[71 dB]

What is this thread about, objectively speaking?

 

[71 dB]

Hey can anyone recommend anymore pipe organ music? I know this sounds kind of an odd request.

I have enjoyed Friedhelm Flamme's North German Baroque SACDs on CPO. However, my passion of North German middle baroque is not shared by many as most people totally ignore German baroque between Schütz and J.S. Bach and even Buxtehude is an obscure composer for many. So, these discs containing music from more obscure composers are not for everybody, but the recorded sound quality is imo very good plus exploring obscure works is interesting. It's also kind of shocking to realize that many of these talented and fine composers produced hours and hours of quality music back in the day, but in some cases 5 minutes worth of it is all that has survived to us.

 

[castleofargh]

What is this thread about, objectively speaking?

it's the all inclusive of topics. where self proclaimed objectivists talk about the great mysteries of stuff. it's so open minded we didn't even bother bringing a real board and a room.

 

[71 dB]

it's the all inclusive of topics. where self proclaimed objectivists talk about the great mysteries of stuff. it's so open minded we didn't even bother bringing a real board and a room.

Well, it certainly looks like that based on the content.

 

[gregorio]

It's also kind of shocking to realize that many of these talented and fine composers produced hours and hours of quality music back in the day, but in some cases 5 minutes worth of it is all that has survived to us.

It's even more shocking than that. Today, JS Bach is of course one of just a handful of the most widely known composers in history and yet within about 40 years of his death he was almost completely unknown, outside the small group of scholars/studying composers. Mendelssohn is widely credited as (re)popularising JS Bach with the general public. So, it's maybe not so shocking that numerous other talented composers and works vanished for good. Of course today we have recording technology but of all the hundreds of great popular pieces of music in the last 40 years or so, I wonder how many of them will still be known in a couple of centuries or so?

G

 

[pila405]

@gregorio - also, many composers which have shown a great promise have died very young.
It's not surprising that J.S.Bach lost popularity after his time. Even later in his life he was considered old-fashioned when his sons moved on to composing in the style of the classical era. Besides, it was customary to perform the music of the time, by present composers, most of the time with them attending the concerts\premiers or even conducting.
Though not really related to the topic of the thread, if anyone is interested, there is a magnificent reconstruction of Bach's Contrapunctus XIV by Zoltán Göncz:


https://www.jstor.org/stable/24619318?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

 

[71 dB]

It's even more shocking than that. Today, JS Bach is of course one of just a handful of the most widely known composers in history and yet within about 40 years of his death he was almost completely unknown, outside the small group of scholars/studying composers. Mendelssohn is widely credited as (re)popularising JS Bach with the general public. So, it's maybe not so shocking that numerous other talented composers and works vanished for good. Of course today we have recording technology but of all the hundreds of great popular pieces of music in the last 40 years or so, I wonder how many of them will still be known in a couple of centuries or so?

G

Had Mendelssohn not "re-discovered" J.S. Bach, somebody else would have eventually. Brahms? Reger? Taneyev? Somebody would have.

In the year 2222 they probably wouldn't care less about the popular music of today. Maybe Elvis, Michael Jackson and Madonna are all they know, hah hah...

 

[Argyris]

It's difficult to say what would have happened. The issue with Bach wasn't just that people had forgotten about his music. The Baroque era style in general was wholly out of fashion by the time Mendelssohn began advocating for a revival. He didn't just discover something that was lost; he actively championed it and (thankfully successfully) made the argument that it still had value. If he had merely been fond of Bach for his own sake, the whole thing might have just ended with Mendelssohn himself.

Supposedly, the Organ Pastorale was Mendelssohn's favorite piece of music. Not a bad choice, and certainly among my favorites by Bach.

 

[RRod]

https://notanothermusichistorycliche.blogspot.com/2016/06/how-forgotten-was-bach.html

Not holding this link up as research, but one should be skeptical of everything in classical music. Also worth asking is that even if Bach did have a 'revival', were the resulting performances in any way, shape, or form 'Bach-isch'?

 

[pila405]

@RRod , you have historically informed performances, which are based on scriptures and on the mechanics of the available instruments at the time. So it's not randomly chosen, but if you talk about performances from the 50's by the likes of Karajan, then that's different and I am not entirely sure what they based their interpretation on.

 

[RRod]

@RRod , you have historically informed performances, which are based on scriptures and on the mechanics of the available instruments at the time. So it's not randomly chosen, but if you talk about performances from the 50's by the likes of Karajan, then that's different and I am not entirely sure what they based their interpretation on.

This I know. My two questions are better put as:
1) Did Mendelssohn actually bring about a full-on revival of JSBach?
2) If there was a revival, did it actually do any good?

For 2), I mean in a sense: Would the modern HIP revival of, literally, every human who ever dropped ink on stave paper have happened *without* Mendelssohn's Passion concert? Somehow I think 'yes', but it is of course impossible to prove.

 

[bigshot]

Stokowski based the sound of orchestral Bach on the sound of the organ. He thought that the organ was the proper voice of Bach. The nice thing is that Bach is so versatile. What other composer's music can handle the range of interpretation from astringent HIP to Glenn Gould to Karajan and still be meaningful?

 

[pila405]

A lot of Bach's music was modified (forgot the word for it....transcribed?) by Bach to fit the available instruments at the specific place and time and his last work wasn't written for any specific instrumentation, but as pure music, independent from the instruments on which it is performed.
It really is unique, but I find many advantages also for a careful orchestration, such as Ravel's or Stravinsky's etc', where you achieve very specific and beautiful colours.

 

[bigshot]

That is my objection to HIP. I think the performer's interpretation of the work is just as important as the composer's intent. It's interesting to hear music played on instruments contemporary with the time it was created, but to me, it's only interesting that way as a curate's egg. I want the conductor and performers to add something of themselves to the music, not just meticulously reproduce something from hundreds of years ago. Art is a living thing... at least until it's bottled up in formaldehyde and set on a shelf. I don't want to live long enough to see that happen.

 

[RRod]

That is my objection to HIP. I think the performer's interpretation of the work is just as important as the composer's intent. It's interesting to hear music played on instruments contemporary with the time it was created, but to me, it's only interesting that way as a curate's egg. I want the conductor and performers to add something of themselves to the music, not just meticulously reproduce something from hundreds of years ago. Art is a living thing... at least until it's bottled up in formaldehyde and set on a shelf. I don't want to live long enough to see that happen.

I have been hearing more groups take the good from HIP (tempi, ornamentation, articulation, improvisation) and leave the bad (weird sounding bassoons and 4 person choirs), so hopefully we're getting into a integrative part of the movement. We're veered a bit though from the 'did Mendelssohn actually do anything with his concert' question.