painful, life-threatening and stressful enough on the body, but to have 11 or 13, with no possibility for today's standard medical care/technology, or SEDATIVES(okay, I guess they had opium)....people in those days must have been tougher than nails.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

"Caney McCane", his hapless students called him.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

trazom said:


> Bach didn't give enough credit to his wives for composing so many children. Having merely one is painful, life-threatening and stressful enough on the body, but to have 11 or 13, with no possibility for today's standard medical care/technology, or SEDATIVES(okay, I guess they had opium)....people in those days must have been tougher than nails.


Both his music and his domestic circumstances might have been better, had Bach spent more time alone playing his organ.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Luther never got one red cent for all the lyrics he provided.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Blancrocher said:


> Both his music and his domestic circumstances might have been better, had Bach spent more time alone playing his organ.


Indeed, he would've become a virtuoso soloist on that instrument as well; but alas, his desire to create was just too strong.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Blancrocher said:


> Both his music and his domestic circumstances might have been better, had Bach spent more time alone playing his organ.





trazom said:


> Indeed, he would've become a virtuoso soloist on that instrument as well; but alas, his desire to create was just too strong.


Nicely played . :lol:


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Bach didn't even write Beethoven's 9th Symphony nor Don Giovanni!

...what DID he write then? Amirite?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Couchie said:


> Bach didn't even write Beethoven's 9th Symphony nor Don Giovanni!
> 
> ...what DID he write then? Amirite?


Well, he was a genius. He spelled his name backward and made a canon with that. If that's not mathematics, then I don't know what mathematics is!.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Kieran said:


> Also, if you say the name _Bach _backwards, with the proper accent, it's pronounced _Scab_. Horrible man!


And keep in mind that CH should actually be pronounced gutturally, like the CH in loch. I.e. Bach was a Klingon.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Bach was definitely an obsequious suck up. To the Margrave of Brandenburg:

"Since I had a few years ago the good luck of being heard by Your Royal Highness, by virtue of his command, and that I observed then that He took some pleasure in the small talents that Heaven gave me for Music, and that in taking leave of Your Royal Highness He wished to make me the honor of ordering to send Him some pieces of my Composition: I therefore according to his very gracious orders took the liberty of giving my very-humble respects to Your Royal Highness by the present Concertos, which I have arranged for several Instruments; praying Him very-humbly to not want to judge their imperfection, according to the severity of fine and delicate taste that everyone knows that He has for musical pieces."

And to King Frederick, explaining specific pieces in the score to the Musical Offering:

"May the fortunes of the king increase like the length of the notes," and "As the modulation rises, so may the King's glory."

Evidently repulsed by this disgusting groveling, neither worthy even bothered to send a thank-you note.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

KenOC said:


> "As the modulation rises, so may the King's glory."


omg... that's incredibly silly!. Pompous and excessively pretentious, like his old fashioned music...


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Evidently repulsed by this disgusting groveling, neither worthy even bothered to send a thank-you note.


They evidently realized it would only encourage him.

Clever nobles, those. More than clever! Oh, just contemplating their glorious nobility and refined judgement is a divine privilege for a mere humble soul like me.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

I was playing one of Bach's albums the other day, I don't think it was his latest, maybe the one before that. Anyway it turns out to be THE SAME TUNE THIRTY-TWO TIMES IN A ROW!! All he did was move a few notes around and add a few extra ones each time to try and cover his tracks, but he forgot to change the last one.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Couchie said:


> Bach didn't even write Beethoven's 9th Symphony nor Don Giovanni!
> 
> ...what DID he write then? Amirite?


I mean, I'm not even sure he wrote the Toccata and Fugue in D minor.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

SimonNZ said:


> All he did was move a few notes around and add a few extra ones each time to try and cover his tracks, but he forgot to change the last one.


That's what happens when you use copy-and-paste a lot!


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Blancrocher said:


> I mean, I'm not even sure he wrote the Toccata and Fugue in D minor.


Didn't Bach steal that music from a classic horror film?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Celloman said:


> Didn't Bach steal that music from a classic horror film?


I think Vincent Price sued him, but it was settled out of court.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

I'm not sure this has been mentioned already or not but this guy wrote an 'air on a g-string'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-string

Surely writing a piece for a piece of underwear like that would have been scandalous in his time! And this guy was supposed to be an upstanding religiously devout citizen? I hope he didn't wear his thong in concert and play it like that!


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

starry said:


> I'm not sure this has been mentioned already or not but this guy wrote an 'air on a g-string'


And what about the Himmelfahrts Oratorium? "Himmelfahrts," really? The man had a dirty, puerile mind.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

Yeah, they played some of his stuff on American Bandstand. Those guys are really knowledgeable. They rated it:

"Got a good beat but you can't dance to it."


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Well it should, shouldn't it?


I have no issue if people prefer that, but it's quite silly when they use that as an argument against performing them on a period instrument.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I think Vincent Price sued him, but it was settled out of court.


Bach sent him a groveling letter.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Not one string quartet? Was he unaware of Haydn?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KenOC said:


> I think Vincent Price sued him, but it was settled out of court.


It had to be.

Even before the trial began, Price shouted, "Give it back, Bach!"

Bach replied, "Not at any price, Price!"

The judge went cross-eyed, the expert witness stood up and shouted "Hallelujah," and the jury dissolved in a giggle fit.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

science said:


> It had to be.
> 
> Even before the trial began, Price shouted, "Give it back, Bach!"
> 
> ...


Hallelujah? As in "You can't Handel the truth!"?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bach is wretched ONLY when he is played on unintended instruments.

On gut strings and a properly tempered harpsichord, he is glorious.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Oh, I see what you're doing...

Instead of making a funny remark on a serious thread, you're making a serious remark on a funny thread. 

Do you really think you can hide from the government this way?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Fact is, Bach would be impressive on a kazoo -- and I'm sure it's be done. I know of no other composer who has been transcribed so many ways and so often, and with such good results -- usually.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

For far too long Bach had received, big, beefy, bloated performances with sluggish tempos, and excessive string vibrato and slides and piano performances that sounded like Rachmaninoff preludes.

No wonder so many found Bach boring. They weren't hearing Bach at all.

Hope that's funny enough. Always ready to entertain.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

hpowders said:


> This is a funny thread? This is serious music.


Read the OP -- I plead guilty!


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

It doesn't help that you misspelt "Ad hominem" in the thread title.

(I know...dyslexia is a serious problem that affects millions)


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

...... (deleted because maybe somebody is making, how you say, a joke)


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

I was trying to make a joke there. I guess in the ten months without posts on this thread we've all gotten a little rusty,

So here's something deadly serious:

Bach tells us he can write his name out on the keyboard using the H key and we all just roll with this? Am I the only one who can speak truth to power?

Fine. Then I'll just write out my name: there's the S way over there...there's the I _right next to the H_...there's the M half way between them...


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

KenOC said:


> If composers can write tributes to other composers, then we can start threads as tributes to other threads. And there have been a few dillies lately. So I ask:
> 
> Why does anybody listen to Bach? I mean OK, the guy could write several tunes diddling along at the same time. But so what? It's kind of like watching a dog walk on its hind legs -- amusing, but it grows tiresome quickly.
> 
> Your views are welcomed and will be considered for fully what they're worth!


Wow, I am actually astonished that I am previewing this at late night after a few Cokes that I drunk... Perhaps I need to return back to this thread later this late morning?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I listen to Bach because I find a spirituality in his music missing from every other composer, save late Beethoven.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

albertfallickwang said:


> Wow, I am actually astonished that I am previewing this at late night after a few Cokes that I drunk... Perhaps I need to return back to this thread later this late morning?


Drunk? Snorted? Is this supposed to explain the zombie apocalypse you have unleashed upon us this morning?


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Drunk? Snorted? Is this supposed to explain the zombie apocalypse you have unleashed upon us this morning?


Indeed, and seeing that Bach is one of the venerable gods being slighted here, I don't know whether to take this thread as humorous or dead serious... which is why I got confused late last night.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

albertfallickwang said:


> Indeed, and seeing that Bach is one of the venerable gods being slighted here, I don't know whether to take this thread as humorous or dead serious... which is why I got confused late last night.


It's Ken. And if that is not enough characters for a post: It's Ken!


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> It's Ken. And if that is not enough characters for a post: It's Ken!


Awesome... I am glad that I am seeing this as a humorous post ... whew, I was worried for a tad bit


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Reading the entire first page, or all six(!) pages, might have cleared that up.


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Bach? I can hardly differentiate him from Felix Mendelssohn's spouse.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Abraham Lincoln said:


> Bach? I can hardly differentiate him from Felix Mendelssohn's spouse.


I recommend either glasses or a short course in primary and secondary sexual characteristics.


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

Why Bach is wretched? I dunno 'bout dat...After hearing P.D.Q. Bach I understood that nothing can deface or denude JSBach.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

waldvogel said:


> If Bach is so great, why is he universally boycotted by the following instrumentalists: clarinet, saxophone, harp, trombone, tuba, Wagner tuba, all percussion except for tympani, synthesizer, electric guitar, ukulele, balalaika, gamelan orchestra, panpipes, sitar, pi-pa, shakuhachi, koto, thumb piano, didgeridoo, vibraphone, steel drums, bagpipes (thank God!), and skiffle band? That's a huge percentage of the world's population that won't play the guy's music.


You haven't heard The Art of Fugue from Canadian Brass?


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

What is this ? The musical version of the Friar's club ? Old JSB is being roasted 266 after he died ! Yikes !!!


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