Show Notes
“The discontent of being between two notes; the urge to break free of a single note.”-Lionel Party (Paraphrased ca. 2005) What an opening: In this episode we listen to at least 14 different interpreters play this expressive trill. Such a simple idea, but how many different ways this idea can be realized! At an even speed or speeding up? With a turn at the end or a turn at the beginning or no turn at all? Crescendo all the way through or perhaps even diminuendo? Between earliest version and the fair copy, Bach seems to smooth out the rhythm in the solo voices. This is a rare case where the earliest version is rhythmically more nuanced than the revision. Bar 6. The last beat is more varied in the early version: It is smoothed out in revision: Bar 9. The top two voices sing in different rhythms in the early version: In revision, Bach makes them consistent: Penultimate bar. Note the 64th notes in the early version: Everything is more uniform in revision: WTF Bach survives exclusively on listener support! Thanks for your help.
As we progress through Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier, our fugal themes become increasingly complex and chromatic. Here, the fugue’s subject is angular, modern even: The subjects come in an memorable stretto toward the end: Want to help this resource stick around? Here’s how: We encourage our listeners to become a paid subscriber atwtfbach.substack.comFree subscriptions are also beneficial for our numbers. You can make a one-time donation: https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbach Supporting this show ensures its longevity. Thank you for your support! Topics Covered in this episode:J.S. Bach Well-Tempered Clavier Book One, BWV 861 prelude and fugue analysis, also Baroque ornamentation and how to play a trill, performance practice. We examine Bach’s manuscript sources in the early vs late versions of this pair. A general discussion of Baroque keyboard music, harpsichord vs piano performance, fugue structure and form, and Bach’s counterpoint.
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More from WTF Bach
The music at the end is BWV 600, from a forthcoming ‘electrified’ arrangement of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. The beautiful passage toward the end of my rant— with the koto accompaniment and bird song— comes from one of my absolute favorite books: R.H. Blythe’s writings about Haiku. Blyth considered the three greatest geniuses of time to be Basho, Bach, and Shakespeare— in that order! Wow! What am I missing with Basho!? More than a podcast. This is WTF Bach.
Volume 6 in ‘J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works’ is on presale today! Here are the relevant links: * J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works, Vol. 6 - Arrangements of Albinoni and Reincken(https://modernclassicalx.lnk.to/JSBachCompleteKeyboardWorksVol6FromArrangementsofAlbinoniandReincken) I might call this volume a ‘headphones album’ or perhaps one to listen to in the car: The sonic space shifts throughout the course of these pieces. I describe this process in depth in the episode, but essentially each track is two recordings of the piece, playing simultaneously: one recording is the original live performance, while another is that very same performance, played back through the Disklavier with the dynamics flatlined— as if the piano keyboard were incapable of dynamics — like a harpsichord. The two recordings were then ‘live panned’ during the mixing according to my feeling for the music. The result, while perhaps less extreme than this all sounds, is certainly a noticeable phenomenon, especially in headphones or seated between two speakers as in a car. But enough about that, let’s get to the music. Fugue it:
We’ve now covered the seven surviving earliest vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach! This episode is a brief tour through the episodes we dedicated to these pieces, refreshing our memories and attempting to identify unifying stylistic features. All the episodes covering the Arnstadt/Mülhausen cantatas can be found at:https://wtfbach.substack.com/t/early-cantatas Wanna Cantata?
“The consummate expressiveness of {BWV 4] has always been marvelled at. Each verse is as if chiselled in music.” -Albert Schweitzer, Vol. 2 Bach’s early Easter cantata remains one of the most beloved in the entire canon. Barely 22 years old, he is already in full command of his tone-painting. Here are three measures particularly packed with symbolism: Filling the music with rests at the word nothing, ‘one death eating another’ through the closest possible canon, crosses both in shape and every note ‘sharped’ (gekreuzt,) dripping blood on the Passover doors with short 8th notes, leaping a diminished 12th (!) in the bass aria at the word death, this cantata is a dictionary of text painting. …und singen Halleluja!
Sometimes an article from the EB strikes me as so amusing, I simply have to share it with you. See you next week (or the week after, latest) for the conclusion of our early cantata survey, with Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. Thanks for listening! Well, That’s Fascinating!