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All about Bach

post #1 of 17
1/9/10 at 3:12am
Thread Starter 
I found a wonderful site. It is simple but very informative and has some nice illustrations regarding one of the greatest (the greatest in my opinion) composers who have ever lived..
Johann Sebastian Bach: a detailed informative biography
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post #2 of 17
1/9/10 at 5:17pm
J.S. Bach was absolutely amazing.. his fugues alone are worth the price of admission. Select pieces from his lute, cello and violin suites are benchmarks for the respective instruments (and instruments to come: Chaconne on guitar, anyone?!) and his concertos (especially his Brandenburg concertos) are some of the more incredible music ever written. Bach is a personal favorite of mine, and I, too, consider him the greatest composer ever, though of course I can not say I've heard every composer. Not everyone likes him (in fact, he somewhat hard to get into) but no one can deny that he was the defining musician during the (end of the) Baroque period.

Thank-you for the interesting site. I will read through this sometime. I just finished reading "Bach" by Malcolm Boyd (received in Christmas, 2008) and it should be interesting to see if the book omitted anything of interest.
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post #3 of 17
1/10/10 at 2:10am
Thread Starter 
I just finished listening to all of his Cantatas. I did not know he did not personally compose all of them but apparently some of his pupils did. I guess hat may explain why some of them are mind boggling in their beauty and complexity, and some are not.
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post #4 of 17
1/10/10 at 2:54am
bach rules
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post #5 of 17
1/10/10 at 5:04am
I love Bach, but i'm more on Vivaldi. Orchestral music in general is just an amazing genre.
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post #6 of 17
1/10/10 at 10:14pm
I'm just getting into Bach, big time Beethoven fan. I have the 6 Cello concertos, by Janos Starker and Yo-Yo Ma.

What would you suggest? Specific recordings would be helpful.

Thanks
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post #7 of 17
1/10/10 at 11:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by keithdn View Post
...no one can deny that he was the defining musician during the (end of the) Baroque period.
That's quite an understatement. He was THE defining musician for all of western music for the next 300 years. When I was studying music many decades ago, we learned it all from Bach: the rules of voice leading, harmony, counterpoint, modulation...it's all there in Bach. Of course later composers broke the rules so to speak and music progressed, but it was JSB who laid the foundation. Most people are unaware of how important the Well Tempered Clavier was, but it was Bach who demonstrated once and for all the superiority of equal tempered tuning to other systems. Great composer, genius, no doubt. And yet, I just don't enjoy most of his music. A lot of it bores me to death. Even the Brandenburg Concertos with the exception of no. 3. But I still recognize the man's importance.
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post #8 of 17
1/11/10 at 3:48pm
Quote:
I'm just getting into Bach, big time Beethoven fan. I have the 6 Cello concertos, by Janos Starker and Yo-Yo Ma.

What would you suggest? Specific recordings would be helpful.
The Glen Gould recordings of the WTC and Goldberg variations are amazing if you can get over the strange noises he makes sometimes.

If you don't mind lo-fi, the Pablo Casals recordings of the Cello Suites (recorded in the 1930s) are far better than Yo-Yo's. If you mind lo-fi, or just want another option, the Rostropovich recordings are excellent.
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post #9 of 17
1/11/10 at 4:23pm
I just bought Angela Hewitt's WTC. It's incredible. It's the first I own, but I've heard the Gould and Book 1 from the Hanslear Bach Edition.
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post #10 of 17
1/11/10 at 4:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pyramid6 View Post
I'm just getting into Bach, big time Beethoven fan. I have the 6 Cello concertos, by Janos Starker and Yo-Yo Ma.

What would you suggest? Specific recordings would be helpful.

Thanks
You need a recording of the Brandenburg: here a couple of options


Alessandrini 4th (wow!), and 5th concertos are dazzling, while I prefer Hogwood for the 3rd and 6th. My favourite 1st and 2nd are from Savall, but that recording seems to be out of print.

What is not out of print is this beautiful recording of the Musical Offer from Savall


For the Well Tempered Clavier I would stick with the classic Fischer which is also great value, especially if you can get the Membran box set

IMO Bach wrote his best music for the voice, and this is my favourite recording of his vocal music (it is probably my favourite recording of any music)

Unfortunately Herreweghe recording is very expensive. For less money you can get both Passions, the Xmas Oratorio, and the stunning Mass in B, all in Gardiner box set of sacred works


Gardiner exhaustive (but apparently not complete) cycle of Cantatas is my favourite, for its energy and sense of theater. The fact that it was recorded live may have helped in that respect. If I had to choose just one recording of the series I would probably go with Vol 22
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post #11 of 17
1/11/10 at 8:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by calaf View Post
...
Cool, I will check those out.

Thanks
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post #12 of 17
1/12/10 at 3:19am
Thread Starter 
There are so many pieces to choose from, and some excellent recordings.
If you want a very cheap way to get into Bach you could buy the Bach edition complete works from Amazon. Some of the recordings are excellent, some are not, but its a great way to learn about his music and later choose a different recording if you like it.
I did not like the harpsichord versions as much as more modern renditions with piano instead.
From that collection I am currently listening to some of his vocal works (BWV 230) performed by the Ensemble Vocal De Lausanne. Beautiful!
Das Kantatenwerk with Leonhardt Consort is beautiful and I recently read about Arkive having a Japanese Recording of his Cantatas that is supposed to be excellent.
Maria Tipo and Andreas Schiff have some beautiful piano renditions of his keyboard works.
I love Glenn Gould and his humming while he plays is quite interesting except that the quality of the recording is not as high as Tipo and Schiff.
As far as Cello works, I like Yo yo Ma. Rostropovich and Pablo Casals are great but the recordings are quite old and of poor quality by today standards.
I love his Partitas for violin solo, my favorite recording is with Sergio Luca. Itzhak Perlman's rendition is not very good IMO.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields has some great recordings of the Bandenburg Concertos.
And dont' forget modern Jazz interpretations of his music like Jaques Loussier, and some older ones with Maurice Andre.
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post #13 of 17
1/12/10 at 11:57am
I discovered Jaques Loussier last year and he's pretty amazing. Not for purists though.

Another good pianist for Bach is Rosalyn Tureck. I have her 2 volumes of Great Pianists of the 20th Century which includes the Partitas, Goldberg Variations, Italian Concerto, French Overture, and duets.
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post #14 of 17
1/12/10 at 2:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by keithdn View Post
J.S. Bach was absolutely amazing.. his fugues alone are worth the price of admission. Select pieces from his lute, cello and violin suites are benchmarks for the respective instruments (and instruments to come: Chaconne on guitar, anyone?!) ......
I play several of his pieces including parts of his lute suites, but the Chaconne? I may as well hope a Hollywood starlet will ask me to put suntan lotion on her at the nude beach. But I justify this by telling myself this is actually a violin piece. Just bringing out the voices in one of his fugues properly is a highlight for me.

When eminent biologist and author Lewis Thomas was asked what message he would choose to send from Earth into outer space in the Voyager spacecraft, he answered, "I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach." After a pause, he added, "But that would be boasting."
.
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post #15 of 17
1/12/10 at 3:41pm
Thanks for the recommendations. One can't have too many copies of the Brandenburg Concertos.

Quote:
Originally Posted by keithdn View Post
I just finished reading "Bach" by Malcolm Boyd (received in Christmas, 2008) and it should be interesting to see if the book omitted anything of interest.
Did you like the book?
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