Something for a Friday: All of Bach

[EdgeleyRob]

Bach to the singing this week.

Cantata 'Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe' BWV 185.

Lovely music,super talk as always,well performed I think.
Left me strangely unmoved though,not sure why,I've listened twice.

http://www.jsbachcantatas.com/documents/chapter-6-bwv-185.htm

[Padraig]

Bach to the singing this week.

Cantata 'Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe' BWV 185.

Lovely music,super talk as always,well performed I think.
Left me strangely unmoved though,not sure why,I've listened twice.

I thought the same, ER. We know some of these performers from previous cantatas, and I feel that they were not as committed here. Maybe the preachy texts put them off?

[EdgeleyRob]

I thought the same, ER. We know some of these performers from previous cantatas, and I feel that they were not as committed here. Maybe the preachy texts put them off?

Maybe.
Anyhows,back to my comfort zone this week Padraig.

Organ music - Dies sind die heiligen zehn Gebot, BWV 678.

Ten commandments, five parts,two canons,twelve stanzas....all sounds very mathematical but don't let that put you off.
The music is so beautiful it's untrue.
Even the interview with Reitze Smits is a masterpiece.

[Padraig]

Ten commandments, five parts,two canons,twelve stanzas....all sounds very mathematical but don't let that put you off.

Correct me if I'm wrong, ER, but I fear that in order to come to grips with this organ music of Bach I'm going to have to study the whole of his Organ Mass, i.e. Part 3 of his works for organ. One piece seems to lead to another, and just when you think you've 'got' one you find that you're either wrestling with Martin Luther himself, or else having to listen for a canon or an inverted fugue or a 'strange' harmonisation, and you end up deciding that you'll never understand it anyway. I'm too old for this.

[EdgeleyRob]

Correct me if I'm wrong, ER, but I fear that in order to come to grips with this organ music of Bach I'm going to have to study the whole of his Organ Mass, i.e. Part 3 of his works for organ. One piece seems to lead to another, and just when you think you've 'got' one you find that you're either wrestling with Martin Luther himself, or else having to listen for a canon or an inverted fugue or a 'strange' harmonisation, and you end up deciding that you'll never understand it anyway. I'm too old for this.

I do struggle with some of the theory behind the music.
Sometimes feels like one step forward two steps back.
I tend to listen to these organ pieces twice
First time trying to pick out the inner voices,cross motifs and such.
For example,with the latest piece,according to the link below 'There is a reference to the number ten in the first measure, where each of the three voices forms the interval of a tenth with the other two' so I found myself trying to pick these out by rewinding and fast forwarding the video umpteen times.
I find it fascinating but fear I,like yourself,will probably never understand it anyway.
The second listen I just wallow in the music......I'm going on a bit now so will leave it there Padraig.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jkibbie/clavieruebung_volume_iii.htm

[Roehre]

I do struggle with some of the theory behind the music.
Sometimes feels like one step forward two steps back.
I tend to listen to these organ pieces twice
First time trying to pick out the inner voices,cross motifs and such.
For example,with the latest piece,according to the link below 'There is a reference to the number ten in the first measure, where each of the three voices forms the interval of a tenth with the other two' so I found myself trying to pick these out by rewinding and fast forwarding the video umpteen times.
I find it fascinating but fear I,like yourself,will probably never understand it anyway.
The second listen I just wallow in the music......I'm going on a bit now so will leave it there Padraig.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jkibb...volume_iii.htm

ER & Padraig: It's like 12-tone rows: you are likely not to hear them unless you've got a score in front of you.
You certainly aren't the only ones to get lost with an explanation as given in this link.

Btw Padraig, I guess you mean the organ-works section of Klavierübung III (the other keyboard works being i.a. the Suite in b and the Italian concerto)?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

ER & Padraig: It's like 12-tone rows: you are likely not to hear them unless you've got a score in front of you.

Ouch! I think it's exactly the opposite - if the performer plays what's written, and the listener's attention is focussed on the sound of the what's been playing, then it's inevitable that the technical features that make up a piece of Music will be heard.

Whether or not the listener identifies those technical features (be they nine-note rows, use of the German sixth, irregular phrasing, palindromes, the specific key to which a piece has modulated, or whatever) is another matter.

Is it "important" to know such techniques? Well, it's certainly not essential - wallowing in the resulting sounds (enjoying and being enlivened by them) is what matters; it's not like when a writer uses a word that you've never encountered before and you have to stop reading to look the word up in a dictionary. Some of us enjoy delving into these things - others don't: they're not necessarily "missing" anything.

[Roehre]

Ouch! I think it's exactly the opposite - if the performer plays what's written, and the listener's attention is focussed on the sound of the what's been playing, then it's inevitable that the technical features that make up a piece of Music will be heard.

Whether or not the listener identifies those technical features (be they nine-note rows, use of the German sixth, irregular phrasing, palindromes, the specific key to which a piece has modulated, or whatever) is another matter.

Is it "important" to know such techniques? Well, it's certainly not essential - wallowing in the resulting sounds (enjoying and being enlivened by them) is what matters; it's not like when a writer uses a word that you've never encountered before and you have to stop reading to look the word up in a dictionary. Some of us enjoy delving into these things - others don't: they're not necessarily "missing" anything.

I share that opinion FHG

A couple of observations.

The "technique" behind a composition is IMO of secondary importance, at least to the listener.
It helps many times (but by no means always, many of Boulez' works e.g., or notably Schönberg's piano concerto in which the composer himself eventually was unable to define/explain how he had used the 12-tone-row ) as listener to be aware of techniques. But it should not be a condition-sine-qua-non. Were that the case, then the composer missed the opportunity to connect with a listener.
I personally loved quite a lot of music before I knew how it was "composed"/"constructed", including the, for me then (1976) as well as at the present, very intriguing Symphony op.21 by Webern. I know the piece inside out, but I enjoyed it too without knowing the used row or any of the techniques (as e.g. the beautifully constructed retrograde in the finale).

Back to Bach: I personally enjoy most of it (but only a part of the organ works, as I have no connection with the Lutheran chorales e.g.). In some works - like BWV 678, but most definitely with the Passions- there is a whole of biblically inspired constructions below the surface. But does it really affect your listening fundamentally, do you really appreciate it more knowing what is behind?
It's great music, with that knowledge, but certainly without that too.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's great music, with that knowledge, but certainly without that too.

Yes - I think we're in agreement, Roehre. What I was trying to express ("translating" Music events into verbal "descriptions" is always fraught) is that Musical techniques create the sound that the listener hears, so, in that sense, the techniques can be said to be "heard" - if the glorious Webern Symphony had used the note row of Schönberg's Piano Concerto (or vice versa) then it would make a very different sound and have a very different effect on the listener (I've started trying to imagine such a monstrosity! ) - similarly, the quick horn variation in the second movement has to use just those particular row combinations, otherwise you'd get weak octaves and clumsy overlapping of lines that are very different in sound from what Webern hears from what the row offers him. (And you'd have to give the Music to a different solo instrument!)

But you're absolutely right, of course - the listener doesn't need to know these details in order to love this eminently lovable Music; the nutrition from a good meal remains nutritious regardless of the chef's "secret ingredients".


By the way - do you believe Schönberg's claims that he was "unable" to explain the use of his series? The way he analysed Music - Mozart's for example - makes me very suspicious of such claims: I think it was just part of his naturally superstitious reluctance to give away his "secrets"!

[Roehre]

...
By the way - do you believe Schönberg's claims that he was "unable" to explain the use of his series? The way he analysed Music - Mozart's for example - makes me very suspicious of such claims: I think it was just part of his naturally superstitious reluctance to give away his "secrets"!

FHG, for once I tend to believe Schönberg here. He gave analyses of other works of his, so likely his naturally superstitious reluctance was not blocking analysis here. Of course there is the possibillity that he used his technique not as rigidly as usually- and hence did not want that to be known widely

[EdgeleyRob]

Whether or not the listener identifies those technical features (be they nine-note rows, use of the German sixth, irregular phrasing, palindromes, the specific key to which a piece has modulated, or whatever) is another matter.
Is it "important" to know such techniques? Well, it's certainly not essential - wallowing in the resulting sounds (enjoying and being enlivened by them) is what matters;

Thanks ferney.
Yes probably not important to know or understand the theory but I'm enjoying trying to know and understand it.
Don't get me wrong I still love wallowing in the end result too.

I personally loved quite a lot of music before I knew how it was "composed"/"constructed",.

Thanks Roehre.

Me too,but I've recently become interested in trying to get to know how it was constructed.

Back to Bach..........In some works - like BWV 678, but most definitely with the Passions- there is a whole of biblically inspired constructions below the surface. But does it really affect your listening fundamentally, do you really appreciate it more knowing what is behind?
It's great music, with that knowledge, but certainly without that too.

I am not religious at all and yet I am fascinated to try to understand the biblically inspired construction.
Even if I can't grasp this I certainly appreciate this is great music and very wallowinable.

[EdgeleyRob]

Familiar music today.

Orchestral Suite No 1.

Fascinating talk on the layout of the players.
The captain leading from midfield in a sort of 4-1-4-1 formation.
Unfamiliar set up of the orchestra (for me anyway,maybe not for the Bach experts on here).
Comments welcome.

[teamsaint]

Familiar music today.

Orchestral Suite No 1.

Fascinating talk on the layout of the players.
The captain leading from midfield in a sort of 4-1-4-1 formation.
Unfamiliar set up of the orchestra (for me anyway,maybe not for the Bach experts on here).
Comments welcome.

yup, he had his lines of 4 nicely set out there, ER.

should be ok for the Set pieces.

Enjoyed that performance and interview.

[EdgeleyRob]

Anybody there?

BWV 592.
Transcription of a lost concerto for violin, strings and continuo by Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar (1696-1715) .
A nice short and sweet organ piece.
Not sure if this is top notch JSB.

Some light reading here on this and Bach's arrangements of Vivaldi concertos.

http://web.mit.edu/ckcheung/www/MusicalWritings_files/Essay13_BachVivaldiTrans_webversion.pdf

[Roehre]

Anybody there?

BWV 592.
Transcription of a lost concerto for violin, strings and continuo by Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar (1696-1715) .
A nice short and sweet organ piece.
Not sure if this is top notch JSB....

Given the quality of the music it's my guess that JSB has sexed-up the original considerably - this is what he could make of it.
JSB as arranger, not as composer. Hence not a work of JSB's usual standards.
What JSB as arranger presents -compare the Vivaldi originals with Bach's re-writings- shows his considerable skills in this field too.