looking for a particular piece of Bach music
M. Slater
>What Koopman does in the opening of the Toccatta with those trills is so
>horrible, IMNSHO, that it's the only piece where I click "skip" on the
>"Famous Organ Works" CD. :*
On every organ collection, I click past the ubiquitous D minor T&F.I enjoy it
much more when I play it.
Roger Brown
wrote:
>On every organ collection, I click past the ubiquitous D minor T&F.I enjoy it
>much more when I play it.
It's odd. I went for years not ever wanting to play this piece
again.It seemed so facile compared to other Bach organ repertoire.
But in recent years I've come back to it and found it enjoyable and
even vital notwithstanding that it lacks the depth and elegance of the
real organ masterworks.
Roger
Roger Brown
rob...@melbpc.org.au
http://rogerbrown.tripod.com
http://member.melbpc.org.au/~robrown
Minor Seventh
> On 05 May 2002 07:15:53 GMT, harpsic...@aol.comedy (M. Slater)
> wrote:
>
> >On every organ collection, I click past the ubiquitous D minor T&F.I enjoy it
> >much more when I play it.
I wish Vincent Price commericialized the Fantasia in G Minor for his
horror films and left the Tocatta and D Minor alone. I now don't see
why people link it to Frankenstein as it's a very exuberant piece of
music.
When I look back at what first jarred me when I first heard the
opening...was that final F# in the first big chord taking the sound to
D Major for a grand sublime moment. That sublime sound is a D Major
chord but people associate that sound with death and horror. (: I'm
like a film buff who cries foul when his classic b&w films have been
colorized.
The work has so much of the vitality of Vivaldi that it doesn't belong
in Price's dark parlar at all.
>
> It's odd. I went for years not ever wanting to play this piece
> again.It seemed so facile compared to other Bach organ repertoire.
>
> But in recent years I've come back to it and found it enjoyable and
> even vital notwithstanding that it lacks the depth and elegance of the
> real organ masterworks.
>
After 20 years of having first heard the piece, I go to a CD which has
the toccata and the fugue on different tracks. And I listen to the
fugue by itself these days, and for me it's the first 30-40 measures
of the fugue until he gets to the arpegios at which point the piece
for me is less attractive. But those 30-40 measures for me are some
of the greatest sound I have ever heard, with that chromatic descent
played against that totally exuberant subject. For me even though the
counterpoint is not as dense and intricate the Art itself has as much
profundity as anything he has done.
Charles
news:be5ba489.02051...@posting.google.com...
> ...
> After 20 years of having first heard the piece, I go to a CD which has
> the toccata and the fugue on different tracks. And I listen to the
> fugue by itself these days, and for me it's the first 30-40 measures
> of the fugue until he gets to the arpegios at which point the piece
> for me is less attractive. But those 30-40 measures for me are some
> of the greatest sound I have ever heard, with that chromatic descent
> played against that totally exuberant subject. For me even though the
> counterpoint is not as dense and intricate the Art itself has as much
> profundity as anything he has done.
I agree with your sentiments - the canonic working in the opening is so well done
that of all the composers I know, I cannot see an alternative to Bach. Then
there's the uncanny harmonic link with the Art of Fugue - combine the final bars
of Bach's unfinished fugue with this d minor theme and you'll see what I mean! To
me the arpeggios are Bach's 'echo effect', showing off the capabilities of a
new/renovated organ. Presumably, the pipes associated with one manual (the echo)
sounded 'remote', enhancing the effect.
I certainly don't buy the argument that Bach was unable to write outside his
typical style. While this line of reasoning is a prerequisite for a certain
musicological approach to dating works, its surely erroneous. After all, the
Goldbergs were presumably written by someone familiar with Chopin!
Regards
Charles
Ioannis
[snip]
> I certainly don't buy the argument that Bach was unable to write outside his
> typical style. While this line of reasoning is a prerequisite for a certain
> musicological approach to dating works, its surely erroneous. After all, the
> Goldbergs were presumably written by someone familiar with Chopin!
There is an apparent contradiction on this piece. I've followed all the
arguments given here about its authorship and they seem to indicate
non-Bach, but my nose says Bach as well, for what it's worth.
In any case, *if* JSB wrote that, he must have written it very young,
I'd say around 20-25. Probably at a time when he had not mastered his
art to full extent yet.
> Regards
> Charles
--
Ioannis
http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/jgal/
___________________________________________
Eventually, _everything_ is understandable.
Sybrand Bakker
wrote:
>I certainly don't buy the argument that Bach was unable to write outside his
>typical style. While this line of reasoning is a prerequisite for a certain
>musicological approach to dating works, its surely erroneous. After all, the
>Goldbergs were presumably written by someone familiar with Chopin!
Would you care to provide proof for
While this line of reasoning is a prerequisite for a certain
musicological approach to dating works, its surely erroneous
I mean *proof*
and
>Goldbergs were presumably written by someone familiar with Chopin!
Or do you just want to show you are really an insane troll
and you are now suffering from such a vehement daementia praecox, one
could only advise you to get yourself into a mental asylum, which is
basically where you belong.
Regards
Sybrand Bakker
Minor Seventh
> Charles wrote:
> [snip]
> > I certainly don't buy the argument that Bach was unable to write outside his
> > typical style. While this line of reasoning is a prerequisite for a certain
> > musicological approach to dating works, its surely erroneous. After all, the
> > Goldbergs were presumably written by someone familiar with Chopin!
>
> There is an apparent contradiction on this piece. I've followed all the
> arguments given here about its authorship and they seem to indicate
> non-Bach, but my nose says Bach as well, for what it's worth.
>
> In any case, *if* JSB wrote that, he must have written it very young,
> I'd say around 20-25. Probably at a time when he had not mastered his
> art to full extent yet.
I agree. If you look at some of the other fugues he wrote at this
period, you will find the same wild colt doing things like adding
tocatta-like codas to his fugues. Second, during this he time was
spending a lot of time studying and imitating the music of other
composers.
Esa Toivola
>> In any case, *if* JSB wrote that, he must have written it very young,
>> I'd say around 20-25. Probably at a time when he had not mastered his
>> art to full extent yet.
>I agree. If you look at some of the other fugues he wrote at this
>period, you will find the same wild colt doing things like adding
>tocatta-like codas to his fugues. Second, during this he time was
>spending a lot of time studying and imitating the music of other
>composers.
I think these toccata-like codas are part of Bach's imitation of North
German organ style: after all, he was a great fan of Buxtehude, who
integrated fugues in toccatas. There are few early Bach pieces in
which this North German toccata form is very evident, for example the
small a minor organ prelude (can't remember the BWV now) and some of
his harpsichord toccatas.
But I still find it hard to believe that toccata and fugur d minor
would be composed by young Bach: lenghty sequences and unison passages
don't suggest to 17th century North German style. Or then Bach was
just being very eccentric.
Rgds,
Esa Toivola
www.siba.fi/~etoivola
Minor Seventh
> >Goldbergs were presumably written by someone familiar with Chopin!
>
> Or do you just want to show you are really an insane troll
> and you are now suffering from such a vehement daementia praecox, one
> could only advise you to get yourself into a mental asylum, which is
> basically where you belong.
>
God I need a dictionary just to read a musicologist's flame.
Minor Seventh
You don't hear any likeness between the "Dorian" tocatta in D Minor
BWV 538 and the fugue of the famous D Minor tocatta? The subject and
the accompanying chord sequences? The Fugue in C Minor BWV 549 is
also a very immature fugue from the same period without much
counterpoint and a lot of pounding chords. Take the melodic subject
of the Dorian D Minor tocatta with its accompanying chord sequences
and marry it to the immature fugal style of BWV 549 with its pounding
chords and little counterpoint.
Isn't it possible that Bach could have played the opening in unison
because it sounds better?
In any case the D Minor fugue BWV 565 is a superb "tocatta". :)
Roger Brown
wrote:
>In any case the D Minor fugue BWV 565 is a superb "tocatta". :)
Indeed it is unique - for if it be one, it is the only one Bach (or
anyone else for that matter) ever wrote.
Riccardo
"Charles" <fra...@datacomm.ch> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:abgjsq$i7c5r$1@ID->
>
After all, the
> Goldbergs were presumably written by someone familiar with Chopin!
I think there is something here I totally miss (maybe it's Swiss sense of
humour..)
Truly, I don't understand what you are saying.
greetings,
Riccardo.
Jim Michmerhuizen
Not to worry. Mr. Bakker is no more a musicologist than I am a trapeze artist.
Jim Michmerhuizen
the wannabe scholars.
Jim Michmerhuizen
>
> If you look at some of the other fugues he wrote at this
> period, you will find the same wild colt doing things like adding
> spending a lot of time studying and imitating the music of other
> composers.
Yeah. That bwv549 (which somebody else on this thread mentioned too) is a prime
example. On my website, when I wrote that
"His earliest works are shambling, romantic clots of baroque rock-n-roll, sentimental,
bombastic, harmonically untamed, shapeless polyphony in a constantly changing
number of voices."
I was thinking of bwv 549 - as well as a couple of other things
like the Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother. bwv whatever.
The proposition that bwv565 isn't JSB was advanced by Peter Williams. Or at
least, it's in his work that I first encountered the idea. I've been thinking about
it for years. I'm aligned pretty much with the "wild colt" theory: it's JSB alright,
but it's early, it was an experiment (Gee whiz, what a hoot it would be to take
that violin toccata and play it on an ORGAN! Wow!), and his ears outgrew it
almost immediately.
Stylistic arguments simply can't work with one-of-a-kind compositions. It's logically
impossible.
Sybrand Bakker
"Jim Michmerhuizen" <jam...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
news:1103_1021124571@michaelk...
Obviously you seem to have a degree in discrediting and putting down people,
and you are more and more specialising in the same field as this groups
customary troll, Mr. Charles/Francis, or whatever his real name is.
I do happen to have a degree in musicology, cum laude.
No regards
Sybrand Bakker
Sybrand Bakker
"Jim Michmerhuizen" <jam...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
Of which you seem to be one of the prime examples.
Sybrand Bakker
Charles
news:abj2sr$idq3i$1...@ID-80584.news.dfncis.de...
Hi Riccardo,
a couple of quotes for you regarding Variation 25:
"In its sombre reflections all the restlessness of the romantics may already be
discerned" - Wanda Landowska
"Variation 25 is, without a doubt, the greatest of all the variations, demanding
the utmost in musicianship and expressiveness. Returning to the rhythm of the
opening sarabande, Bach writes an arioso of great intensity and painful beauty in
which the agonizing chromaticisms show that Romanticism is not far away. Famously
called 'the black pearl' by Landowska, its slow tempo (marked 'Adagio' by Bach in
his Handexemplar) makes it much longer than any other variation although it has
the same number of bars. The 'repeated note' ornament at the beginning, which was
often used by Bach for a jump of a sixth in impassioned music, is wonderfully
expressive and very vocal, and was adopted by Chopin who used it repeatedly." -
Angela Hewitt
Basically, Bach anticipated a style of music that was not to be in vogue for
another hundred years or so. Surely, a refutation in the clearest terms of
certain musicological dogmas.
Regards
Charles
Pan
wrote:
[snip]
>Basically, Bach anticipated a style of music that was not to be in vogue for
>another hundred years or so.
Poppycock. People don't "anticipate" styles; they compose in the
here-and-now, and others - usually people who knew their work - later
write things in a similar style - usually because of influence by
these earlier composers or their contemporaries.
> Surely, a refutation in the clearest terms of
>certain musicological dogmas.
I don't know what you're talking about.
The idea that many Romantics were heavily influenced by Bach is
nothing new, not radical, and not contradicted by any musicologist I
know of.
Michael
To reply by email, please take out the TRASH (so to speak). Personal messages only, please!
Jim Michmerhuizen
>
> I do happen to have a degree in musicology, cum laude.
>
I had assumed that you were doing something in database management - based, I think, on
something in one of your sigs. Was I wrong?
Charles
news:3cdd93e...@news.erols.com...
> On Sat, 11 May 2002 20:49:44 +0200, "Charles" <fra...@datacomm.ch>
> wrote:
>
>
> [snip]
> >Basically, Bach anticipated a style of music that was not to be in vogue for
> >another hundred years or so.
>
> Poppycock. People don't "anticipate" styles; they compose in the
> here-and-now, and others - usually people who knew their work - later
> write things in a similar style - usually because of influence by
> these earlier composers or their contemporaries.
>
> > Surely, a refutation in the clearest terms of
> >certain musicological dogmas.
>
> I don't know what you're talking about.
>
> The idea that many Romantics were heavily influenced by Bach is
> nothing new, not radical, and not contradicted by any musicologist I
> know of.
Are you claiming a chain of influence from Variation 25 of the Goldbergs through
to the Romantics? Or are you arguing that it was the familiarity with Bach's
music that prepared the way for a rediscovery of Bach's late-life innovation? At
any rate, you apparently reject the likelihood of an independent rediscovery of
harmonic ambiguity in the 19th Century.
Regards
Charles
Pan
wrote:
>"Pan" <panNO...@musician.org> wrote in message
>news:3cdd93e...@news.erols.com...
>> On Sat, 11 May 2002 20:49:44 +0200, "Charles" <fra...@datacomm.ch>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> [snip]
>> >Basically, Bach anticipated a style of music that was not to be in vogue for
>> >another hundred years or so.
>>
>> Poppycock. People don't "anticipate" styles; they compose in the
>> here-and-now, and others - usually people who knew their work - later
>> write things in a similar style - usually because of influence by
>> these earlier composers or their contemporaries.
>>
>> > Surely, a refutation in the clearest terms of
>> >certain musicological dogmas.
>>
>> I don't know what you're talking about.
>>
>> The idea that many Romantics were heavily influenced by Bach is
>> nothing new, not radical, and not contradicted by any musicologist I
>> know of.
>
>
>Are you claiming a chain of influence from Variation 25 of the Goldbergs through
>to the Romantics?
Look at what I wrote:
"Others later write things in a similar style - usually because of
influence by these earlier composers or their contemporaries." I am
not making any specific claims about Variation 25 of the Goldbergs.
> Or are you arguing that it was the familiarity with Bach's
>music that prepared the way for a rediscovery of Bach's late-life innovation?
Are you arguing that Bach was at any point an unknown composer?
> At
>any rate, you apparently reject the likelihood of an independent rediscovery of
>harmonic ambiguity in the 19th Century.
There was no need for such a "rediscovery." Beethoven knew C.P.E.
Bach's music and acknowledged his debt to it throughout his lifetime.
And _everybody_ knew Beethoven's music.
Tom Hens
Pan <panNO...@musician.org> wrote...
> On Sat, 11 May 2002 20:49:44 +0200, "Charles" <fra...@datacomm.ch>
> wrote:
> [snip]
> >Basically, Bach anticipated a style of music that was not to be in vogue
> >for another hundred years or so.
>
> Poppycock. People don't "anticipate" styles; they compose in the
> here-and-now, and others - usually people who knew their work - later
> write things in a similar style - usually because of influence by
> these earlier composers or their contemporaries.
Obviously, and yet that's something that some people seem to want to cling
to: the idea that composers can somehow "anticipate" developments in music
that happen long after they are dead.
> >Surely, a refutation in the clearest terms of
> >certain musicological dogmas.
>
> I don't know what you're talking about.
Nobody else does either.
The CharlesFrancis troll has this thing about attacking so-called "dogmas"
of his own invention. "HIP dogmas", "certain musicological dogmas", ...
Nobody except himself knows what he means by those terms. When asked for
clarification he never responds substantially, he either stays silent or
spouts more pointless verbiage to try and deflect attention from his
inability to come up with anything substantial. He already did so in his
own response to your post.
This thread will serve as a nice example of his modus operandi, which he's
been applying in this newsgroup for years now. He's just claimed that his
post contains a "refutation" of "certain musicological dogmas". I'm asking
CharlesFrancis here and now for a post in which he details what those
"musicological dogmas" supposedly are. (Here's my infallible prediction:
such a post will never come.)
Tom (who's most definitely *not* a musicologist, unlike Sybrand Bakker, and
not a "scholar" either)
Sybrand Bakker
"Jim Michmerhuizen" <jam...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
Apologies accepted.
University of Amsterdam, 1983, studied when Frits Noske and Chris Maas were
holding chairs there. I didn't particular like Noske, but nobody of the
students did.
My paper dealt with the fate of the phrygian mode in the 17th and 18th
century, in view of the change to tonality in the 17th century, which was
questioned by at least one of my teachers.
When I graduated, the Netherlands were facing a severe economic crisis. Many
people from that era were forced to search their profession elsewhere. I was
one of them.
Only one, Rob Wegman, who is now holding a chair at Princeton, managed to
stay in the musicological profession.
However, database management will always be my second choice. My great love
is music, and I still am (at least trying) to read musicological literature
and visit seminars and the like.
So, as the Charles/Francis entity starts to discuss 'musicologal dogmas' on
no ground at all, I know for sure he is trying to annoy and irritate me.
He is also the only one who'se only contribution is to attack other people,
even with their old posts.
Regards
Sybrand Bakker
Charles
> >
> >Are you claiming a chain of influence from Variation 25 of the Goldbergs
through
> >to the Romantics?
>
> Look at what I wrote:
>
> "Others later write things in a similar style - usually because of
> influence by these earlier composers or their contemporaries." I am
> not making any specific claims about Variation 25 of the Goldbergs.
>
> > Or are you arguing that it was the familiarity with Bach's
> >music that prepared the way for a rediscovery of Bach's late-life innovation?
>
> Are you arguing that Bach was at any point an unknown composer?
>
> > At
> >any rate, you apparently reject the likelihood of an independent rediscovery of
> >harmonic ambiguity in the 19th Century.
>
> There was no need for such a "rediscovery." Beethoven knew C.P.E.
> Bach's music and acknowledged his debt to it throughout his lifetime.
> And _everybody_ knew Beethoven's music.
OK, but my original point was not about Bach (or his influence) in general, but
about a particular piece he wrote (Variation 25), which is out of character for
both Bach and for his time, and which 'anticipates' developments a century later.
This seems to fly in the face of a hypothesis of incremental development (re:
Darwinian evolution).
Regards
Charles
Ben Crick
wrote:
> The idea that many Romantics were heavily influenced by Bach is
> nothing new, not radical, and not contradicted by any musicologist I
> know of.
Mendelssohn for one: vide his Preludes and Fugues, and Sonatas for
Organ. Also Parry, whose two sets of Choral Preludes match any by
our beloved JSB. And don't let's forget Samuel Wesley, son of Revd
Charles Wesley the Methodist evangelist and hymn writer, who named
his son Samuel *Sebastian* Wesley after his favourite composer.
SS Wesley was later organist in turn of Hereford Cathedral, Exeter
Cathedral, Leeds Parish Church, Winchester Cathedral and Gloucester
Cathedral.
Ben
--
Ben Crick <ben....@argonet.co.uk> ZFC Er
Acorn RPC700 RO4.03+Kinetic Card, 126 MB, 4.3 GB HD, x32 CD-ROM, MX56VX
Coming to you from Birchington near Margate in Kent.
* Never give the devil a ride; he will always want to drive.
Pan
wrote:
>OK, but my original point was not about Bach (or his influence) in general, but
>about a particular piece he wrote (Variation 25), which is out of character for
>both Bach and for his time,
I totally disagree with that suggestion. Bach and various other
composers (e.g., Vivaldi, Telemann) had written chromatic music during
that period.
> and which 'anticipates' developments a century later.
Unless you believe in a deterministic view of history - i.e., that God
has decided in advance who will compose what in which style - nothing
"anticipates" anything.
>This seems to fly in the face of a hypothesis of incremental development (re:
>Darwinian evolution).
It only seems to fly in the face because you've set up a straw man and
a nonsensical counter-proposition and insist on reiterating them.
Jim Michmerhuizen
> On Sun, 12 May 2002 13:59:58 +0200, "Charles" <fra...@datacomm.ch>
> wrote:
>
> >OK, but my original point was not about Bach (or his influence) in general, but
> >about a particular piece he wrote (Variation 25), which is out of character for
> >both Bach and for his time,
>
> I totally disagree with that suggestion. Bach and various other
> composers (e.g., Vivaldi, Telemann) had written chromatic music during
> that period.
>
ordinary, colloquial, non-theoretical way, the 25th variation certainly *is* odd. I don't
put a lot of theoretical weight on an expression like "out of character"; but I certainly
have to respect the judgment of C.P.E. Bach, in the obituary, when he writes of his
father that "his melodies were strange, but always varied, rich in invention, and resembling
those of no other composer." Isn't it more than a little naive to classify all Bach's chromaticism
in the same bunch with everyone else's of that period? What's odd about the 25th
variation is not at all just the chromaticism.
> > and which 'anticipates' developments a century later.
>
> Unless you believe in a deterministic view of history - i.e., that God
> has decided in advance who will compose what in which style - nothing
> "anticipates" anything.
>
Well, again, sure. Maybe charles' message really is raising some profound hundred-word
theory about the history of music, or taste, or something - I have no concern about that.
But surely, by removing the single quotes so that you can take literally the one word "anticipates",
you are not doing much to advance the argument, and a great deal to render it meaningless.
In a simple descriptive sense, it's perfectly appropriate to use such a word as "anticipates".
Melodies such as that of the 25th variation simply didn't occur to classical-era composers -
or if they did, were suppressed for fear of critical obloquy. Melodies like that didn't turn up
again until Chopin. (If anybody can suggest some enlightening counterexamples, please do so.
It will do us all good.)
> >This seems to fly in the face of a hypothesis of incremental development (re:
> >Darwinian evolution).
Duh! And then charles clubs us with a hashed metaphor far worse than
Hamlet's "taking arms against a sea of troubles." I can't imagine, any more than anybody
else can, what this was supposed to mean.
Well, let me try anyway. I have to picture some imaginary person who asserts this
"hypothesis of incremental development", and then I have to imagine that person giving
up his hypothesis when I play the 25th variation for him, followed, if he is obstinate, by some
evocative Chopin piece that exhibits some similarity - formal, harmonic, melodic, or whatever -
to the Bach.
What is that hypothesis? And why must it be given up?
>
> It only seems to fly in the face because you've set up a straw man and
> a nonsensical counter-proposition and insist on reiterating them.
>
Well, charles will have to speak for himself on that one. My own take is that:
a) there may be an argument somewhere in here that's worth pursuing
b) it may not be the one that charles was - or thought he was - presenting
Look, JSB's melodic and compositional gifts were recognized, in his own time, by
his own fans (students, musiclovers, even teachers) as unique. The CPE Bach
quote above can only mean that JSB's work was instantly recognizable as such
*even*in*his*own*generation*. But the critical ideals of the classical period
rejected almost all of the principles on which JSB's work was built. It wasn't
possible to freely imitate JSB again - to any critical acclaim - for 60 or 70 years.
Certainly it wasn't *fashionable* until the "revival" that was initiated in 1829 with
the Mendelssohn St. Matthew Passion. And if you can't imitate, you can't learn
from. It's the universal testimony of those who knew him best that he himself
learned, in his early musical life, by imitation.
It *was* fashionable, during the classical era, to believe in musical progress. The
principles on which JSB's music was based - and the entire baroque - had been
shown to be weak, or wrong, or decrepit, or something of that sort. Evolution
hadn't been invented yet, so nobody could say the baroque had been rendered
extinct by a more fit music; but they could think it. Forkel, Bach's first biographer, almost
always misjudged the chronological order of those works for which he had multiple
sources: he assumed the simplest version was the final one, when in fact it was
usually the earliest one. Zelter, Mendelssohn's teacher, undertook to strip away
from Bach's music some of the savage excrescences that poor JSB, living in the
backward early 18th century, hadn't had the good taste to do away with himself.
And Zelter *loved* Bach! He told Felix he could almost feel Bach nodding from
heaven at Zelter's edits, saying "yes, yes, that's what I really meant."
Pan
<jam...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 12 May 2002 19:54:13 GMT, panNO...@musician.org (Pan) wrote:
>> On Sun, 12 May 2002 13:59:58 +0200, "Charles" <fra...@datacomm.ch>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >OK, but my original point was not about Bach (or his influence) in general, but
>> >about a particular piece he wrote (Variation 25), which is out of character for
>> >both Bach and for his time,
>>
>and Pan wrote...
>> I totally disagree with that suggestion. Bach and various other
>> composers (e.g., Vivaldi, Telemann) had written chromatic music during
>> that period.
>>
>And my take on that is: sure they did. But not all chromaticism is equal.
That's your bias. You're entitled to it, but I don't share it. And if
you're making a remark about quality (Bach is better than X), that is
a dead-end tangent here.
> In a perfectly
>ordinary, colloquial, non-theoretical way, the 25th variation certainly *is* odd. I don't
>put a lot of theoretical weight on an expression like "out of character"; but I certainly
>have to respect the judgment of C.P.E. Bach, in the obituary, when he writes of his
>father that "his melodies were strange, but always varied, rich in invention, and resembling
>those of no other composer." Isn't it more than a little naive to classify all Bach's chromaticism
>in the same bunch with everyone else's of that period?
No.
How well do you know Telemann's sonatas for two flutes without basso
continuo? How about the Suite in A Minor for recorder and orchestra?
And how's your knowledge of German predecessors to Bach (e.g.
Buxtehude, Kaspar Ferdinand Fischer)?
> What's odd about the 25th
>variation is not at all just the chromaticism.
Well, what else is it? I know the piece, you know. I think it's a work
of wonderful invention, but you might think about J.S. Bach's son,
Wilhelm Friedemann, in connection with that type of chromaticism,
before bringing up Chopin.
Also, why do you think that C.P.E. Bach was referring to chromaticism
when he called his father's melodies "strange"?
>> > and which 'anticipates' developments a century later.
>>
>> Unless you believe in a deterministic view of history - i.e., that God
>> has decided in advance who will compose what in which style - nothing
>> "anticipates" anything.
>>
>Well, again, sure. Maybe charles' message really is raising some profound hundred-word
>theory about the history of music, or taste, or something - I have no concern about that.
>But surely, by removing the single quotes so that you can take literally the one word "anticipates",
>you are not doing much to advance the argument, and a great deal to render it meaningless.
Words are important - in fact, they're all we have in this teletype
medium other than punctuation and those little emoticons. I am not the
first to object to the concept of "anticipation" in History. The late
Gombrich objected to this a long time ago in art history. He pointed
out that way to understand an artist is to relate him to what he would
have known from the past and the present - _his_ present. Therefore,
when Gombrich wrote histories (note the lower-case) of art, he _never_
discussed artists by comparing them to later artists they could not
have known; instead, he discussed those later artists by comparison
with earlier ones, where appropriate (i.e., when they had been
influenced by those earlier artists in some way).
>In a simple descriptive sense, it's perfectly appropriate to use such a word as "anticipates".
I maintain that it isn't, because I believe it causes muddled
thinking. Instead, it's the later composer who was influenced by the
earlier one. That said, you are of course free to use whatever word
you want.
>Melodies such as that of the 25th variation simply didn't occur to classical-era composers -
>or if they did, were suppressed for fear of critical obloquy.
Are you now suggesting that Haydn, Mozart, Boccherini, and their
contemporaries wrote no long, chromatic melodies?
> Melodies like that didn't turn up
>again until Chopin. (If anybody can suggest some enlightening counterexamples, please do so.
>It will do us all good.)
You might want to define what we're looking for, first. What elements
have to be in the melodies?
[snip]
>> It only seems to fly in the face because you've set up a straw man and
>> a nonsensical counter-proposition and insist on reiterating them.
>>
>Well, charles will have to speak for himself on that one. My own take is that:
> a) there may be an argument somewhere in here that's worth pursuing
> b) it may not be the one that charles was - or thought he was - presenting
>
>Look, JSB's melodic and compositional gifts were recognized, in his own time, by
>his own fans (students, musiclovers, even teachers) as unique.
So far, you've cited only his son. Who else said that J.S. Bach's
compositions had outstandingly unique melodies?
> The CPE Bach
>quote above can only mean that JSB's work was instantly recognizable as such
>*even*in*his*own*generation*.
I don't know enough to know that. What I do know is that it was
written by J.S. Bach's most famous son for an obituary.
> But the critical ideals of the classical period
>rejected almost all of the principles on which JSB's work was built.
Bach's contemporary, Domenico Scarlatti, rejected a lot of those
principles, yet he used chromaticism and legato melodies in his
sonatas for solo keyboard. C.P.E. Bach, Sammartini, and many
lesser-known composers who wrote in post-Baroque styles used
chromaticism.
> It wasn't
>possible to freely imitate JSB again - to any critical acclaim - for 60 or 70 years.
>Certainly it wasn't *fashionable* until the "revival" that was initiated in 1829 with
>the Mendelssohn St. Matthew Passion. And if you can't imitate, you can't learn
>from.
[snip]
But is it not established that Mozart and Beethoven both knew works by
J.S. Bach and learned about contrapuntal procedure from studying them?
I've read such accounts. Perhaps our resident musicologist(s?) would
like to comment.
> It's the universal testimony of those who knew him best that he himself
>learned, in his early musical life, by imitation.
Of course.
>It *was* fashionable, during the classical era, to believe in musical progress.
[snip]
It was fashionable to believe in that for most of recorded Western
music history.
Leo Jongens
[snip]
> Or do you just want to show you are really an insane troll
> and you are now suffering from such a vehement daementia praecox, one
> could only advise you to get yourself into a mental asylum, which is
> basically where you belong.
>
Nou, nou, tut, tut.
--
Leo Jongens
Groningen, the Netherlands
Email: l.jo...@rechten.rug.nl
Sybrand Bakker
With respect to Bach's music being unknown one must distinguish
between vocal and instrumental music, above all keyboard music. The
keyboard music was never fully unknown, though I'm not aware Mozart
was acquainted it. Beethoven definitely owned a copy of the WTC.
Mozart became acquainted with Bach and Haendel in the 1780's by his
relationship with Baron Gottfried van Swieten, the son of the Dutch
ambassador in Austria.
van Swieten introduced him to the vocal music of Bach. Later, Mozart
visited Leipzig and heard the Thomaner perform Bach motets (frankly,
that was the only that was left, as the cantates were divided between
Bach's sons. We will probably never know for sure, whether the school
really wasn't interested at all in the cantatas, formally the school
was the owner of these works).
The Requiem was definitely influenced by the style of Bach and
Haendel.
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy became acquainted with the SMP because he got a
copy of the score as a present for his birthday, which implies his
family must have known Bach.
In short: that Bach was unknown to 'Kenner und Liebhaber' can no
longer be considered true. His 'orchestral' and vocal music was
obscure, but the keyboard works where definitely known, partly in
print and partly transmitted by several generations of pupils.
Regards,
Sybrand Bakker
Sybrand Bakker
<josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote:
>On Mon, 13 May 2002 04:26:26 GMT, panNO...@musician.org (Pan) wrote:
>
>>>It *was* fashionable, during the classical era, to believe in musical progress.
>>[snip]
>>
>>It was fashionable to believe in that for most of recorded Western
>>music history.
>
>It was true through most of recorded Western music history.
>
>Josh
Now *that* is a *value judgment*.
Can you demonstrate this judgment is correct?
I, for me, don't believe the music of Beethoven demonstrates any
*progress* on the music of Bach. I also don't believe the piano is
superior to the harpsichord. And even if so: *which* piano. After all
the Steinway was hitting the market as late as 1920, so *no* classical
composer actually wrote music to be played on a Steinway.
Regards
Sybrand Bakker
Esa Toivola
>You don't hear any likeness between the "Dorian" tocatta in D Minor
>BWV 538 and the fugue of the famous D Minor tocatta? The subject and
>the accompanying chord sequences?
I can't hear the likeness, what do you mean exactly?
>The Fugue in C Minor BWV 549 is
>also a very immature fugue from the same period without much
>counterpoint and a lot of pounding chords.
Now that you say so, I must admit that BWV 549 is somehow similar to
565.
>Isn't it possible that Bach could have played the opening in unison
>because it sounds better?
Of course it's possible. Stylistical analysis can never rule out the
possibility that the composer made an exception and composed a really
unique piece which could be the case here. I take back my too certain
opinions of the piece not being composed by Bach.
Esa
Tom Hens
Sybrand Bakker <pos...@sybrandb.demon.nl> wrote...
> With respect to Bach's music being unknown one must distinguish
> between vocal and instrumental music, above all keyboard music. The
> keyboard music was never fully unknown, though I'm not aware Mozart
> was acquainted it.
He arranged five fugues from the WTC for string quartet for Van Swieten's
circle (KV 405) (there are more similar arrangements for string trio, but
Mozart's authorship of those is disputed these days), so he was familiar
with at least some of it through Van Swieten.
> Beethoven definitely owned a copy of the WTC.
And was taught to play it as a child, and later used it to teach his own
pupils. Czerny claimed his piano edition of the WTC reflected the way he'd
been taught to play it by Beethoven. Beethoven later also tried (but, I
think, failed) to get hold of a copy of the Mass in B minor when he was
starting work on the Missa Solemnis, so he knew of it at least by
reputation. All of this was of course years before the so-called "Bach
revival" supposedly started by Mendelsohn.
> Mozart became acquainted with Bach and Haendel in the 1780's by his
> relationship with Baron Gottfried van Swieten, the son of the Dutch
> ambassador in Austria.
> van Swieten introduced him to the vocal music of Bach. Later, Mozart
> visited Leipzig and heard the Thomaner perform Bach motets (frankly,
> that was the only that was left, as the cantates were divided between
> Bach's sons.
Mozart, according to a contemporary account, after having heard a
performance of BWV 225 arranged for a copy of all of Bach's motets still
owned by the Thomasschule to be made for him (which must have cost him
quite a bit of money, especially considering the fact the school only had
separate parts, so the copyist also had to reassemble them into a score.)
Pan
Bakker) wrote:
Thanks for your response, Sybrand.
[snip]
>Mendelssohn-Bartholdy became acquainted with the SMP because he got a
>copy of the score as a present for his birthday, which implies his
>family must have known Bach.
[snip]
So the story about him rediscovering the Saint Matthew Passion because
his fish was wrapped in the manuscript is untrue?
Pan
<josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote:
>On Mon, 13 May 2002 04:26:26 GMT, panNO...@musician.org (Pan) wrote:
>
>>>It *was* fashionable, during the classical era, to believe in musical progress.
>>[snip]
>>
>>It was fashionable to believe in that for most of recorded Western
>>music history.
>
>It was true through most of recorded Western music history.
That's a silly remark. You think that Brahms was better than
Beethoven, Beethoven was better than Bach, Bach was better than
Monteverdi, Monteverdi was better than Josquin, Josquin was better
than Machaut? I consider such a view incredibly fatuous and worthless.
And I suppose you'd do the same with painting and sculpture? Where
would Classical Greek sculpture and Pompeiian painting fit into your
"progressive" scheme? And I suppose David must be way better than
Michelangelo?
Pan
<pos...@sybrandb.demon.nl> wrote:
[snip]
> After all
>the Steinway was hitting the market as late as 1920, so *no* classical
>composer actually wrote music to be played on a Steinway.
You define "classical" differently from the way we treat the word in
the U.S. Most people here would call Elliot Carter a modern classical
composer.
Best,
Jim Michmerhuizen
be able to accomplish anything in discussion. But it's always worth a try. The worst that
could happen is only another flame, and the best outcome would be some new enlightenment
for one or both of us.
I'll snip at will to keep things reasonably concise...
On Mon, 13 May 2002 04:26:26 GMT, panNO...@musician.org (Pan) wrote:
> On Mon, 13 May 2002 03:34:20 GMT, Jim Michmerhuizen <jam...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
> >>
> >And my take on that is: sure they did. But not all chromaticism is equal.
>
> That's your bias. You're entitled to it, but I don't share it. And if
> you're making a remark about quality (Bach is better than X), that is
> a dead-end tangent here.
>
It's a point about logical discourse and discernment. Your argument appeared to be that
all chromatic pieces are identical; that nothing in the 25th variation is in any way different
from any other of the myriad instances of chromaticism in other works of the period. It seemed
to me that such a proposition is sort of like Lewis Carroll's: "a raven is exactly like a writing-desk
because neither one is a bicycle."
Of course, one may choose to ignore everything that makes individual pieces of music unique.
But is that really your point?
> >Isn't it more than a little naive to classify all Bach's chromaticism
> >in the same bunch with everyone else's of that period?
>
> No.
>
> How well do you know Telemann's sonatas for two flutes without basso
> continuo? How about the Suite in A Minor for recorder and orchestra?
> And how's your knowledge of German predecessors to Bach (e.g.
> Buxtehude, Kaspar Ferdinand Fischer)?
Lousy. Wretched. How does my ignorance of these folks (I know their names
but not much of their music) render my experience of the 25th Goldberg
suspect? Does my - or anyone else's - preference for JSB over any of his
contemporaries automatically invalidate our admiration?
>
> Also, why do you think that C.P.E. Bach was referring to chromaticism
> when he called his father's melodies "strange"?
>
I didn't say that. As the quote made abundantly clear, he was referring
to a whole range of attributes, not just chromaticism.
>
> >In a simple descriptive sense, it's perfectly appropriate to use such a word as "anticipates".
>
> I maintain that it isn't, because I believe it causes muddled
> thinking.
This is probably close to the center of our disparate language. For me, a word like
'anticipates' doesn't carry any theoretical baggage at all. For you - e.g. in your
quote from Gombrich - it does. And I agree with your position about "theories" of
anticipation: they don't work, they don't help to explain anything, they usually
smell like Hegel.
> Instead, it's the later composer who was influenced by the
> earlier one.
Sure. That was a whole secondary observation I omitted to save space. I'll
come back to this point in a minute.
Of course it is. My point is about their audiences, which by and large didn't
give a fig for contrapuntal skill. Both these guys wrote fugues; but they didn't
write them in response to popular demand. Baron von Swieten's very moving
anecdote about Mozart's first encounter with the motet "Singet dem Herrn"
suggests what a disparity existed between the popular taste and an active
contrapuntal imagination.
>
> > It's the universal testimony of those who knew him best that he himself
> >learned, in his early musical life, by imitation.
>
> Of course.
>
> >It *was* fashionable, during the classical era, to believe in musical progress.
> [snip]
>
> It was fashionable to believe in that for most of recorded Western
> music history.
>
No, it wasn't. Bach's own "Short but Most Necessary Draft..." takes the position
that the modern taste is much changed; he doesn't say "improved" or "progressed",
just changed. A belief in "progress" is the belief that today's music must be better
than yesterday's, just because yesterday is gone. That sort of belief only got under
way in the 18th century, and it wasn't invented by musicians, it was invented by
critics who then applied it to music. I think that most musicians and composers
didn't care; the issue was simply irrelevant. Those who, like Bach, knew something
about earlier music knew perfectly well that taste and styles changed - they simply
didn't equate that with newer = better.
I don't know if this gets us very far, Mr. Pan, but it's an interesting thread. Just
to summarize:
[a] I agree that heavy theories of "anticipation" in music history are mostly crap;
[b] I don't understand your hangup about chromaticism;
[c] I can't respond to your request for a detailed comparison of Bach's chromaticism
and that of his contemporaries, but then I don't believe any such comparison
is required in order to justify the statement that the 25th Goldberg variation has
some odd and unique characteristics;
[d] I don't understand your objection to my quote from CPE. What is your position
on this? Surely you are not suggesting that CPE was too biased to be capable
of reporting justly on his father's reputation amongst his fellow musicians?
Jim Michmerhuizen
> *progress* on the music of Bach. I also don't believe the piano is
> superior to the harpsichord. And even if so: *which* piano. After all
> the Steinway was hitting the market as late as 1920, so *no* classical
> composer actually wrote music to be played on a Steinway.
>
ones equate change with "progress". Beethoven can accept his new
Broadwood without making any big philosophical judgments about the
history of music: all he needs to say is "I like it better than my last piano."
Yes, this bears directly on the "progress in music" notion. In the sense
you are presenting it here, the notion that newer must necessarily be
better (in some profound philosophical way) was an invention of the
18th century. It continued into the 19th, and generated a lot of
critical rubbish; it got all mixed up with Darwinism.
Actually, the musicological currents that eventually became HIP were
originally (more than a century ago) a reaction against this notion of
progress. Wanda Landowska did *not* believe that "newer = better",
any more than you or I do.
Of course the more intolerant of the young bloods in HIP seem to be
subject, to a similar delusion, recursively applied: "today's version
of HIP must be better than yesterday's, because we have made so
much scholarly progress." ;^>
Jim Michmerhuizen
>
> Mozart, according to a contemporary account, after having heard a
> performance of BWV 225 arranged for a copy of all of Bach's motets still
> owned by the Thomasschule to be made for him (which must have cost him
> quite a bit of money, especially considering the fact the school only had
> separate parts, so the copyist also had to reassemble them into a score.)
>
wrong, it comes from Rochlitz, who was there:
------------------------------------
On the initiative of the late Doles, then Cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig,
the choir surprised Mozart with the performance of the double-chorus motet
'Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied', by Sebastian Bach. Mozart knew this master
more by hearsay than by his works, which had become quite rare; at least his motets,
which had never been printed, were completely unknown to him.
Hardly had the choir sung a few measures when Mozart sat up, startled; a few
measures more and he called out "What is this?" And now his whole soul seemed
to be in his ears. When the singing was finished he cried out, full of joy "Now, there
is something one can learn from!" He was told that this School, in which Sebastian
Bach had been Cantor, possessed the complete collection of his motets and
preserved them as a sort of sacred relic. "That's the spirit! That's fine!" he cried.
"Let's see them!" There was, however, no score of these songs; so he had the
parts given to him; and then it was for the silent observer a joy to see how eagerly
Mozart sat himself down, with the parts all around him—in both hands, on his knees,
and on the chairs next to him—and, forgetting everything else, did not get up again
until he had looked through everything of Sebastian Bach's that was there. He
requested a copy, valued it very highly, and, if I am not very much mistaken, no
one who knows Bach's compositions and Mozart's Requiem will fail to recognize,
particularly in the great fugue Christe eleison, the study, the esteem, and the full
comprehension of the spirit of the old contrapuntist achieved by Mozart's versatile
and unlimited genius.
----------------------------------------
This story I have always found particularly moving. To me it speaks volumes about
the curious double reputation that Bach came to have in the latter half of the 18th
century: on the one hand, he was "the learned musician", on the other a wild man
who didn't know how to write really civilized, "modern" music. Mozart's experience
was of having both those stereotypes blown to smithereens within the first minute or
so of "Singet dem Herrn".
Jim Michmerhuizen
> copy of the score as a present for his birthday, which implies his
> family must have known Bach.
>
copy was prepared for Mendelssohn by Eduard Rietz, from a manuscript in Zelter's
possession. Felix was 14 when he got the copy for Christmas.
Pan
<jam...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 13 May 2002 04:26:26 GMT, panNO...@musician.org (Pan) wrote:
>> On Mon, 13 May 2002 03:34:20 GMT, Jim Michmerhuizen <jam...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >And my take on that is: sure they did. But not all chromaticism is equal.
>>
>> That's your bias. You're entitled to it, but I don't share it. And if
>> you're making a remark about quality (Bach is better than X), that is
>> a dead-end tangent here.
>>
>It's a point about logical discourse and discernment. Your argument appeared to be that
>all chromatic pieces are identical;
That is not my argument and it would be an absolutely absurd argument.
OK, let's cut to the chase: How is that variation by Bach more similar
to works by Chopin (_which_ works, by the way?) than works by Bach's
contemporaries or by any other composer who lived in the intervening
time between Bach's death and Chopin's maturity?
[snip]
>> How well do you know Telemann's sonatas for two flutes without basso
>> continuo? How about the Suite in A Minor for recorder and orchestra?
>> And how's your knowledge of German predecessors to Bach (e.g.
>> Buxtehude, Kaspar Ferdinand Fischer)?
>
>Lousy. Wretched. How does my ignorance of these folks (I know their names
>but not much of their music) render my experience of the 25th Goldberg
>suspect? Does my - or anyone else's - preference for JSB over any of his
>contemporaries automatically invalidate our admiration?
Did you see me question anyone's admiration of the Goldberg
Variations? Where did you get the idea that I don't admire them?
The question is to what degree that variation is more similar to
Chopin than to Telemann, Vivaldi, et al. Don't go off track.
>> Also, why do you think that C.P.E. Bach was referring to chromaticism
>> when he called his father's melodies "strange"?
>>
>I didn't say that. As the quote made abundantly clear, he was referring
>to a whole range of attributes, not just chromaticism.
But you haven't identified any of those attributes.
[snip]
>> >Melodies such as that of the 25th variation simply didn't occur to classical-era composers -
>> >or if they did, were suppressed for fear of critical obloquy.
>>
>> Are you now suggesting that Haydn, Mozart, Boccherini, and their
>> contemporaries wrote no long, chromatic melodies?
You didn't respond to this.
>> > Melodies like that didn't turn up
>> >again until Chopin. (If anybody can suggest some enlightening counterexamples, please do so.
>> >It will do us all good.)
>>
>> You might want to define what we're looking for, first. What elements
>> have to be in the melodies?
You didn't respond to this. This gets toward the crux of the challenge
I made to Charles and which I now make to you because you decided to
take up his point.
>> >Look, JSB's melodic and compositional gifts were recognized, in his own time, by
>> >his own fans (students, musiclovers, even teachers) as unique.
>>
>> So far, you've cited only his son. Who else said that J.S. Bach's
>> compositions had outstandingly unique melodies?
I'm still waiting for a comment on this, too.
>> > The CPE Bach
>> >quote above can only mean that JSB's work was instantly recognizable as such
>> >*even*in*his*own*generation*.
>>
>> I don't know enough to know that. What I do know is that it was
>> written by J.S. Bach's most famous son for an obituary.
>> But is it not established that Mozart and Beethoven both knew works by
>> J.S. Bach and learned about contrapuntal procedure from studying them?
>
>Of course it is. My point is about their audiences, which by and large didn't
>give a fig for contrapuntal skill.
I'm not looking at a score, but from memory, Variation 25 isn't
densely contrapuntal. It's rather homophonic and similar in style to
Bach's son, Wilhelm Friedemann - to such an extent that I have to
remind myself it isn't by him. How's that for "heresy"! (By the way, I
consider W.F. Bach a very great composer.)
[snip]
>> It was fashionable to believe in that for most of recorded Western
>> music history.
>>
>No, it wasn't. Bach's own "Short but Most Necessary Draft..." takes the position
>that the modern taste is much changed; he doesn't say "improved" or "progressed",
>just changed.
Why would you cite Bach as evidence for something not being
fashionable? Was he a fashionable composer? Answer: No. The
fashionable composers had discarded the type of highly complex
counterpoint that he was known for. He was largely composing in
outmoded styles during the latter part of his lifetime, as shown by
the fact that his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, was the famous Bach.
> A belief in "progress" is the belief that today's music must be better
>than yesterday's, just because yesterday is gone. That sort of belief only got under
>way in the 18th century, and it wasn't invented by musicians, it was invented by
>critics who then applied it to music. I think that most musicians and composers
>didn't care; the issue was simply irrelevant. Those who, like Bach, knew something
>about earlier music knew perfectly well that taste and styles changed - they simply
>didn't equate that with newer = better.
So why is it that, for most of recorded Western music history, music
over 5 or so years old was seldom performed, except in church? It
can't be only critics who were responsible; were there music critics
to any great extent in the 17th century or earlier?
>I don't know if this gets us very far, Mr. Pan, but it's an interesting thread. Just
>to summarize:
>[a] I agree that heavy theories of "anticipation" in music history are mostly crap;
>[b] I don't understand your hangup about chromaticism;
I have no hangup. I simply disagree with the assertion about Bach
"anticipating" Chopin. I think that's silly. You do too, so what are
we arguing about?
>[c] I can't respond to your request for a detailed comparison of Bach's chromaticism
> and that of his contemporaries, but then I don't believe any such comparison
> is required in order to justify the statement that the 25th Goldberg variation has
> some odd and unique characteristics;
It certainly is because if you don't know any of the chromatic music
that Bach's contemporaries and immediate predecessors wrote, you have
no basis for determining which characteristics are "unique."
>[d] I don't understand your objection to my quote from CPE. What is your position
> on this? Surely you are not suggesting that CPE was too biased to be capable
> of reporting justly on his father's reputation amongst his fellow musicians?
I'm suggesting that he was J.S. Bach's son and that he was writing an
obituary. Calling his father's melodies "strange" in that context
might not have been so complimentary, in fact.
Pan
<jam...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
[snip]
>the notion that newer must necessarily be
>better (in some profound philosophical way) was an invention of the
>18th century.
[snip]
Your evidence for this assertion?
Sybrand Bakker
c Chromaticism like the one you refer too is quite common. In fact the
harmonies of, let's say, Gesualdo Principe da Venosa (late 16th
century) are even today more audacious than those of Igor Stravinsky
d There is a very nice article of Hans-Heinrich Eggebrecht
(unfortunately in German) called 'About Bachs position in history',
where he discusses the fundamental difference in looking at music
between Bach and the next generation.
To mention one thing: J.S. always used chromaticism as a structural
device, CPE mainly as an ornament.
Remember of all the sons, only W.F. was more or less regularly
performing cantatas of his father. The cantatas in possession of CPE,
while he definitely loved his father (as in a father-son relationship)
were mainly gathering dust.
Which is incidentally why we still have them.
Remember also Johann Adolph Scheibe was already calling Bachs music
'schwuelstig und verworren'. Eggebrecht cites an aria, Scheibe has
'corrected', both in the Bach version and the Scheibe version, and you
see immediately Scheibe has turned it into a 'classical' (fluent
melody) aria.
--
Regards
Sybrand Bakker
Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA
To reply remove -verwijderdit from my e-mail address
Pan
<pos...@sybrandb.demon.nl> wrote:
[snip]
>To mention one thing: J.S. always used chromaticism as a structural
>device, CPE mainly as an ornament.
[snip]
Could you please elaborate on this? C.P.E. Bach is known for using the
diminished octave as an appoggiatura for a diminished 7th chord
(another dissonance, of course). He is also known for using the b7 in
major scales. Ornaments? Sure. Not structural? If not, what does
"structural" mean? Doesn't structure embrace content and meaning?
Best,
Ken Moore
<panNO...@musician.org> writes
>You define "classical" differently from the way we treat the word in
>the U.S. Most people here would call Elliot Carter a modern classical
>composer.
Most people in the UK might do so also, but most academic musicians
would not. It is useful in discussion of styles to preserve it for
composers (from, say, Giovanni Sammartini to Beethoven) with some
stylistic and formal similarities. Boundaries are blurred, of course.
Spohr (b. 1784) sounds more Romantic to me than Schubert (b. 1797), and
I suppose some academics would describe both as transitional.
OTOH, the Grove "Concise Dictionary of Music" acknowledges your meaning
also: "Term which [...] has been applied to a variety of music from
different cultures and is taken to mean any that does not belong to folk
or popular traditions; [...]"
--
Ken Moore
K.C....@reading.ac.uk
pg composition student, University of Reading
Pan
>In article <3ce04386...@news.erols.com>, Pan
><panNO...@musician.org> writes
>>You define "classical" differently from the way we treat the word in
>>the U.S. Most people here would call Elliot Carter a modern classical
>>composer.
>
>Most people in the UK might do so also, but most academic musicians
>would not. It is useful in discussion of styles to preserve it for
>composers (from, say, Giovanni Sammartini to Beethoven) with some
>stylistic and formal similarities.
[snip]
You're referring to the "Classical Style."
In the U.S., we do not say that Romantic, Modernist, or Baroque music
is "not classical." I speak as a D.M.A. in Music, not as a layman.
Charles
>
> In the U.S., we do not say that Romantic, Modernist, or Baroque music
> is "not classical." I speak as a D.M.A. in Music, not as a layman.
This is interesting! To a native English speaker, the failure to distinguish
between 'Romantic', 'Classical' and 'Baroque' music is generally taken as a sign
of ignorance. No offence intended, of course, given your D.M.A.
Regards
Charles
Charles
news:na.d8787b4b35....@argonet.co.uk...
> In article <3cdd93e...@news.erols.com>, panNO...@musician.org (Pan)
> wrote:
> > The idea that many Romantics were heavily influenced by Bach is
> > nothing new, not radical, and not contradicted by any musicologist I
> > know of.
>
> Mendelssohn for one: vide his Preludes and Fugues, and Sonatas for
> Organ. Also Parry, whose two sets of Choral Preludes match any by
> our beloved JSB. And don't let's forget Samuel Wesley, son of Revd
> Charles Wesley the Methodist evangelist and hymn writer, who named
> his son Samuel *Sebastian* Wesley after his favourite composer.
>
> SS Wesley was later organist in turn of Hereford Cathedral, Exeter
> Cathedral, Leeds Parish Church, Winchester Cathedral and Gloucester
> Cathedral.
Another composer worth noting is Heinrich von Herzogenberg, born in 1843 in Graz,
died 1900 in Wiesbaden. He studied in Vienna where he met and formed a life-long
friendship with Johannes Brahms (his music is more interesting than Brahms, IMO).
In 1872 he moved to Leipzig, where together with Alfred Volkland, Philipp Spitta
and Franz von Holstein, he founded the "Bachverein" in 1874 and became its
director in 1875. Although he initially took Schumann and Wagner as
compositional models, his preoccupation with Bach led to a completely different
development - Brahms commented on his music that he "could find no way in nor
out". Following the death of his wife in 1892, Herzogenberg turned to composing
sacred music, and although he remained a Catholic, he concentrated his artistic
endeavours on the divine service of the Protestant church, writing three sacred
oratorios. These works feature chorales and organ preludes, which on occasion
sound like they were written by Bach - the opening to his "Die Geburt Christi",
for example!
Regards
Charles
Sybrand Bakker
"Joshua P. Hill" <josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote in message
news:ke25eugqhfrqrrli2...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 13 May 2002 19:06:01 +0200, Sybrand Bakker
> demonstrate that the music of Beethoven is superior to the music of
> P.U. Awful Rapper. But I certainly don't consider Beethoven's music
> superior to Bach's; quite the opposite. (The harpsichord is another
> matter: Bach himself deemed it a "soulless instrument," and I think
> it's hardly an accident that it was supplanted by the piano.)
>
> That being said, through most of Western musical history the trend in
> music has been one of increasing sophistication. All other things
> being equal, the artist who knows more can do more. Of course, those
> other things aren't always equal. The music of Greek antiquity was
> apparently more sophisticated than the music of the Romans; the
> destruction of the ancient world likely affected music as severely as
> it did the other arts; music declined briefly after the death of Bach,
> and then gradually after the death of Beethoven. In the 20th Century,
> it regressed severely. But upward trends tend to last longer than
> downward ones, and most musical observers, wherever positioned in
> these great cycles, would look about them and see progress.
>
> Josh
Bach himself deemed it a "soulless instrument," and I think
> it's hardly an accident that it was supplanted by the piano.)
>
Do you have a source originating from Bach for this *fairy-tale*
Also, could you please define 'sophisticated'
Your value judgments on musical progress seem to rely heavily on your
definition on 'sophistication'
Just for your information: I know a musicologist in the Netherlands who
thinks -for the same reasons- that music stops after 1521, the death of
Josquin Desprez. Music reached it's zenith with Josquin, according to her,
and has deteriorated ever since.
As far as I am concerned, you didn't answer my question, you responded with
new value judgments only.
Regards
Sybrand Bakker
Pete Blue
mention the organ works of Johannes Brahms. His Eleven Chorale
Preludes Op. 122 amd the two Preludes & Fugues have long and
deservedly been organists' repertory staples. I like Kevin Bowyer's
CD on Nimbus.
Pete Blue
"Charles" <fra...@datacomm.ch> wrote in message news:<abt2no$kisai$1...@ID-75949.news.dfncis.de>...
Jim Michmerhuizen
Bach himself deemed it a "soulless instrument,"
Where in heaven's name did you get that quote from? Where did you get the idea from?
There is no such quote attributed to Bach in any of the sources I know, and no such
sentiment either. Unless you can document this one, it goes down the tubes.
Pan
wrote:
>"Pan" <panNO...@musician.org> wrote in message
>>
>> You're referring to the "Classical Style."
>>
>> In the U.S., we do not say that Romantic, Modernist, or Baroque music
>> is "not classical." I speak as a D.M.A. in Music, not as a layman.
>
>This is interesting! To a native English speaker, the failure to distinguish
>between 'Romantic', 'Classical' and 'Baroque' music is generally taken as a sign
>of ignorance.
[snip]
You mean perhaps to the native _British_ English speaker. I am a
native speaker of American English.
Pan
<josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote:
>On Mon, 13 May 2002 22:51:25 GMT, panNO...@musician.org (Pan) wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 13 May 2002 13:29:49 GMT, Joshua P. Hill
>><josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 13 May 2002 04:26:26 GMT, panNO...@musician.org (Pan) wrote:
>>>
>>>>>It *was* fashionable, during the classical era, to believe in musical progress.
>>>>[snip]
>>>>
>>>>It was fashionable to believe in that for most of recorded Western
>>>>music history.
>>>
>>>It was true through most of recorded Western music history.
>>
>>That's a silly remark. You think that Brahms was better than
>>Beethoven, Beethoven was better than Bach, Bach was better than
>>Monteverdi, Monteverdi was better than Josquin, Josquin was better
>>than Machaut? I consider such a view incredibly fatuous and worthless.
>>
>>And I suppose you'd do the same with painting and sculpture? Where
>>would Classical Greek sculpture and Pompeiian painting fit into your
>>"progressive" scheme? And I suppose David must be way better than
>>Michelangelo?
>
>See my other response.
Based on your mathematical criteria, Guillaume de Machaut could be
thought of as the apex of Western music. And much as I like Machaut, I
don't think he's clearly superior to composers who used complex
mathematical proportions less, such as Francois Couperin, for example
(that is, if it really makes sense to compare a great composer in an
earlier era to a great composer in a much later one). Moreover, I
consider Machaut to be far superior to (or perhaps I could say much
more interesting than) Elliot Carter, who also uses complex
mathematical proportions.
> I said "most of recorded Western music
>history," not all of it, and I referred specifically to "musical
>progress."
You are mistaking your personal taste for "progress." It is very
fatuous to claim that "complexity" equals quality. If you analyze your
own tasted thoroughly, I'm sure you could find counterexamples.
Jim Michmerhuizen
>
> through most of Western musical history the trend in
> music has been one of increasing sophistication. All other things
> being equal, the artist who knows more can do more. Of course, those
> other things aren't always equal. The music of Greek antiquity was
> apparently more sophisticated than the music of the Romans; the
> destruction of the ancient world likely affected music as severely as
> it did the other arts; music declined briefly after the death of Bach,
> and then gradually after the death of Beethoven. In the 20th Century,
> it regressed severely. But upward trends tend to last longer than
> downward ones, and most musical observers, wherever positioned in
> these great cycles, would look about them and see progress.
>
This message of yours is going to draw fire from all the usual people -
it may already have done so - I haven't read the followups yet. I have
some sympathy for the belief you're outlining here; but I can't share it.
It's unsupportable in principle.
Here's why. In order to judge such progress, one has to have a standard
to judge by; but standards themselves come and go. And what do they
govern but taste? In your own sketch of music history, above, you use,
by implication, a set of criteria that is certain to offend many perfectly good
and solid musicians. (I say this in spite of the fact that my own description
of the up and down cycles in Western music history would pretty much
coincide with yours.)
There's no need for us to relapse into total shiftless relativism; generally,
composers and styles that have been given a fair hearing, in history, and judged
wanting, stay that way. I'm not at all apprehensive, for example, that the
currents of musical taste will ever decide that Telemann was a greater
composer than JSB.
Musical tastes shift. Bach knew that. Everybody knows that.
But the question is: does that amount to progress?
What is "progress" if it isn't just that shifting taste? And if it is that shifting
taste, what justifies anyone in naming it "progress"?
If it were my job to write a history of music, I would most certainly include
lots of judgments about who was good, who was mediocre, and who was
bad; I would make lots of evaluations of different eras in music history,
based on my own personal perspective. The perspective of a lifetime
scholar is worth something even though it's no less personal than anyone
elses; "personal" and "objective" are not mutually exclusive adjectives.
But I could do all of that - I could make all those judgments, like the ones
you made in the paragraph I'm responding to - without ever having to say
anything about "progress".
That's why - even though our respective understandings about when were
the good times and when were the bad times in the past three or four centuries
coincide - I can't agree that there's any such thing as progress in music history.
Tom Hens
Joshua P. Hill <josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote...
<snip>
> (The harpsichord is another
> matter: Bach himself deemed it a "soulless instrument,"
<snip>
No, he didn't. You're just making that up.
Jim Michmerhuizen
>
> Hardly a primary source, but at least I'm not the only one who has
> seen that quote.
>
OK, you didn't make it up. But using the prospectus of a piano course as scholarly news is
more than a little like basing your PhD thesis on stuff out of Reader's Digest.
Down the tubes with that one. Bach never said any such thing about the harpsichord.
Sybrand Bakker
<josh...@snet.net.REMOVE.THIS> wrote:
>No, of course I didn't make it up. And I never saw that piano course
>before my web search, so the quote must have come from another source.
>Which isn't to say it was correct; I don't apply the same criteria
>when posting to Usenet that I would if I were writing a scholarly
>paper, and in any case I'm neither a musicologist nor a Bach scholar,
>just a music lover putting his two cents in.
>
>Josh
YES, you DID make it up, as there is NO document where Bach actually
said this. You're spreading just BIG LIES.
Regards
Sybrand Bakker
Charles
news:9j8beu82h5hk84uth...@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 16 May 2002 21:07:11 GMT, Jim Michmerhuizen
> <jam...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>
scholarly
>> news is more than a little like basing your PhD thesis on stuff out of Reader's
Digest.
> >
> >Down the tubes with that one. Bach never said any such thing about the
harpsichord.
>
> before my web search, so the quote must have come from another source.
> Which isn't to say it was correct; I don't apply the same criteria
> when posting to Usenet that I would if I were writing a scholarly
> paper, and in any case I'm neither a musicologist nor a Bach scholar,
> just a music lover putting his two cents in.
"... the harpsichord, even with its great range of expressive possibilities,
lacked soul for him [Bach]..." - J. N. Forkel, Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben,
Kunst und Kunstwerke. Leipzig, 1802.
Regards
Charles
Jim Michmerhuizen
>
> "... the harpsichord, even with its great range of expressive possibilities,
> lacked soul for him [Bach]..." - J. N. Forkel, Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben,
> Kunst und Kunstwerke. Leipzig, 1802.
>
questioned; it's been suggested that this opinion really originated with CPE, whose
preference for the clavichord is well documented.