Afleveringen

  • In this first of several related episodes, we will learn about Bach’s late contrapuntal masterpiece, the Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her, BWV 769.

    The variations— although certainly not as familiar— should be considered alongside Bach’s other late achievements, the Goldberg Variations, The Art of Fugue, and A Musical Offering. They employ many similar ideas and highlight the composers uncanny ability to ‘squeeze water from a stone,’ making elaborate pieces with minimal material.

    This first episode discusses the origins of the chorale melody and for what purpose Bach used this piece.

    Drop me a note to tell me if you like this shorter episode length. Are you the type of listener who loves the hour long podcast? Or did this fit into your schedule better?

    I mention the title page:

    And the Wikipedia link to the chorale melody: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vom_Himmel_hoch,_da_komm_ich_her

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  • Since I was a child I’ve known the story of Bach pulling out a blade. What really happened? In this short episode, I read the contemporary reports from the Arnstadt Consistory Court, where this famous fisticuffs was first recorded.

    About halfway through the episode (14 minutes), I’ve given you some “chill” chorales, played over a drone. One of my listeners mentioned they wanted some Bach for doing yoga/meditation, so this is what I came up with. If you like the way it sounds, I’ll put a full hour-long track on Spotify for all my Bach enthusiast yogis.

    Meanwhile, stay tuned for some cool episodes coming up during the holiday season.

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  • Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?

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  • Last week I posted this piece on YouTube:

    The most intriguing part of studying this piece was the overwhelming amount of differences between the three earliest sources of this work. Here is a list of the sources I reference in the episode , the copyists, and when they were made:

    The ‘Andreas Bach Book’ (D-LE III.8.4) J. Christoph Bach; copyist, between 1705-1714

    P 801 J. Tobias Krebs; copyist, between 1710-1717

    P 804 J. Peter Kellner; copyist, before 1725

    In the episode I simply refer to these as Andreas Bach, Krebs, and Kellner.

    You will hear a great amount of textual variation between these sources. Part of any performer’s job of playing music from Bach’s era includes combing through sources, determining how and why certain discrepancies appear. In the Aria Variata, however, the discrepancies are inconsistent— and perplexing.

    My current understanding of source tradition hasn’t led me to any conclusion, but were I bold enough to take a stab, I’d guess Andreas Bach is the most accurate source, Kellner made a very sloppy copy from which Krebs copied. Kellner’s copy is full of corrections, but these were probably entered at a later date, and Krebs didn’t get the memo. A taste of what this looks like:

    That is Kellner’s copy. Notice the ornaments. Compare to Krebs:

    Both have an E-flat in on the downbeat of the third bar (all three sources in this episode use soprano clef on top). Now here is Andreas Bach:

    D-sharp in bar three! Also, the ornamentation is fuller.

    There are many other details in the episode, so please, enjoy! Here are more images to stimulate your fancy:

    Krebs’ wavy hand.

    Kellner making mistakes, corrected by— whom? Kellner himself?

    The baffling passage in variation 4 in Andreas Bach. Notice what look like erasures on some of the notes.

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  • Yes, that recording at the end is none other than Jascha Heifetz with Primrose and Piatigorksy, who apparently recorded three of the sinfonias. The wonderful pianist with that golden sound playing before the string trio arrangement is (I think!) Marcelle Meyer recorded sometime around 1948.

    WTF Bach needs your support! Consider becoming a subscriber.

    Today’s episode focuses on the ‘black pearl’ of the inventions and sinfonias. The f minor sinfonia is highly complex piece of passion music embedded within a seemingly innocent collection of music intended for the beginner. Here, rather than the more typical obligato upper voices with the bass occasionally joining in with a theme here and there, the f minor sinfonia relies on convertible counterpoint where all three voices are judged— and juggled— equally. Bach shows us this technique using different themes:

    A lament bass:

    Musical crosses:

    And a wildly avant-garde motif, which I refer to as the wailing motif:

    Writing certainly exists on these three motifs seen as “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” Not for any particular reason, I refrain from making such an analogy in this episode.

    As mentioned in the episode, Bach changed some of the enharmonics when transfering the piece from the Notebook for W.F. Bach into the Aufrichtige Anleitung. Here are some examples:

    The E-double-flat (middle voice) in the notebook for his son:

    is later changed to a D natural:

    The B-double-flat in the top voice in the previous examples remain, but Bach will change the spelling in the bass voice of the same note (again, in the notebook:)

    to an A natural:

    There are a few other similar changes throughout.

    Thanks for listening! Have you told your high-school band teacher you’re super into Bach?

    N.B. My substack is about 1 year old, and in that time I released some 27 episodes and three essays. Should you decide to become a paid subscriber, that’s less than 3 dollars an episode (paying per year: about $3.70 paying per month.) Your contribution ensures the existence of this podcast. I really couldn’t— and wouldn’t be able to— continue devoting the time without your support. Thank you.

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  • Becoming familiar with Bach’s music is a never-ending process. First, there is the initial reading, which alone can occupy many happy years. What’s remarkable is that with each further reading, you’re astonished by the details you missed before—quite honestly amazed. You ask yourself: Where—or even who—was I during those earlier readings? You begin to measure your growth as a musician against the depth with which you can now understand the pieces.

    One fugue, which I initially read with little interest, is the one featured in this episode: BWV 537. Suddenly, I’m struck by its raw power and its structural reliance on a chromatic line. Now that it has revealed itself to me, it will forever remain a favorite. I hope to share with you a glimpse of this experience in today’s episode.

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  • In this episode, we’ll explore Bach’s constant involvement with weddings. Weddings and funerals occupied a weekly place in Bach’s life in Leipzig and we’ll shed light on the various ways in which he was involved musically.

    [I forgot to credit the last recording in this episode to Rudolph Lutz and the J.S. Bach foundation.]

    Here are (some of) the beautiful parts which make up the chorales, BWVs 250-252. They are beautiful examples of Bach’s handwriting ca. 1730. Note that all three chorales are on the same page.

    Soprano:

    Alto:

    Tenor:

    Bass:

    And the second horn part I fondly discuss in this episode:

    All the parts are viewable at:

    https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00002475

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  • A brief(er) episode for you today: Bach’s first published opus was his six partitas for keyboard. In some of the sources within Bach’s circle, copies retained as a ‘Handexemplar’ include revisions by a scribe we can almost say with certainty is Bach himself. The most consequential of these revisions appears at the end of the third partita, where the second half of the Gigue is re-written with what one might call ‘updated’ or ‘refined’ counterpoint.

    Here we see the main source (G 25) in question:

    Hard to see here, but if we zoom in, we see that this:

    Is a correction of the original printings, which read:

    This link here should allow you to download the original print of all six partitas.

    N.B. As that link is the download of the original print, it will not contain any of the corrections mentioned in this episode. For a full list of the scholarship on these changes, see:

    Wolff, C. (1999). Text-critical comments on the original print of the Partitas. In Bach: Essays on his life and music (pp. 214-222). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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  • The final performer’s commentary episode for you. This is live commentating (the program notes of the future) on the last of my three simultaneous releases. This album is a bunch of preludes and fugues— some maybe you know, some maybe you don’t.

    You can stream and individually purchase any track including the performer’s commentary from the third volume below. [More streaming links (including youtube playlists) at the bottom:]

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    The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to achieve maximum effect.

    Volume One:

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  • Johann Adolph Scheibe went down in history for attacking Bach’s “turgid and confused” style.

    “
from the natural to the artificial, and from the lofty to the obscure ... one wonders at the painful labor of it all, that nevertheless comes to nothing, since it is at variance with reason.”

    Let’s examine the controversy from the beginning.

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  • On March 1, 1749, Bach penned the following into a Stammbuch:

    Today’s episode covers this canon in depth. What does it mean? How does it sound?

    Here is a link to the article by scholar, Anatoly Milka.

    The book, Bach and the meaning of Counterpoint, by David Yearsley is available here.

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  • Another performer’s commentary episode for you. If you’ve missed out on the second of my three simultaneous releases, you’ll have a chance to listen to it here, with my live commentary.

    You can stream and individually purchase any track including the performer’s commentary from the second volume here. —More streaming links (including youtube playlists) at the bottom:

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    The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to achieve maximum effect.

    Volume One:

    Youtube playlist!

    Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycy2fab7

    Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/nhfuws4t

    Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/mrxj7pws

    Volume Two:

    Youtube playlist!

    Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/msjyhamh

    Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mtykbxnz

    Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3m7b9v6w

    Volume Three:

    Youtube playlist!

    Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/4xneak6r

    Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mr44kwmf

    Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3e4kwnsb



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  • Thanks for your feedback on the last few episodes. I’ve gathered my listeners enjoy piecing together musical cells in their minds, so today’s episode will bring you more of that.

    The eight surviving canons, BWVs 1072-1078 (+BWV deest) were written on small pieces of paper or penned into registry books. Their compact content, usually only a few notes, is then ‘solved:’ copied and transformed to make a perpetual piece of music in several voices.

    You will hear the solutions in the episode. Here is how they appear on the page:

    This is the first canon discussed. From these two measures of music, eight voices are formed.

    This is the second canon discussed: a four-voice canon with each voice entering a successive fifth higher than the last. It’s the four clefs at the beginning of the line that clue you in on this. The %-like symbol shows you where the next voice enters.

    This is BWV 1074, the mysterious ‘Houdemann’ canon. Note the four clefs on the left of the staff, but also the four clefs to the right. They are inverted with a different key signature. Bach here was exploring the a truly symmetrical— not merely diatonic— inversion.

    The final canon of the episode. The charming two-voice canon for one of his Godchildren. This canon is simple to solve and the easiest to comprehend.

    Yes, the famous F-A-B-E-R, “mi fa, et fa mi est tota musica” canon will be in one of the next episodes— rest assured!

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    The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to achieve maximum effect.

    Volume One:

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  • If you miss those DVDs with the optional director’s commentary, you’re going to enjoy this episode.

    Each album in my ‘J.S. Bach Complete Solo Keyboard Works’ will be accompanied by this type of work, my commentating as the music plays.

    You can stream (and individually purchase) any track including the performer’s commentary from the first album here:

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    The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to achieve maximum effect.

    Volume One:

    Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycy2fab7

    Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/nhfuws4t

    Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/mrxj7pws

    Volume Two:

    Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/msjyhamh

    Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mtykbxnz

    Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3m7b9v6w

    Volume Three:

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  • You know that portrait of Bach holding a little scrap of music? Ever wonder what the piece was? What it sounded like?

    That piece of paper is a six-voice, triple canon: number thirteen in the fourteen additional canons found on the back of Bach’s personal copy of the Goldberg Variations. (Analysis of that specific canon around 32 min.)

    We’ve covered nine of these puzzling pieces in three previous episodes, but now it’s time to call it a wrap on all fourteen. These additional canons were discovered only as late as the 1970s. For a more detailed history, check the three previous episodes dealing with these canons:

    Here is the image of the canon, “Christ will Crown the Cross-bearers” that appears in the family registry book belonging to J.G. Fulde:

    And of course, Bach and his “business card:”

    The bass line in both the images (and in all of the canons) is our beloved “first eight fundamental notes of the preceding aria” on which all the canons are based.

    Be sure to get my forthcoming three albums on PRESALE before they go live on May 17th!

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  • ALBUMS ON PRESALE TODAY! BUY THE ALBUMS HERE!

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    As for the music covered today, we will hear Doubles layered over their preceding dance movements. A Double is an elaboration on the preceding movement, where the melody is quickened— often twice as quickly. The harmonic structure of the Double and its preceding movement is the same, allowing for one to play both movements at the same time with very interesting results.

    Pieces studied:

    Sarabande and Double from Sixth English Suite, BWV 811

    Gigue and Double from the c minor lute suite, BWV 997

    Partita in b minor for solo violin, BWV 1002

    People/places mentioned:

    Burp Castle at 41 East 7th Street in the East Village of Manhattan (between 2nd Ave & Cooper Square).

    Paul Spring (guitarist)

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  • Thanks for all your support during The Bach Store! If you’re in NYC on Friday, come to Le Poisson Rouge at 158 Bleecker Street at 7pm.

    Be sure to mark your calendars: April 24th, 2024, my new albums will be on PRE-sale. It marks the beginning of my most ambitious project to date: a very thorough, if possible, ‘complete’ set of the keyboard works of Bach. I will certainly send another reminder as the date approaches.

    And now for a brief journey into Bach around this date in 1724: today’s episode covers the cantata for the second Sunday after Easter, BWV 104, Du Hirte Israel, höre. Unlike the other cantatas I have recently discussed, this cantata is not based on a chorale melody.

    And don’t miss out on your WTF Bach merchandise! Here are seven magnets for your fridge. Send me a note to arrange a sale (T-Shirts, Pins, Bags, 3D Printed Heads, Lighters, also available).

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  • You read correctly: The Bach Store is back. In Erfurt, Thuringia, the state from where the Bachs hail. I will play for five hours, March 14-28, 12.00-18.00 GMT +1 (7AM-1PM EST.)

    You can (hopefully) stream the whole run on my youtube. Subscribe HERE.

    Or go to: www.youtube.com/@wtfbach

    Here is the latest video I mentioned in the podcast.

    Bach Store Merchandise is available on request. Send an email to bach (at) wtfbach (dot com)

    —

    Meanwhile, the music in today’s episode comes from the “Neumeister Collection,” a collection of over 80 chorale preludes from multiple composers, published for the first time in 1985. More than 30 of the pieces come from J.S. Bach ca. 1700, when the composer was only 15 year old. Hence one of the newest Bach discoveries showed us the youngest portraits of the composer. I played three of them, one on a ‘real’ organ (Saint Anne’s, London) and two on Organteq (by Modartt.)

    —

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  • This week I’ll be performing some flute chamber music in Santa Barbara, California. I realize I’ve never specifically mentioned Bach’s wonderful flute repertoire on this podcast.

    We tackle here what I find is the most complex composition in the repertoire: the first movement of the b minor sonata, BWV 1030.

    Pieces heard:

    BWV 1030.1 Source P. 1008, early version, harpsichord part.

    BWV 1030.2 The later version, arranged as a flute sonata.

    Articles:

    Contentious writing on flute vs. recorder

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  • This is the final episode introducing Bach’s cantata cycle of 1724. In the first four cantatas of the cycle, we heard how Bach used Lutheran hymnal melodies as cantus firmi in different voice parts in each opening movement (sopranos, followed by altos, followed by tenors, followed by basses.)

    Here, the next two cantatas see less predictable treatments of the old melodies. Bach evidently valued these two cantatas, as later in life he arranged single movements from both BWV 10 and BWV 93 into his publication of organ music known as the “SchĂŒbler Chorales.”

    Pieces heard:

    BWV 10, Meine Seel erhebt den Herren (Full Performance of the cantata)

    BWV 648, Meine Seel erhebt den Herren (Organ version)

    BWV 93, Wer nur den lieben Gott lÀsst walten

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    Check this playlist:

    I mentioned this playlist in the episode: all the cantatas in the 1724 cycle. Love to my fans!

    The book I mentioned on the use of ‘Tonus Peregrinus”

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  • Last episode we introduced Bach’s second cantata cycle from 1724. We saw in the first cantatas of the cycle, Bach used a church melody as the cantus firmus first in the sopranos, then the altos.

    This episode we will explore the next two cantatas where Bach sets the cantus firmus in the tenors in BWV 7, and the basses in BWV 135.

    About the melody you may know as “O Sacred Head Surrounded”

    Pieces heard:

    BWV 7, Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Full Performance)

    BWV 135, Ach Herr, mich armen SĂŒnder (Full Performance)

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    Check this playlist:

    A fan of the show made this great Spotify playlist with all the cantatas in the second cycle! Thank you! Love to my fans-

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