Posted on 03/21/2005 7:24:25 AM PST by Pyro7480
The Old Master
By James Bartel
With his first wife Maria Barbara, his soulmate as history tells us, Sebastian Bach fathered seven children. The first child was a daughter, Catharina. A pair of twins died within days. The final son died within a year. Months later, Maria Barbara succumbed to disease.
Bach was then 35 and engaged in the full awakening of his genius. His workload was Herculean and mounting, and now there were five children at home without a mother, the oldest being 12. Staggered by grief, Bach shouldered on. Hear the Old Master speak: "I was obliged to work hard; whoever works equally hard will succeed equally well."
I am hardly alone by observing that in ways indescribable, this forward-moving stoicism exists in Bach's music. To cite only one of countless examples, the strength of one instrument standing alone in the Cello Suites is daunting.
He would not marry again for nearly two years. Anna Magdalena was much younger, and a capable musician. During the next two decades she gave birth to thirteen of Bach's children, six of whom survived childhood. The Old Master taught every child music, except one. "Just practice diligently," he used to say, "and it will go very well. You have five fingers on each hand just as healthy as mine." But learning by rote was not Bach's idea of learning at all. His son Carl Philipp Emanuel reported that as a teacher his father "required the invention of ideas from the very beginning."
The one child not taught was Gottfried Heinrich, the first son of Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena, following a daughter who died at three. Heinrich was said to have possessed musical instincts worthy even of his father, but was also, as best determined, autistic. The story goes that Bach used to take Heinrich with him to Sunday services at St. Thomas's Church in Leipzig. As his father carried out the music, Heinrich would rock in the pew.
Bach was no brooding, solitary genius, but a man buoyant in the tide of society. In one day he might teach Latin to schoolboys, compose several pages of a sacred cantata, conduct music at a funeral, teach organ to a private pupil, play violin with his ensemble at a coffeehouse, and end the evening with his wife and children and a glass of wine, Rhenish was a favorite. Still, the volume of work that Bach turned out is regarded as a tremendous achievement to rival Shakespeare's, though one-third of it was lost.
What is so profoundly wonderful about Bach's music? For one thing, it is of the people, maybe for its thorough grounding in humanity. There are no stupendous leaps. No miracle transformations. Instead, it is all so human, painstakingly hammered into place. It is of the highest art, yet seems almost within our grasp, if only we strive. Ask a Bach loving musician and you will hear that the Old Master carries through on his promise. Hard work and diligence pays off.
"On the surface Bach's music is intriguing, the tunes are tuneful," says Daniel Abraham, who is no stranger to Bachian hard work, as conductor of the Bach Sinfonia. "But then if you start to dwell into the depth I think that's another level of appeal that those who really love Bach start to discover very quickly." Abraham notes Bach's "symmetry of gesture," and says it is no coincidence that Bach lovers often work in the arenas of mathematics, engineering and aerospace.
Then isn't it fitting and right that the first music launched into space, when Voyager 2 carried a gold-plated 90-minute record on its exploration mission to Pluto, should be the Old Master's music, including a movement from Partita No.3 for Solo Violin, known among Bach lovers as a luminous work of relaxation and pleasure following the completion by this most humane man of superhuman ventures. Hear the Old Master this milestone year of his death: "Everything has to be possible."
Great composer & great man.
Bach is my favorite.
Ping on the 320th birthday of J.S. Bach...
I guess today's iPod selection will be the Brandenburg Concertos...
Not only did he compose a lot of wonderful music but he helped standardize piano tuning. Thus to some extent what everyone in the world hears as "in tune" (excpet for some non-western musical traditions, like North Indian) is a reflection of his work. That's a lot of impact.
I'm listening to #6 as I type this (Sir Neville Marriner directing the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields). I think it is the most "contrapuntal" of the Brandenburg Concertos. All six are great.
That's why you don't hit a famous composer. He might hit you Bach.
...and he doesn't look a day over 179.
; )
As a Mozart fanatic, Father Bach is the only composer IMHO who even approaches Wolfgang's genius. He was a great influence on young Mozart, and with VERY good reason. Happy birthday Mr. Bach!
I'm partial to the fugue.
Tony, this should be a Lutheran ping.
My favorite classical composer, bar none. His chorales and fugues are absolutely brilliant. Especially when performed by good choirs. Happy Birthday, J.S. You sent the right tone for all future composers.
Compare his masterpieces with the garbage which we are subject to now blasting on many FM stations, and it makes you want to throw up.
I wondered how long it would take before someone clued in. :)
In those days, composers like Joseph Haydn were far better-known, mostly because his music reached a wide audience.
Skid Row sucked, no wait, wrong Bach.
That is very arguable. While Mozart was gifted, his talent was also immature. Young Mozart has many of the characteristics of young Bach, which while quite good became significantly more refined with age.
IMO, Mozart is over-rated as his body of work currently stands. I think he would have been a spectacularly good composer had he lived another decade or so but we'll never know. Bach, on the other hand, was a true seasoned master of his craft with skill and judgement that few great musicians in history ever had. A statement that Mozart was better at this craft is mostly speculation; when it comes down to the actual works, Bach was the better man.
Shameful disregard! But then, Mozart, for all his genius and contributions to art and civilization, was buried as a pauper in a mass grave and his grave is lost. I often wondered why SOMEONE who loved his work couldn't at least have sprung for a funeral! So my sympathies on the disregard shown J.S. Amazing how short sighted people can be. Sometimes it takes stepping away a few hundred years to really see the sun shine!
Happy Birthday Johann!
I have enjoyed many hours of listening to your compositions and hope to enjoy many more!
Incidentally, the popular belief that Bach's music was not appreciated in his own lifetime has been challenged by recent scholarship. My brother (a graduate student in violin at Juilliard) recently read a biography of Bach (I forget the author) that he said completely demolished this myth. Bach's music was underappreciated during the period between his death in 1750 and the Mendelssohn revival. But his genius--as a composer, not only as an organist--apparently was widely recognized when he was alive.
If you get a chance, try to hear Murray Perahia's recording.
Oh, my, this could be a good debate. But lest anyone resort to fisticuffs, I might offer the following.
The top tier - so far above all the others it is incredible - are Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.
I think how you rank those three if you want to get into nuances is almost a subjective opinion. Sort of a preference for what you value as a great composer.
Hashing this out is good and fun, but, I would suggest, that absolute reconciliation is not going to happen because the big 3 are all wildly great in their own ways...an objective ranking which should be universally agreed upon is impossible.
That said, I would reiterate that objectively, you must have the big 3 at the top. Then you have a pretty big jump down to number 4....as for me, I think I will focus on the big 3 for the rest of my life. That is a lifetime's work, really.
Alas, J.S. Bach had a lot of run-ins with his patrons in eastern Germany, and as a result he didn't get the type of continent-wide acclaim late in his life and just after his passing that should have been his. In the latter half of the 18th Century, composers that had far better relations with their patrons got wide public acclaim, and Joseph Haydn definitely belonged in this category. In fact, at the time of the American Revolution the well-off people in the Colonies who could afford to have musicians entertain them frequently played Haydn's music.
Just for the record, I put Bach at the top, followed by WA and then Ludgig Van. In my book, the guy who composed to the Glory of God and who fathered 20 kids (most of whom died) is simply one of the greatest men who ever lived.
His cantata productin in Leipzig is one of the most unbeleivable explosions of creativity in a short time period inthe history of art in the west. I think the author comparing it to Shakespeare doesn't quite do it justice....
I also don't agree when the author describes the music as "forward looking stoicism". For me, I hear joy...pure joy. I guess the fugues sort of sound like forward looking stoicism, but the rest of it is pure joy. Mozart is more like...play. Beethoven, good heavens, what can one say?
I'm going to enjoy his glorious music all day!
Uh-oh. Me thought it was his 319th.
Need another candle for the cake!
I think it may be Brandenburg #4 that has an amazing "blue note" in it, which I find virtually astounding.
I wish you all a happy remembrance of JSB's life, and his glowing human example. How fortunate we are that so much of his work survives for us.
He contacted Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Nicholas Cage, and Arnold Schwarzeneggar to see if they would be interested in the project. After he explained his vision to them, he asked them if they would be interested, and if so, which classical musician they would like to play.
Bruce Willis said "I've always liked Chopin and think I could do a decent portrayal of him."
Nicholas Cage said "I'd love to play Beethoven because of the remarkable adversity he overcame to be such an accomplished composer."
Harrison Ford said "I think I could play Handel. His works, like "The Messiah", have made a lasting impression on music and history. I'd like to play him."
Spielberg turned to Arnold and asked, "Well Arnold, who would you like to play?"
Arnold replied "I'll be Bach!"
BOOO, Vast!
We had several Bach pieces played at our wedding - he's my husband's favorite composer. DH was raised Lutheran, and grew up hearing lots of Bach played on his church's magnificent old organ. Unfortunately, this church has lately become enamored with "contemporary praise" music and now has a drum set in the sanctuary! Every week, Bach competes for attention with electric guitars. It is very sad :(
LOL
Thanks for the recommendation--I will look for it.
Why do they always let the Marxists write these tributes? What is so profoundly wonderful about Bach's music is melody, something he was just plain better at inventing than any other composer before or since.
I don't know if the author is a Marxist, but he is a host on the classical music station whose website I took the article from.
...with vocal accompaniment by Glenn Gould.
< ]B^)
Yes indeed--the original Hummer.
...and a Big Bach Bump!
Thanks Pastor Henrickson, for the great tip :)
I agree...Wolfie is overrated. He was an opera composer who was always writing arias even when he was doing keyboard and orchestral works. Very lyrical, but his stuff does not stand up to repeated listenings as do the works of Bach and Beethoven (except for the latter's "Wellington's Victory").
ping
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy other types of music too, like country, and some of the rock from the 60's and 70's. But the garbage one can hear on the radio now that supposedly passes for music is an assault on the senses and an insult to the intelligence. And, of course, this is the "talent" most admired by the elite. Do I sound like an old fogie? I am only in my early 50's.
The counterpoint of some of Bach's music is almost heavenly. And his chorales sang by full choirs are a privilege to listen to.
I used to think of them as the rocks stars of their day, but reading the lives of some of these people I'm reminded how very few were actually appreciated in their lifetimes. The Brandenburg Concertos, for example, were a job application that was turned down. An entire movie was made over the fact that Salieri was better-known in his day than Mozart. Brahms, perhaps the best-known brothel piano player in history, was an exception but the lion of his day was somebody named Wagner for reasons that honestly escape me unless they were other than musical, which they probably were.
I suppose it's the price of immortality. It may be that familiarity, or perhaps proximity, breeds contempt. 320 years from now people may be wondering how we could fail to appreciate the genius of Axl Rose.
Or not.
"Compare his masterpieces with the garbage which we are subject to now blasting on many FM stations, and it makes you want to throw up."
Amen to that! I gives me great pleasure to put in a Bach cassette (alas, my car has no CD player!), turn up the volume, open my windows and blast MY music when I pull up next to one of those punk rappers!
No. 3 is my favorite.
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