[HN Gopher] Two recently found works of J.S. Bach presented in L...
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Two recently found works of J.S. Bach presented in Leipzig [video]
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/germany-hails-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/arts/music/bach-newly-dis...,
https://archive.ph/6DXns
Author : Archelaos
Score : 177 points
Date : 2025-11-17 20:13 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| dang wrote:
| [stub for offtopicness]
| mcswell wrote:
| Wunderbar!
|
| Nothing happens for about the first seven minutes, then there's
| an intro in German until about 11 minutes, and then another not
| much happens until 15 minutes. But then...!
| hulitu wrote:
| > But then...!
|
| ... an unskippable ad. /s
| gabrielsroka wrote:
| 15m28s https://youtube.com/watch?v=4hXzUGYIL9M&t=15m28s
| dang wrote:
| We'll link to that above. Thanks!
| lordleft wrote:
| Bach is the greatest composer and perhaps the greatest artist in
| human history. Full stop. He is able to condense so much
| complexity into his works, and he speaks to the heart as equally
| as he speaks to the intellect. He is proof that the mind and the
| heart do not have to be at cross purposes, but can be wholly
| engaged together when stimulated by sublime works of art.
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| Do you have any particular pieces in mind when you wrote this?
|
| Bach is impressive, no doubt, but to each their own perhaps. I
| acknowledge that I have not received the appropriate training
| to fully appreciate the complexity in his works, so I wish I
| could hear what you do. To my ear, (and this isn't a novel
| opinion in the slightest), I think the Baroque era was more
| limited in expression due to the inherent limitations in the
| instruments and consequent styles at the time. Within those
| constraints, calling Bach an absolute titan of composition
| would be an understatement. But one wonders what he could have
| made without those constraints.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| I'm not the GP but I can recommend Bach's Partita in D minor,
| said to have been composed after returning from travel to
| find that his wife had died and been buried in his absence.
|
| https://youtu.be/VfwVim0EybY
|
| Brahms said of it: _" On one stave, for a small instrument,
| the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most
| powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created,
| even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess
| of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have
| driven me out of my mind." _
| cons0le wrote:
| best version here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZFOhkGGr8A
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| That's a completely different piece, but also beautiful!
| poly2it wrote:
| You should listen to Hilary Hahn's renditions of Bach's
| partitas and sonatas. She brings out the subtleties of Bach's
| composing beautifully, and the purity of his music is easy to
| appreciate in these solo pieces.
|
| https://inv.nadeko.net/playlist?list=PLor_18TcpRrxQmne5_SKRy.
| .. (YouTube proxy)
| cons0le wrote:
| Lately lots of japanese players have been tearing it up
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZFOhkGGr8A
| scns wrote:
| > You should listen to Hilary Hahn's
|
| Absolutely
|
| > renditions of Bach's partitas and sonatas.
|
| Don't think so. Her recordings of his violin concerts on
| the other hand are able to clearly show his genius due to
| the more complex orchestration and interplay between the
| different instruments.
| poly2it wrote:
| I mean, I enjoy them too. Good mention. I had a feeling
| the parent wasn't a fan of the baroque counterpoint, and
| the violin concertos feature more of that.
| lordleft wrote:
| Sure! When I think of why I love Bach, I often think of works
| where he demonstrates an ability to express often conflicting
| emotions at the same time. For example, in St. Mathew's
| Passion, there's a famous piece entitled "Mache Dich, Mein
| Herze" -- it's sung at a part where the followers of Christ
| are laying his body to rest, and somehow merges genuine
| despair with hope, representing the promise of resurrection.
| I think his ability to represent despair and hope at the same
| time is pretty extraordinary.
|
| Other pieces I love are the 3rd and 5th Brandenburg
| concertos, as well as "Wachet Auf":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgXL_wrSPF0
|
| No shade if he still doesn't click with you. I'm just
| particularly ardent on the subject of Bach and baroque music!
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| I presume you know Zelenka as well, a contemporary of
| Bach's (both knew each other and respected each other as
| composers).
| 1718627440 wrote:
| There were a lot of these components in middle Germany at
| that time. Basically every reigning dynasty employed one,
| and there were a lot of those. They aren't famous now,
| but Bach wasn't famous at that time either. That he is
| famous now, is due to Mendelsohn.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Jan Dismas Zelenka wrote for the Saxon king, and many of
| his works were never released as a result.
|
| Then, they burnt to ashes in 1945. The only extant copies
| were caught in the bombing of Dresden. We tend to think
| of "lost works" as something that happened in Antiquity.
| Nope.
| bombcar wrote:
| The number of silent movies that are lost forever is huge
| - but even "talkies" are lost, too.
|
| Media is very fragile.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| I think this is the real long-term harm the Nazis have
| done. Sure killing and murdering people is very bad, but
| after a century it amounts all to the same. What you
| can't bring back is the whole culture they destroyed.
|
| This is also one aspect why they absolutely hated the
| Jews. The Jewish culture emphasizes education and
| Christian were forbidden to take interests in the middle
| ages. So the Jews became the wealthy educated elite. They
| were the substrate for the German culture. So in some
| sense that hatred against the Jews was hatred against the
| educated and "the establishment".
|
| Also the cities and cultures a lot of famous people, like
| philosophers and also later statesmen, essentially the
| countries elite, came from is now destroyed and doesn't
| belong to Germany any more.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The city where I live, Ostrava, had mostly Jewish
| intelligentsia, as it was otherwise an industrial city
| with most people working in mines and steel mills.
|
| I don't think it ever came back, intellectually, from the
| Holocaust.
| cons0le wrote:
| Here's a fantastic quality recording of suite 3 from BBC
| 1974
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EKanXXMkz8
|
| Amazing musicality, but the cellist never made it big cause
| she was a woman
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| This piece is my favorite:
| https://youtu.be/Piw53UPooYU?si=WJIjWDKJUJ8HrDPO Konnen
| Tranen meiner Wangen
|
| Karl Richter's version is my personal favorite but there's
| lots of different recordings. IMO Bach's St Matthew Passion
| is the best piece of musical art, maybe art in general too
| idk.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| This is only scratching the surface but I will present one of
| his most famous pieces to people who might ask why something
| like this is said. Keep in mind this was written _300_ years
| ago. That 's _300. fucking. years. ago_. Think about how
| dated something from the 80s might sound. How modern does
| this sound? How completely universal is it 's beauty? To me,
| this could have been written today and still sound fresh and
| beautiful.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWoI8vmE8bI
|
| This piece is still deeply moving despite centuries of tastes
| changing. This is only barely scratching the surface of Bach.
| As a musician, when I listen to other great musicians speak,
| they all speak about Bach as the best. Of course that's
| subjective, and there are no 'wrong' answers on who is your
| favorite, but when the feeling is so nearly unanimous amount
| people who are often, frankly, contrarian and counter culture
| it says something.
| bombcar wrote:
| Bach is still found even in modern music -
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2puubv2e0L4
| dylan604 wrote:
| > But one wonders what he could have made without those
| constraints.
|
| I had a friend that said if Mozart/Bach/et al had access to
| modern music production equipment, they'd all write
| psytrance. But it is just another example of "take great
| talent from long ago and put them in modern day" comparisons.
| PotatoPancakes wrote:
| Bach's most approachable music might be his cello suites.
|
| But also, I think there are two camps of fans of "classical
| music" (by which I mean music in the styles: Baroque,
| Classical, Romantic, Impressionist, etc). There are those who
| listen to the music, and those who play it.
|
| For the most part, those who only listen to music often
| prefer Romantic and Impressionist styles. From the moody and
| dramatic to the gentle and contemplative, these styles are
| very approachable to the untrained ear.
|
| But those who play an instrument (or sing in a choir) spend
| lots of time practicing and rehearsing and interpreting the
| music as it's written on the page. This extra time makes all
| of the little nuances of Baroque music truly come to life.
| The classic example is Bach's Crab Canon, which is a fine
| little piece of music... but once you realize that the whole
| thing is a palindrome, and you can actively appreciate how
| the same parts work in a forward and backward context, it
| becomes really interesting and pleasant.
|
| So if Bach doesn't do it for you, and you play an instrument,
| try diving into playing it yourself.
| reactordev wrote:
| I cut my teeth on Bach on Cello when I was 7. By the time I
| was in high school I could play all the instruments. I
| still don't consider Bach to be the genius everyone says he
| was. He was a nepo baby with a big purse. His brothers, his
| family, all musicians of note for prominent figures of
| society. However, his leaning on his long history of music
| within the family helped polish his work as structured
| which helped sell it. Now, Jean-Babtiste Lully was a
| character...
| Aidevah wrote:
| > _He was a nepo baby with a big purse._
|
| Interesting interpretation of "he was orphaned at 10 and
| left with nothing and had to go and live with his
| brother".
| reactordev wrote:
| His father had lots of children, 4 of which became
| musicians, of which JSB was the last child, the baby.
| Barbara Margaretha tried to take the family purse (having
| already been twice widowed). JSB was "orphaned" but his
| older brothers were adults. Let's be real.
|
| (Who gets married and dies 3 months later?)
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| At the time, many people. Death stalked the land,
| children were lucky to reach adulthood, women were lucky
| to survive childbirth, and almost everyone experienced
| grief and bereavement.
|
| It's all in his music - the manic passion of trying to
| master a craft against that background, a burning faith
| in a better future, against constant reminders of the
| horrors of the present.
|
| It's not just four part counterpoint. There's a lot more
| going on.
| PotatoPancakes wrote:
| If you don't like it, that's fine, I won't argue over
| taste. But your other descriptions of Bach's life deserve
| to be fact-checked.
|
| > He was a nepo baby with a big purse. His brothers, his
| family, all musicians of note for prominent figures of
| society. However, his leaning on his long history of
| music within the family helped polish his work as
| structured which helped sell it.
|
| This interpretation is not particularly historically
| accurate. Let's investigate:
|
| > He was a nepo baby with a big purse.
|
| Musicians of the baroque era weren't particularly wealthy
| or notable. Musical fame wouldn't come until the
| Classical era. And yes, music was his family trade, but
| that's how most trades went in that time. His parents
| both died before he turned ten, so he was mostly raised
| by his older brother. By all accounts they were not
| wealthy. So I think the term "nepo baby" is misleading,
| and "and "with a big purse" is simply incorrect.
|
| > His brothers, his family, all musicians of note for
| prominent figures of society.
|
| This is highly overexaggerated. JS Bach had two brothers
| who survived childhood, and neither was particularly
| "prominent." Most of his "notable family" were his
| children, especially CPE Bach.
|
| > However, his leaning on his long history of music
| within the family helped polish his work as structured
| which helped sell it.
|
| Bach's career was one of slow and steady growth. It
| doesn't appear that he leaned on his connections or
| family name much.
|
| Bach did get some widespread acclaim by the end of his
| life, but mostly as an organist, not as a composer. His
| compositions were mostly discarded and ignored for a
| whole century until Felix Mendelssohn revived interest in
| his compositions. The cello suites, for example, were
| lost for nearly two hundred years, and only re-discovered
| in the 1920's.
| reactordev wrote:
| He was known as an organist until the 18th century when
| someone decided to lump him in with the greats. His works
| were polished. Yes, he dedicated his life to music - but
| that's also where his tenure started. Baroque style
| borrowing from others and making "commercial" music of
| his day. He was a nepo baby by our standards. His older
| brother that raised him wasn't a Duke, but wasn't poor
| either. He went to the best schools. They all borrowed
| from each other in this age.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| He wasn't so "commercial" because he was doing more
| complex and countrapuntal music after it was falling out
| of fashion, and he never did an opera, which was all the
| rage.
| reactordev wrote:
| In his home land of Germany, it wasn't about the opera,
| it was about the church - and Bach obliged.
| sbrother wrote:
| I think that's true about Bach's instrumental music, but
| his big sacred works like his Passions and the Mass in B
| minor are as "romantic" as the Baroque period gets. Like
| OP, I think of these works as basically the pinnacle of
| human artistic achievement. They somehow have all the
| nuance and complexity you're referring to -- while also
| telling a deeply emotional story, and just being heart-
| wrenchingly beautiful even if you don't know the story.
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| Funnily enough, I actually play the cello and have enjoyed
| playing some of his cello suites in the past. Yes, I
| certainly admire the famous Suite I and it has an
| incredible mood to it.
|
| I most enjoy playing music as a social affair rather than
| in isolation though. That may have a fair amount to do with
| my impression of composers from each era (Baroque is fine
| in a group, Classical can be unforgiving, Romantic is a lot
| of fun, etc.).
|
| Looking at many of the responses here though (which have
| been wonderful), there are quite a few pieces from Bach
| that I was not aware of, or had forgotten about. He really
| was incredible.
| spectralista wrote:
| I think Bach's lute music is the most approachable because
| it sounds the most modern like guitar music. Even though
| the baroque lute is an alien instrument visually to the
| average person today, the sound is closer to what people
| have grown up on.
|
| The whole question though is like what is the best David
| Bowie album to start with multiplied by 100.
|
| The catalog is just so immense, the sounds are just so
| varied that one person's favorite might completely be wrong
| for someone else.
|
| I think the most relatable after thinking about it more is
| Stephanie Jones playing lute music on classical guitar.
|
| Like BWV 1006a on guitar is the closest thing I can think
| of to modern pop music and Stephanie's virtuosity is just
| ridiculous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyySAFA2En8
| tetraodonpuffer wrote:
| when it comes to Bach I am surprised more people don't
| mention pieces like this
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsxP-YjDWlQ (arioso from the
| cantata 156, here for oboe)
|
| which I think stands up just fine against pretty much any
| other classical piece baroque or not.
|
| Personally I have a very big soft spot for his organ works,
| as I play (badly) some organ myself, and among those I don't
| see the trio sonatas recommended nearly often enough (here is
| a live recital of all of them, which is super impressive)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK9irE8LMAU
|
| among those I probably enjoy the most the vivace of BWV 530.
| Other favorite pieces are the passacaglia and fugue
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVoFLM_BDgs the toccata
| adagio and fugue in C major
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klh9GiWMc9U (the adagio
| especially is super nice), but there's so many. Among
| organists I often come back to Helmut Walcha, and am always
| amazed at how he was able to learn everything just by
| listening, him being blind.
| bathMarm0t wrote:
| If you're going to give them the triosonatas, you gotta
| give them the good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOT
| tDYTc5JY&list=PLCDB42413B...
|
| Put on a good set of headphones and go sit in the corner.
|
| Also obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah392lnFHx
| M&list=RDAh392lnFH...
|
| The thing I appericiate most about bach is:
|
| you can play it fast.
|
| you can play it slow.
|
| you can play it with an ensemble of random instruments.
|
| you can play a single voicing all by itself.
|
| all of it screams "musical". which, if you do play say,
| Tuba, or one of the larger instruments, is a godsend, as
| most of your lines in other pieces will bore you to death.
| Tokkemon wrote:
| Nice to see the Zenph recording get some love. It's such
| a fascinating process they had to do. It's way better
| than the original Gould recordings with all his singing
| along.
| cons0le wrote:
| and you can throw away the metronome
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1xJoVzoIQg
| Tokkemon wrote:
| The Cantatas. All of them.
| cons0le wrote:
| Try this one on for size
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8CDz9PUfs
| biophysboy wrote:
| I would highly recommend listening to any of his fugues. The
| great thing about them is you do not need any training to
| appreciate the complexity. All you need to do is listen to
| the starting melody.
|
| That melody will repeat itself again and again, if you listen
| closely. It will harmonize with itself as more voices are
| added. It will be modulated into different keys and
| durations.
|
| In a way, you can kind of think of Bach as the first
| electronic musician, in the sense that his works consist of
| "discrete tracks" that get layered on to each other. I'm sure
| there are youtube videos out there that demonstrate this
| visually.
| orlp wrote:
| > Do you have any particular pieces in mind when you wrote
| this?
|
| (not me, but...)
|
| Bach - Passacaglia & Fugue in C minor, BWV 582
|
| > But one wonders what he could have made without those
| constraints.
|
| Bach-Busoni - Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV
| 1004
| layer8 wrote:
| You should be aware that that's a hugely subjective thing.
| hearsathought wrote:
| > Bach is the greatest composer and perhaps the greatest artist
| in human history. Full stop.
|
| He's aight. Obviously you enjoy his music and that's fine. But
| have you experienced all the art from all cultures through all
| human history to make such authorative statements on such
| subjective matters?
| tgv wrote:
| This is a riposte at the level of "Then name all composers.
| Nanananana." Obviously, the answer to your question is going
| to be "no," but really a great amount of music is available
| to us, and everything that came before the Renaissance was,
| crudely put, simple music. So the commenter can be considered
| to be able to weigh Bach's merits against those of other
| artists'.
|
| IMO too, Bach is the greatest. There's really no-one who can
| so seamlessly merge content and form and achieve
| intellectually, musically and emotionally fulfilling results.
| jancsika wrote:
| > So the commenter can be considered to be able to weigh
| Bach's merits against those of other artists'.
|
| Unless they are an active scholar in pre-Baroque era music
| I'd question that. There are just too many cultural cues
| for common practice music (i.e., from Bach to Mahler) and
| too few for everything before. It's almost a certainty that
| the commenter will prefer the music with forms and harmony
| baked into them that hold the most cultural significance.
|
| E.g., if an action filmscore has Berlioz-style brass and a
| big field drum, everyone is instantly on board. What about
| if you play the L'homme arme tune that Renaissance
| composers went gaga over?
|
| Those composers would take that tune, stretched it out into
| really long held pitches, and then write entire sections of
| the mass around it with faster moving melodies. Was it just
| a trend like the vocoder? Did monks get psyched when they
| heard it embedded in the mass? I know a lot of those
| masses, but I honestly have no idea.
| lordleft wrote:
| I understand that a comment such as mine would rankle. I
| acknowledge that art is subjective, that there's no
| accounting for taste, etc. And yet, I don't really believe
| that, deep down. If I did, I'm not entirely sure how I could
| speak meaningfully to the differences between great and no so
| great art. Is War and Peace really as good as any other
| novel? Would it be possible for any two people to
| meaningfully communicate about art, if it really all boils
| down to mere instinctual taste? I think there must be more,
| even if I can't quite prove it. But I will acknowledge that I
| can't point to some objective rubric that obtains across all
| art when I say what I say.
| spectralista wrote:
| Bach's catalog would be like if Tolstoy wrote maybe 100
| novels on the level of War and Peace.
|
| It has nothing to do with subjective taste. The immensity
| of Bach's work is almost inhuman.
|
| That still wouldn't capture Bach's influence on western
| music though.
|
| The combination of the immensity, originality and influence
| is just mind boggling.
| prmph wrote:
| A large and immense catalog does not greatness make. I
| consider Mussorgsky's Pictures At an Exhibition to be one
| of the greatest compositions ever, and yet Mussorgsky was
| probably not the most prolific composer.
| _menelaus wrote:
| I read this in Frasier's voice <3
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| Thank you and upvote to the OP for posting this. I love Bach
| and place him on a pedestal of my own.
|
| Personally I lack the physiological or cultural understanding
| of the significance of Tuvan Throat Singing [1] and why
| "Kongurei" (Konggurei / 60 Horses) is often described as the
| most beautiful and heartbreaking song in the Tuvan Throat
| Singing (Khoomei) repertoire.
|
| I also get that the Javanese gamelan orchestral masterpiece
| "Ketawang Puspawarna" [2] is widely cited as the candidate
| for the "most important, beautiful, and pivotal" global
| composition. So much so, that NASA included it on the Voyager
| spacecraft Golden Record in 1977 (side 2 track 2, together
| with 3 compositions of J.S. Bach). But I probably lack the
| aesthetic fabric to fully comprehend or appreciate its
| significance.
|
| [1] Tuvan Throat Singing,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8hrhBZJ98
|
| [2] Ketawang Puspawarna,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irt2AsxYYnI
| spectralista wrote:
| I am not even the biggest Bach fan but it is hard to think of
| a more towering figure in any artistic medium.
|
| I suspect you don't understand music enough to understand the
| immensity of Bach's work and influence.
|
| Maybe if Picasso had been born 200 years earlier he could
| have influenced painting in the same way.
|
| The fact you don't give a counter example kind of shows your
| hand that you don't know much about this subject beyond your
| surface level understanding of critical theory.
| reactordev wrote:
| That's debatable. Mozart was good too. But my real OG is
| Camille Saint-Saens. You want dark and moody? Light and fluffy?
| Dazzles and sparkles? He's your man.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| _Danse macabre_ is a true masterpiece. Incredible composer.
| reactordev wrote:
| Carnival of the Animals is better...
|
| Aquarium was my sons childhood theme song
| stevage wrote:
| Organ symphony and piano concerto for me.
| reactordev wrote:
| Someone yells from the back "What about the cellos?" :D
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Carnival of the Animals introduced me to high-effort
| shitposting. There is no other way to describe the less-
| famous movements.
| cons0le wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8CDz9PUfs
| pfcd wrote:
| This performance is also very great (No. 1 only, not the
| whole concerto):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcsfDxojdV8
| kulahan wrote:
| I think from a technical perspective, this is basically still
| true about Bach. It's not to say he has the most enjoyable
| music to listen to, but rather his music is built in a way
| that shows he was basically metagaming his music harder than
| anyone else ever has.
| stevage wrote:
| Why do you say metagaming? Did he really advance the art so
| far? I think he was just incredibly good at producing music
| within his specific parameters.
|
| (Said as a huge fan of his work. I spent a year playing
| essentially nothing but one of his fugues.)
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Yeah he did hugely advance it.
|
| This didn't really get noticed in his own day, as they
| were busy dumbing things down into the classical period,
| but he was hugely influencial through rediscovery.
|
| Except for Italian humanists rediscovering Greek and
| Roman writings, I'm having a hard time thinking of an
| earlier instance of a chiefly posthumous legacy.
| stevage wrote:
| I don't care for Mozart but Saint Saens yes. The second
| movement of the organ symphony is utterly sublime.
|
| By a ridiculous stroke of luck I got to perform that piece as
| soloist once. Unforgettable.
| cons0le wrote:
| Nah Bach shits on Mozart. Mozart make extremely catchy music
| like Justin Beiber. I seriously do love mozart, but he merely
| wrote music. Bach weaved math into his music more than anyone
| before or after. His music sounds dense and more multi
| dimensional than mozart or saint saens. It really doesn't
| sound like he was trying to write beautiful music ( even
| though it is ) , it sounds like he was solving an equation
| and just writing out the answers as a harmonic sequence
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmsNH8t25ck - This guy is
| like 95 and still shredding on youtube
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1xJoVzoIQg
| reactordev wrote:
| See, music isn't just math, it's feel. I guess that's why I
| dislike him the way I do. It's too robotic.
|
| Truth is, they were ALL Justin Bieber. It's all pop music
| of the time.
| cons0le wrote:
| Ahh yes, so robotic
|
| https://youtu.be/_1xJoVzoIQg?list=RD_1xJoVzoIQg
|
| Also they were not all justin beiber. Bach was a working
| church musician when mozart was out touring europe
| getting drunk and shitting on women. Only one of them was
| in it for the fame. In fact you could say that mozart and
| liszt were 2 of the first "pop stars" because that
| archetype didn't exist before them. There was basically
| no "beatlesmania" over bach. He had a steady job, but he
| didn't die wealthy or famous.
| cybrox wrote:
| Did not expect one of the most unhinged discussions on HN
| to start over classical music but aight.
| cons0le wrote:
| mozart was truly the R kelly of his time
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leck_mich_im_Arsch
| reactordev wrote:
| Basically the first Disney Channel Child Star...
| reactordev wrote:
| When someone gushes over Bach, I tend to go off. Glad
| that others are just as knowledgeable as I am in Baroque.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Don't give up on him. You may surprise yourself one day.
| reactordev wrote:
| I've heard everything Bach and still choose to not accept
| him on the upper shelf.
| stavros wrote:
| I have to say, I enjoyed "Nah Bach shits on Mozart" much
| more than I should have.
| lukan wrote:
| Is that because there is some more depth to the joke,
| that Mozart did this for real "when mozart was out
| touring europe getting drunk and shitting on women" -
| "shit on women"? So Bach metaphorically shits on Mozart
| for being the greater composer who was in it for the
| music and now gets more fame?
|
| Because I was rather appalled by that language, but maybe
| lack background context.
| stavros wrote:
| I really want that to be the case, so I'm just retconning
| it.
| throaway123213 wrote:
| Its well-known that Mozart had a poop obsession.
|
| https://www.thepiano.sg/piano/read/mozart-and-his-
| infamous-l...
| lukan wrote:
| Hm. Not convinced that this qualifies for a poop
| obsession. Rather sounds like using language for a shock
| effect(on 2 occasions), but thanks for the link.
| reactordev wrote:
| Mozart loved wild parties and had a feces obsession. He
| also was born 6 years after Bach died so no, Bach didn't
| shit on Mozart, only the Academics do. The only shits
| Bach cared for was getting paid and making good music.
| Mozart on the other hand was "paraded across europe" but
| as a child. By the time he was an adult, he had a job. By
| the time America decided it had had enough of the
| British, Mozart left for Vienna.
| tzs wrote:
| > Bach was a working church musician when mozart was out
| touring europe getting drunk and shitting on women
|
| Bach died 6 years before Mozart was born.
| bombcar wrote:
| He was still working!!
|
| He was just decomposing instead of composing.
|
| (Old sixth grade camp joke)
| throaway123213 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiQOaK8Mv6E
| erfgh wrote:
| Pop music also existed back then you know.
| jancsika wrote:
| > Mozart make extremely catchy music like Justin Beiber.
|
| Mozart was the quintessential "Dark Forest" composer,
| hiding musical sentience in plain sight of light classical
| period textures.
|
| Here he is with 2 measures of a simple major key "Justin
| Bieber" clarinet sequence _interleaved_ with 2 measures
| from the strings that keep modulating to minor keys:
|
| https://youtu.be/xdVo0MsJMOc?t=1074
|
| Keep listening to the section marked "Tutti" in the score
| for a re-orchestration and reharmonization of that same
| clarinet sequence, but now in a surprisingly lush,
| chromatic style similar to Wagner or Brahms. It quickly
| disappears, too.
|
| Similarly, Bach's own output is encoded inside Mozart's.
| E.g., the coda of the Rondo in A Minor doubles as a two-
| part invention, complete with invertible counterpoint
| between left- and right-hand.
|
| He also built a nifty hash table that could be used to
| efficiently generate and stream music over the internet.
| (Unfortunately, he didn't live long enough to patent and
| sell it to Yahoo for 6 billion dollars.)
| mrbonner wrote:
| And if you don't agree with me, I don't have to explain to you!
| xav_authentique wrote:
| Interesting to read that the complexity in his music is praised
| and seen as speaking to the intellect, whereas that is not the
| case when it comes to complexity in software.
| sambapa wrote:
| Why pay a dominatrix for a flogging when you can just stub
| your toe
| pianoben wrote:
| complexity in software is invisibly-preceded with
| "unnecessary", and usually indicates software that is
| difficult to maintain or even to verify its behavior. A
| really cool software architecture can scratch a similar itch
| as a good fugue, but that's not its typical function nor is
| it the way we usually engage with software professionally.
|
| Bach's complexity, incidentally, is seldom "for its own sake"
| - the pieces all fit together beautifully and without
| extraneous movement. Contrast that with some lesser works by
| later composers like Liszt, where you often get the sense
| that a given passage could be reduced or removed without
| harming the work.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| That kind of complexity, which means attention to detail,
| quality, concordance and consonance between different
| components, is also praised in software. This is however not
| what we mostly think of when talking about complexity in
| software.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I would describe Prelude in C as having one of the highest
| "simplicity to depth" ratios of any piece I've played. I wonder
| if anyone else has any they'd suggest as being incredibly
| simple while also being incredibly deep. (I get this is pretty
| subjective but I think you know what I mean)
| maroonblazer wrote:
| I picked up a collection of several hundred of his 4-part
| chorales. I like to flip through the pages and pick one
| seemingly at random and play it. While some hit me harder
| than others, nearly all of them express this "simplicity to
| depth" ratio.
|
| My latest favorite: Oh God, Hear My Sighs:
| https://soundcloud.com/nick66/oh-god-hear-my-sighs-bach
| sudara wrote:
| Love the chorales, thanks for sharing that one.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Chopin's 4th Prelude. Very simple harmonically and just about
| the easiest piece he ever composed. Listening to it one
| understands how appropriate it was for it to be played at his
| funeral.
| jancsika wrote:
| > He is able to condense so much complexity into his works, and
| he speaks to the heart as equally as he speaks to the
| intellect.
|
| Just to add to that-- the complexity of Bach is something like
| going half-way around the circle of fifths in the middle of a
| long fugue in G#-minor. And he does this not just for kicks,
| but because this is one in a 24-part polemic to push other
| composers/musicians to use his favored equal temperament tuning
| system. "Using my system, you too can visit foreign keys with
| confidence and ease! Never sound out of tune again!" That's the
| whole point of Book II of his Well-Tempered Clavier.[1]
|
| Similarly, Mozart's complexity was taking a social issue-- like
| egalitarianism-- and sneaking it into an opera by quickly
| composing 3 dances of different classes (and meters!) to be
| performed _concurrently_ on the stage. Apparently he cued the
| on-stage musicians for each dance when he conducted the
| premiere of Don Giovanni.
|
| I mention the latter because Bach's favored textures were thick
| and busy, and Mozart's tended toward light and effervescent.
| There's a tendency to confuse texture with deeper musical
| complexity, and that can lead people to overlook Mozart's
| contributions and/or give Bach credit for the wrong things.
|
| 1: Lazy theory-- Bach wrote Book I so the keyboardist could
| tune first using equal temperament, then choose _any_ key and
| sound in tune. But most collections of pieces (e.g., dance
| suites) were all in the same key anyway, so this wasn 't much
| of a practical advantage. However, if he modulated to various
| keys _in a single piece_ , then those keys would sound poor in
| just intonation. Then the musician would be forced to use equal
| temperament to play the piece! Unfortunately, not all of the
| fugues in Book II are as harmonically adventuresome as the
| G#-minor fugue, so a lazy theory it remains.
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| I can agree that Bach is the greatest, but Beethoven will
| always be the original rockstar in my mind, and I don't have a
| favorite between them.
| prmph wrote:
| I disagree; I find many of Bach's compositions to be devoid of
| heart, just intellectual in some mathematical way.
|
| Now don't get me wrong, I do enjoy many of his compositions for
| what they are. The thing about music and many other arts is
| that it is a fools errand to attempt to give them a total
| ordering; there are things to enjoy about wildly differing
| styles of music that I think people do a disservice to
| themselves being restrictive.
|
| For example, some don't like classical music because they say
| it's not danceable. Well, duh it's mostly not, but that's not
| the point of it. It about enjoying the melodies and harmony and
| structure.
|
| So one can compare art on specific axes, but to say such and
| such is the greatest composer is kind of meaningless to me.
| d-lisp wrote:
| What pieces do you know ? I mostly listen violin/lute
| partitas (I sometimes prefer them transcribed to classical
| guitars (I really enjoy Vidovic and Bream renditions)). I do
| really like the simplicity of such pieces, which I find to be
| very lyrical, of course in a far different manner than e.g.
| Vivaldi...
|
| The chaconne from the 2nd partita in D minor [BWV 1004] I
| find very powerful; very different from the Brandburg
| Concertos, which I tend to fancy less.
|
| I mean, of course in the thousand of pieces he wrote, there
| are pieces that you won't like, and "greatest composer" is an
| impossible and absurd proposition.
| telesilla wrote:
| https://youtu.be/Ve8MuxS58kQ
|
| https://youtu.be/ILKJcsET-NM?t=3m51s
|
| https://youtu.be/nZb7FcP84CM
|
| https://youtu.be/aAJ4Be5cMWY
|
| and so many more
| throaway123213 wrote:
| Actually it's a myth that classical music wasn't meant to be
| danced to. There was much dancing going on.
| missedthecue wrote:
| jesu joy of mans desiring is such a simple melody but at
| least in my brain chemistry sounds like a doorway to heaven.
| I find it full of heart and emotion.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR0GenPc2lU
| jawilson2 wrote:
| Something I have always been interested about, but sort of
| afraid to ask because it is a VERY small jump to unintended
| racism...
|
| Are there any composers from other cultures that come close to
| doing what Bach (and Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, etc) did?
| Like, I want to hear the Japanese equivalent of the Brandenburg
| Concertos or Mass in B Minor, all guns blazing. Don't tell me
| "well, it's the space between the notes that matter..." just
| overwhelm me with genius that is self-evident the second the
| music starts. I have a few theories, but haven't really
| researched it.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| Just a point of context - you're looking back at Bach from a
| historical vantage point where he's been gobbled up and
| lumped together with the entirety of "western culture".
|
| To his contemporaries, he was a member of a specific national
| "culture", and influenced by the greats of other European
| (and non-European) cultures of the time.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Different cultures have access and then value different
| cultural expressions. Asking why there isn't the japanese
| Bach is a bit like asking why there is no spanish Lee Changho
|
| You could make the argument of how elaborate is a piece of
| art but in the case of individuals like that they are so far
| off from the median person in their culture that it'd be
| quite hard to see their achievement as coming from their
| culture instead of their own cognitive abilities. The
| societies they grew into either fought them or allowed them
| to strive but that's about it.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I'm a poor student of music and history but my opinion:
|
| Europe was a civilization in a perpetual state of war with
| power rarely concentrated, so even concentrated wealth was
| local and therefor still distributed amongst different
| kingdoms and nobles.
|
| This means more opportunity and support: One
| village/patron/noble/king doesn't like your style? Go travel
| and find someone else to sponsor you.
|
| I don't think this was possible elsewhere. East Asia for
| example--thanks in part to Confucianism--had China dwarfing
| most of the region, with a stifling top down meritocracy.
|
| And today, China and the United States have incredible sway
| over the globe I imagine things are stalled.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Different cultures have different florescences. Where are the
| other cultures when Egypt invented hieroglyphics, where were
| the other cultures, when the Greek were philosophizing, where
| were the other cultures, when the Mayas flourished. Where
| were the other cultures, when the Romans played with
| rethoric. What were the other cultures doing when the Chinese
| culture flourished.
|
| Also these are not really competing, but more like morphing
| into another. During the Antique there was trade with India
| and China, subsahara parts of Africa. The Arabian mathematics
| was preserved in Greek literature. This was then rediscovered
| and translated into Latin, which kick-started European
| philosophy and sciences.
|
| The same is true for religion. Christianity is the mix of
| Jewry and Greek philosophy. The Greek were heavy influenced
| from the Egypt culture. The Jews took their knowledge from
| the Arab peoples in their regions and also part from Egypt.
| This Monotheism came from earlier Polytheism and earlier
| natural religions.
| prybeng wrote:
| I would maybe look at this a bit differently.
|
| Where are the great classical artists in even the rest of
| Europe? The great classical composers of the 18th century
| were all German and all made their careers in Vienna, Austria
| in the 1700s. This was where you wanted to be. Its like the
| musical equivalent of silicon valley in the 2000s. Vienna was
| among the wealthiest cities in the world. Habsburg nobility
| had an unusual fascination with funding arts and culture.
| Spurs competition to push the art to its limit, in hopes of
| attracting the wealthiest backers. Budding industrial
| revolution make the production of complicated musical
| instruments more viable.
| tgv wrote:
| I listened to them the other day, and I can't say I find them
| interesting additions to the Bach repertoire, certainly not in
| comparison to works that date to just a few years later.
| Matticus_Rex wrote:
| They can't all be bangers, and [plane-with-bullet-holes.jpg]
| dylan604 wrote:
| Maybe that's why he didn't sign them? Maybe he was on rough
| times, and just took a gig to write a studio jingle for some
| corporate presentation of the day just to get paid. Was able to
| pay rent, and keep working on his other work.
| spectralista wrote:
| I have listened to a ton of Bach but still have only listened
| to less than 20% of his works.
|
| This is like listening to the outtakes and demos of a band
| instead of the actual albums. Pointless when it takes a
| lifetime to get through the actual catalog.
| kleiba wrote:
| They were early works.
| randogp wrote:
| Apparently the works were known since long time, not 'recently
| found' as the title suggests. The novelty is the authorship
| attribution to JSB.
| einrealist wrote:
| Could have listened live. Bummer. The recording does not do
| justice to the sound on site.
| tgv wrote:
| Here's another recording (with samples, but played well):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tko39kUfk8o
| dust42 wrote:
| My absolute personal favourite is Toccata and Fugue played by
| organist Hans-Andre Stamm on the Trost-Organ of the Stadtkirche
| in Waltershausen [1]. Great videography, great organ and very
| expressive organist. From 3:28 on you can also see the foot work.
|
| [1]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnuq9PXbywA&list=RDNnuq9PXby...
| Tokkemon wrote:
| I spent a long time on a Bach project that didn't really sell
| well, but I was very impressed with the final result.
|
| A system for buying arrangements of the Well-Tempered Clavier for
| any combination of instruments:
|
| welltemperedconsort.com
| InitialLastName wrote:
| If you don't want it, I'll take that name for my stoic-forward
| dating service.
| barapa wrote:
| don't loving these
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