A Treat from JS Bach

Dear George,

A treat indeed!  This is one of the most tragic and sad pieces (the prelude anyway) that I know in my view.  It is interesting how I might have written something of a different slant to yours!  How I feel that the harpsichord somehow fails to reach into the depths of this tragic but noble & glorious work at the same time.   To play the Prelude on the piano is breathtaking as one let's the gloriously dignified chords fade as one progresses in to the next.  One reason why I suspect the harpsichordist here cannot play the prelude at the tempo it needs to be (ie. slower yet). 

Just my opinion only, however, I did enjoy hearing this.

Thanks George!

Dear Dougie,

We have to let people hear this glorious music in easy to digest nibbles! 

That all I was trying to do. Thanks for your appreciation.

This P and F is my favourite from Book One, but I tend to love Book Two even more.

The Old Testament of Keyboard Music, indeed!

ATB from George

PS: For you and other piano music lovers, here is Richter playing the same music, in a very different tempo and style. Profound is the word I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMkELvW39oE

Dear George,

I agree.  Nothing excites me more than great music and I have no doubt that you suffer from the same condition!  I meant only compliment your fine choice and was so happy that you picked music that is extremely important to me as well and that we share this same love of music.

I've listened to the Robert Veyron-Lacroix example you had now 4 times already and it is really a fine example.

For the Prelude alone, I would like to offer a nice additional sample:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?f...ge&v=omseKpJaSm4

The beauty of this music is that I feel there is a limitless amount of variables and things at play that we could never exhaust the wealth of wisdom we can receive from it.

The reason I offer this sample by Nikolayeva is for contrast.  I could have picked from hundreds of other examples such as the good one you picked (Richter) or maybe Edwin Fischer, Koroliov, even Gould for those of that persuasion and on and on.

Of course, it boils down to taste but briefly what I like about this sample is how it opens up a world of possibility and meaning by not being so entirely flat.  In the harpsichord the chords are heavy and there is no easy way to distinguish them from that beautiful motif Bach builds in which you can see in the score from the beginning where the right hand has three notes arpeggiated upwards and the left hand responds arpeggiated downwards (at least in the first few instances - then he mixes it up a bit).

Also, at cadences, listen to the beautiful sustain you can achieve which you resolve this at a softer level below.  Bars 14/15 or at the end from bar 35 to the end at 40.  In the first case listen to the lovely b-flat held for four half notes against an f, g-flat, e-flat, c etc..  At the end listen to the sustained C, e-flat, c, then the most important d being resolved to the all important e-flat end.  

I sincerely hope you do not mind that I went into too much detail.  I am only sharing as this music really sets me off in a good direction.  I hadn't planned on it but I will be heading to the piano with my 48 in hand to continue on a wonderful Sunday.  

Regards,

Doug

Dear Doug,

Very grateful for you posting.

These days the Music Room is returning to life, but it our responsibility to keep the improvement going!

I am just eating supper, so will try your link out in a bit!

Listened to Stravinsky's Petrushka earlier. An amazing piece that though modern in idiom [compared to Brahms!] really does have conviction for me!

ATB from George

The twist is that is is I who must buy a recording! Nicholaeve in the "48" from this thread!

Thanks from George

I have had many different recordings of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, and I have two recordings these days that have stood the test of decades. Leonhardt on DHM, and the distinctly less correct performance from Klemperer, which still commands complete attention for all that.

My favourite has been Leonhardt for twenty years though, and now a treat indeed. A live performance from a week after the studio recording. It has its inevitable slips in the sense of a real performance without edits, but carries a conviction that is over-whelming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdISy7GTDG8

It is nearly three hours long so reserve an evening for it. There is nothing to do with it, but to listen right through.

ATB from George

The Eb minor prelude is one of my favorites, too, and I much prefer it on piano for all the reasons Doug mentions. All that and two deceptive cadences ... what could be better?!

Yes indeed, I prefer Lacroix's version. It is beautiful and majestic. Thanks for posting.

Gould's is version is a bit too playful for me.

By far is the artist I have more cd's in my collection.

I'm very happy to discover in this forum people that share the same admiration and appreciation of the beautiful work of the master I have.

Regards. Erich

And this is the music the young Bach listened to in Lubeck:

Dear Peet,

Thanks for your lovely reply!

ATB from George

Thank you for starting the thread.

It has always intrigued me, how even the greatest artist/composers or maybe especially the greatest artist/composers all come from somewhere.

So who did Buxtehude listen to?.......Andre Raison.

And here is what must be the slowest interpretation of the 1st Cello Suite, by the grand old master Anner Bylsma;

Pierre Fournier is my absolute favourite Bach Cellist for all that.Moderation in every aspect except communication.

Here is the first Suite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYZzFoKmT3w

ATB from George

Very beautiful indeed. Complete different interpretation compared to Bylsma but equally gorgeous.

Very interesting;

Pavlo Beznosiuk, one of the world's leading baroque violinists, explains and demonstrates the challenge of music for solo violin; works by Nicola Matteis and Heinrich Biber lead to a discussion and performance of the famous Chaconne from Bach's Solo Partita in D minor. Can such a work be satisfactorily analysed or does "music begin where words leave off"?

I had fully intended to bow out from the Forum, but that "lecture" has persuaded me to at least post my favourite recording of the Chaccone from the Second Sonata for Violin by JS Bach.

Artur Grumiaux:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ajHqwEdY4

ATB from George

George, you are going  give poor Howard a cardiac arrest. He can't take it anymore. Bye, for now...

Dear Tony!

Music is worth more than anyone could post here ...

And that "lecture" happened to hit on one of my eight "desert island discs" ...

If someone had offered me random sex, then no, but for this yes ...

ATB from George

PS: Off on the Wodka for the first time in more than two years in a minute ...

JS Bach was a much nicer person than the austere image that history has given us. He enjoyed family - he enjoyed a sing-song, and it does seem he enjoyed a beer too!

Here he is in the only portrait that might be close, by one of his sons.

ATB from George

And he says nice things about you, too, George! (insert emoticon here)

And arrived home!

Much Wodka consumed!

ATB from George

This youtube film is not to be missed.

Bach was a much more interesting and normal person than the austere imagine of him that held sway during the 19th, Century.

The 20th. C. saw a revisiting of the music, and by now we can spy a man of immense warmth as well as being one of the handful off the class called "genius" in music. 

John Elliot Gardiner here presents a refreshingly modern view of the great foundation of modern Western Art-music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOO8IC8_VaY

ATB from George