Bach

[bluestateprommer]

This is at the root of many people's 'difficulties' with Bach I think. Knowing that it is great music but being unable to connect with it is hard....

This, in conjunction with Conchis, is kind of my situation with JSB. I can acknowledge and appreciate his importance and centrality to Western music, without necessarily "loving" it. I went through a long-term phase where I slow binge-listened to 1 or 2 cantatas a week, and my own personal "meh" emotional feelings occurred more often than not. Perhaps the most sheerly engaging of JSB for me, at least, encompass works like:
* The six Brandenburg Concertos
* The Goldberg Variations
* The solo cello suites
* The solo violin sonatas and partitas

Speaking of the Brandenburgs, and in keeping with Bryn's comment in # 3, Michael Marissen discourses on the religious underpinnings of the Brandenburgs here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/arts/music/bach-brandenburg-concertos.html

[pastoralguy]

If you’re sober, PG, any thoughts on the new Ma recording? I have the new set and his first set. The newer one has a few rough sounding spots but seems very characterful compared with his younger self

Many thanks for asking my opinion, Richard.

Alas, I've not opened them yet but I'll let you know my extremely humble opinion once I've listened to them. However, I've enjoyed the excerpts I've heard on the radio which surprised me since a friend bought me Ma's first recording and I was gob smacked at the poor intonation. I MUST listen again to that first recording but if I thought he was playing out of tune then I doubt my opinion will have changed. I was mightily impressed with his Proms performance a couple odd years back.

[pastoralguy]

I'm currently listening to the DG disc of Johann Ólafsson's Bach cd. It's every bit as good as the word on the street would have us believe!

[Dave2002]

Complete rubbish.

I'm currently learning BWV 998 and 1000. The music is so incredibly profound, so unutterably satisfying to play and listen to... I find it incomprehensible that anyone other than the most cloth-eared could find the music lacks direction... all the modulations are effortless, the sequences are perfect and positively ooze exquisiteness.

Thanks for mentioning BWV 998 and 1000 which led me to this - https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...74BC&FORM=VIRE

I don’t recall having heard these before.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm currently listening to the DG disc of Johann Ólafsson's Bach cd. It's every bit as good as the word on the street would have us believe!

I can't find this, pasto - there's a "Vikingur Olafsson" piano disc on DG; is that it?

[Richard Barrett]

I have never understood the adoration over Gould...his performances leave me totally unmoved, however much I try to listen to them.

Glenn Gould was a fascinating character of course, and his opinions and writings are always thought-provoking. I've never got on with his playing, while on the other hand Bach was certainly the first "classical" composer whose work I got into, with no prompting or assistance from anyone else, so there can't be anything inherently "difficult" about it.

[Conchis]

I think there is a 'cultural belief' that, like green vegetables, Bach is supposed to be 'good' for you and that you are somehow 'out of line' if you don't respond to his music.

A while back, I used his Violin Sonatas as 'background' music during a work session. It worked extremely well as such (the performances were by Grumiaux and I judged them to be excellent) and several people commented on how 'relaxing' the music was. Yet I was somewhat disturbed that this music could work so well as a 'side order' while people were devoting their main attention to something else.

I'll be honest and admit I sometimes have the same problem with Schubert - lots of pretty tunes that just don't seem to go anywhere, or evoke any mood or emotion in me (there are significant exceptions in the case of some of the symphonies and some of the piano trios).

Do some listeners find Bach's Protestantism 'problematic'?

[bluestateprommer]

I can't find this, pasto - there's a "Vikingur Olafsson" piano disc on DG; is that it?

Indeed, it is Víkingur Ólafsson: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/us/cat/4835832

(The earlier confusion might have been an accidental name mash-up with Jóhann Jóhannsson, the Icelandic composer who died much too young earlier this year.)

More reading about JSB from another NY-based publication, the New York Review of Books:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/20/bach-master-recycler/

[Conchis]

Glenn Gould was a fascinating character of course, and his opinions and writings are always thought-provoking. I've never got on with his playing, while on the other hand Bach was certainly the first "classical" composer whose work I got into, with no prompting or assistance from anyone else, so there can't be anything inherently "difficult" about it.

I became a fan of Gould on the day he died, via an archive interview that was broadcast on that day.

HUmphry Burton is interviewing Gould in some anonymous hotel room in the deferential manner commonplace among tv hacks encountering geniuses in those days. Gould's attitude, by contrast, was casual. He was smoking a cigarette and looked mildly bored, even though the interview had barely begun.

Burton ended his lengthy preamble, by saying something like: '...you are well-known for your belief that the concert-hall -'

'-is dead!' snapped Gould, cutting in and stubbing out his cigarette at the same time.

At the time, I was only 15 years old and knew sweet llaregub about music that wasn't either rock- or pop-oriented; but I remember thinking Gould was incredibly 'cool' at that moment and more like a rock star than a 'classical' pianist.

[Conchis]

I became a fan of Gould on the day he died, via an archive interview that was broadcast on that day.

HUmphry Burton is interviewing Gould in some anonymous hotel room in the deferential manner commonplace among tv hacks encountering geniuses in those days. Gould's attitude, by contrast, was casual. He was smoking a cigarette and looked mildly bored, even though the interview had barely begun.

Burton ended his lengthy preamble, by saying something like: '...you are well-known for your belief that the concert-hall -'

'-is dead!' snapped Gould, cutting in and stubbing out his cigarette at the same time.

At the time, I was only 15 years old and knew sweet llaregub about music that wasn't either rock- or pop-oriented; but I remember thinking Gould was incredibly 'cool' at that moment and more like a rock star than a 'classical' pianist.

The memory cheats! Gould wasn't wielding a cigarette, but a glass of water - and he is somewhat more respectful of Burton than I remembered (Burton is actually more oleaginous than I recalled, though). https://youtu.be/oy-CuRE1TXk

[pastoralguy]

I can't find this, pasto - there's a "Vikingur Olafsson" piano disc on DG; is that it?

Yes! Apologies for the misdirection. Too much malt whisky after a busy day at work.

Either way, I'd thoroughly recommend it.

[jayne lee wilson]

I think there is a 'cultural belief' that, like green vegetables, Bach is supposed to be 'good' for you and that you are somehow 'out of line' if you don't respond to his music.

A while back, I used his Violin Sonatas as 'background' music during a work session. It worked extremely well as such (the performances were by Grumiaux and I judged them to be excellent) and several people commented on how 'relaxing' the music was. Yet I was somewhat disturbed that this music could work so well as a 'side order' while people were devoting their main attention to something else.

I'll be honest and admit I sometimes have the same problem with Schubert - lots of pretty tunes that just don't seem to go anywhere, or evoke any mood or emotion in me (there are significant exceptions in the case of some of the symphonies and some of the piano trios).

Do some listeners find Bach's Protestantism 'problematic'?

How far have you gone into the Schubert Piano Sonatas? Not just the last three... some of the earlier works contain statements of the most searching tragedy and philosophical reflection; they set out on dark quests, they yearn for a seemingly unsustainable joy: d.537, d.575, d.625....the devastatingly terse d.784, d.840 (the extraordinary reliquie), d.894...
Just occasionally, they express deep serenity, e.g 664..... and so many wonderful slow movements!

I often play them quietly in the bedroom early and late; felt an instinctive connection with them, early in my listening life; couldn't live without them anymore than say, the Beethoven Op.109-111.
(I nearly always listen to them played by Richter, Kempff (or Michelangeli in d.537...)...

***
So it goes with Bach; I've been increasingly drawn to the Cantatas as the years so swiftly pass, often have the Christmas Oratorio playing across December, and have always loved the Brandenburgs and the Violin Concertos (lovely new set from Shunske Sato recently), the Musical Offering, the Art of the Fugue - but almost always on period instruments with minimal choral forces (Hermann Scherchen's Vienna recordings are among the very special exceptions...). The only problem is a degree of overfamiliarity.

That it can soothe the soul subliminally while the focussed mind is elsewhere is no derogation.

An essential part of my musical inner life - and outer life too, as I love to have the choral works drifting through the house even if I can't listen attentively... I must admit though - sometimes when I do listen closely (with Richard Stokes' Complete Cantatas to hand) the particular death-haunted, death-obsessed, afterlife & resurrection-obsessed nature of the texts can seem slightly oppressive....

But that's a narrow, personal view, and the wonderful music soon corrects, and often overwhelms, my response....the Cantatas are a profound exposition and searching exploration of the Christian Faith, but their spiritual communication is direct and universal.

[MickyD]

Glenn Gould was a fascinating character of course, and his opinions and writings are always thought-provoking. I've never got on with his playing, while on the other hand Bach was certainly the first "classical" composer whose work I got into, with no prompting or assistance from anyone else, so there can't be anything inherently "difficult" about it.

Snap, Richard! For me, it was hearing Brandenburg 3 done by Walter (Wendy) Carlos in the early 70s! "Switched-on Bach" did exactly that for me.

[Joseph K]

I must admit though - sometimes when I do listen closely (with Richard Stokes' Complete Cantatas to hand) the particular death-haunted, death-obsessed, afterlife & resurrection-obsessed nature of the texts can seem slightly oppressive..

Absolutely!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzt3euT4yqs

[Conchis]

How far have you gone into the Schubert Piano Sonatas? Not just the last three... some of the earlier works contain statements of the most searching tragedy and philosophical reflection; they set out on dark quests, they yearn for a seemingly unsustainable joy: d.537, d.575, d.625....the devastatingly terse d.784, d.840 (the extraordinary reliquie), d.894...
Just occasionally, they express deep serenity, e.g 664..... and so many wonderful slow movements!

I often play them quietly in the bedroom early and late; felt an instinctive connection with them, early in my listening life; couldn't live without them anymore than say, the Beethoven Op.109-111.
(I nearly always listen to them played by Richter, Kempff (or Michelangeli in d.537...)...

***
So it goes with Bach; I've been increasingly drawn to the Cantatas as the years so swiftly pass, often have the Christmas Oratorio playing across December, and have always loved the Brandenburgs and the Violin Concertos (lovely new set from Shunske Sato recently), the Musical Offering, the Art of the Fugue - but almost always on period instruments with minimal choral forces (Hermann Scherchen's Vienna recordings are among the very special exceptions...). The only problem is a degree of overfamiliarity.

That it can soothe the soul subliminally while the focussed mind is elsewhere is no derogation.

An essential part of my musical inner life - and outer life too, as I love to have the choral works drifting through the house even if I can't listen attentively... I must admit though - sometimes when I do listen closely (with Richard Stokes' Complete Cantatas to hand) the particular death-haunted, death-obsessed, afterlife & resurrection-obsessed nature of the texts can seem slightly oppressive....

But that's a narrow, personal view, and the wonderful music soon corrects, and often overwhelms, my response....the Cantatas are a profound exposition and searching exploration of the Christian Faith, but their spiritual communication is direct and universal.

I have to admit, not very far. I recently picked up the Mistuko Uchida complete set of piano works and I probably need to sit down and immerse myself in them.

But I am not a natural Schubertian.....

As to the Brandenburg Concertos - I have to say, these are among my most disliked pieces of music. Hearing them as a cycle actually induces physical nausea in me - a bit like being on a swing-boat or a glider plane that keeps shifting up and down. I feel the urge to shout out 'STOP!' at several points.

Hmm....maybe I'm a Bachaphobe, the way John Culshaw was a Mahlerphobe (his symptoms when listening to Mahler equal mine when listening to Bach).