"Ahhh Bach!"
PING
Bach was a performer, a jazz improv master, not a writer. Somebody else with a good ear wrote down the compositions.
.....the man who wrote the "St. Matthew Passion," the B-Minor Mass, and other monuments of Western music.
Including The Art of Fugue, A Musical Offering, and The Six Cello Suites (three of my favorites).
The greatest composer by a wide margin, imo.
Not much of a classical music fan.
There is a great story about a 'thank you' letter Old Bach wrote upon receiving a gift of a small cask of wine.
He goes into great detail of the money required to get the cask out of customs, hiring a wagon, paying a lad to cart it into the house, tipping him, etc.
The punch line was that he asked not to be sent any more gifts, as they were entirely too expensive to get.
Looked for it, but can't find it. Rats.
Bach Concerto Ping !!!!!!!!
Bach bump!
Lewis Thomas, by the way, may have gotten the idea from Arthur C. Clarke, who emphasized the universal appeal to the intellect of Bach's music in his novel _2001_ back in the 1960's. No idea why Kubrick picked Strauss for the movie version.
Shameless plug for the group my friend started....she is the harpsichordist ..
http://www.bachbabes.org/
"Ahhh Bach!"
ping
I don't share his theology, but he's my favorite composer!
Bach? Bah. Give me Mozart or Wagner any day of the week.
For those of you who want to see real evolution in music, after listening to ordered JS Bach, listen to the works of one of his sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The jump is amazing, the son having almost a "jazzy" style compared to the father.
"Yet one finishes them wishing for a bolder, more imaginative reading of Bach's life..."
And yet the reviewer doesn't mention Bach being thrown into prison over a "labor dispute" with his boss who was a Duke?
Go figure.
Johann Sebastian Bach is the greatest musician of all time, and quite possibly the greatest artist in any medium who ever lived. His music is unforgettable due to its organic beauty, which reflects the Divine Union of the Trinity: just as God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are one with God the Father, Bach's work unites Reason (Logos, structure) and Heart (Spiritus, feeling) with Creativity (that Entity without Which nothing can exist).
As the moon reflects the light of the sun, that which reflects the Divine reflects the incomprehensible Beauty of the Divine, which reflection was the source and sustenance of Bach's artistic genius: when we hear Bach, we are hearing an echo of the music of Heaven. When one ponders Bach's ability to perceive that Divine music, it is perhaps fortunate for us that he, like all men, saw "through a glass darkly", and in doing so was able to give us a preview of Heaven rather than exposing our souls directly to the shattering Beauty of God.
Our son, who will be born any day now, is named Johann in honor of Johann Sebastian Bach. Excepting only the Names of our Lord and His mother, Mrs Chan and I could think of no name more worthy of being borne into the future than his.
For the record: my favorites are Brandenburg Concerto No.1 in F major, BWV 1046, followed by his Suite for unaccompanied cello No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007.
btt