How can I move on from Bach?

Zetetic: Why does every expression of appreciation for one composer have to be "supported" by derogatory truisms about other composers? Such as calling Mozart and Haydn "lightweight" (whatever that means) and not very interesting for analysis? Especially if you don't explain it further. I do it too from time to time, so I understand it, but honestly, we won't get anywhere like that, as all it does is start a chain of "No you're wrong, you're underestimating composer X. He's not like Y, who is much worse.", and the next person doing the same.

SCC, that's not entirely true. Whilst Bach celebrated old forms, he also delighted in newer musical textures and was quick to reconcile the two. Before Bach, few had attempted to write fugues in anything less than the vocal, ricercarial, style antico; Bach wrote several with subjects far more reminiscent of the French improvisatory style. Likewise, the St John Passion is said to have horrified some of its more conservative listeners, who complained of its unduly operatic nature.

Having said this, the Art of the Fugue is reminiscent in part of music written hundreds of years before Bach's death - yet still incorporates both harmonic language prohibited by older idioms, and velocitous French rhythms. The influences were practically prehistoric, but the music they generated were quite unlike anything heard before.

Gardener, I apologise. I fell prey to my own trap. Ultimately argument always boils down to the exchange of truism, but I stand by my statement that personal experience has led me to consider the analysis of Haydn and Mozart less enjoyable than that of Bach - irrespective of my stance in relation to the instant appeal their music presents. The term 'lightweight' implies a lack of intellectual depth, and was the conclusion I drew from uninteresting lessons spent analysing Figaro. Let's please not get Mozart stuck in this mess too!

Alright, I was wrong. Bach's music does not FOCUS on the rythmic aspect, but his pieces are very rythmyically complex, perhaps I should have said that instead. At least I can ADMIT I am wrong and not go on making ludricous statements like *some* people. The part about Bach being "less emotional" was my opinion. And the part about emotion being solely what composers write for... again, I was slightly wrong in saying that. I REALLY meant to say that composers don't USUALLY write music because they like seeing little handrawn notes covering a page. There usually is a meaning and purpose behind the music and that's what I meant. So yeah, Bach would not fall under the category of having no meaning behind the music. It is true that Bach's works are nearly perfect in every way, but my main quib with him is the lack of variety of instrumentation that I have heard so far. If anyone could give me a link to some Bach that involves a FULL orchestra, that would be nice. I consider the Brandenburgs a chamber ensemble, sorry.

I apologize for seeming ignorant. Some of what I said was ignorant. It would have been difficult to parse my words the way I did because I probably think of things differently than any of you. Again sorry. But at least I admit my mistake

Originally Posted by Zetetic

SCC, that's not entirely true. Whilst Bach celebrated old forms, he also delighted in newer musical textures and was quick to reconcile the two. Before Bach, few had attempted to write fugues in anything less than the vocal, ricercarial, style antico; Bach wrote several with subjects far more reminiscent of the French improvisatory style. Likewise, the St John Passion is said to have horrified some of its more conservative listeners, who complained of its unduly operatic nature.

Um... How about all these other people who wrote fugues before Bach? Say, Pachelbel and Buxtehude being good examples, with tons of others if I bothered to look. Froberger comes to mind.

But anyways, the attempt to combine Bach's style with what was trendy (Galant style) came from CPE Bach, but he didn't get a lot of attention sadly. By the time CPE Bach came around, the Vienna Classic stuff was in full swing so that may have eclipsed it him.

Originally Posted by maelstromtempest

Alright, I was wrong. Bach's music does not FOCUS on the rythmic aspect, but his pieces are very rythmyically complex, perhaps I should have said that instead. At least I can ADMIT I am wrong and not go on making ludricous statements like *some* people. The part about Bach being "less emotional" was my opinion. And the part about emotion being solely what composers write for... again, I was slightly wrong in saying that. I REALLY meant to say that composers don't USUALLY write music because they like seeing little handrawn notes covering a page. There usually is a meaning and purpose behind the music and that's what I meant. So yeah, Bach would not fall under the category of having no meaning behind the music. It is true that Bach's works are nearly perfect in every way, but my main quib with him is the lack of variety of instrumentation that I have heard so far. If anyone could give me a link to some Bach that involves a FULL orchestra, that would be nice. I consider the Brandenburgs a chamber ensemble, sorry.

I apologize for seeming ignorant. Some of what I said was ignorant. It would have been difficult to parse my words the way I did because I probably think of things differently than any of you. Again sorry. But at least I admit my mistake

Well, yes, you're certainly right there. Instrumentation and timbre certainly weren't focus areas for Bach. But that hardly has anything to do with him, but the time he lived in. The idea of actually "orchestrating" and using instruments directedly to achieve certain effects simply (almost) didn't exist yet back then, or was only very slowly starting to emerge. Just think of the concerto grosso, where you have the soloists, and then the "orchestra" which basically consists of every instrument that was available for the concert, the more the merrier, all playing the same couple of voices.

Of course there were also more sophisticated uses of instruments in orchestras (especially in operas), but in general, the concept of "timbre" etc. wasn't very important.

However, it's surely perfectly possible to write great music without a big range of instrumental colours. Otherwise all piano music would suck by definition.


SSC: Personally, I don't hear much "combinating the galant style with father Bach's style" in CPE Bach's music. Actually I don't think I hear any "father-influence" at all, in most pieces. It sounds totally classical to me.

Hmm. Try his stuff for clavichord. There's a bunch of examples but I can't name'em off the top of my head, where it's clear that he tried to grab stuff off his father and mix it up. The one who is purely classical is Christian Bach. :x

Originally Posted by SSC

Um... How about all these other people who wrote fugues before Bach? Say, Pachelbel and Buxtehude being good examples, with tons of others if I bothered to look. Froberger comes to mind.

But anyways, the attempt to combine Bach's style with what was trendy (Galant style) came from CPE Bach, but he didn't get a lot of attention sadly. By the time CPE Bach came around, the Vienna Classic stuff was in full swing so that may have eclipsed it him.

Almost all Pachelbel's fugues are in style antico - essentially a vocal style of part writing, though his later fugues do contain a number of rather more adventurous subjects. A handful of the Magnificat fugues use faster, scalic passages, but none uses the same sort of flourishing, French keyboard style as one sees, for example, in the D major fugue from Book 1 of DWTK. Buxtehude is closer, but Froberger I know little about. Certainly, Bach's combination of modern style with ancient form appears unprecedented in so strict a process as fugue. It is however in truth his near-total mastery of counterpoint that renders his work fundamentally different from that of his predecessors and contemporary.

CPE Bach's definitely trendier, but JS consciously tried to use foreign styles. His works are littered with his own, personal scribblings about sections being 'in French style' and so on, amidst all the funny drawings of flowers and landscapes with which he embellished blank spaces.

Oh, and malestromtempest - how about the Matthew Passion? That has:

<Twelve Soloists
Two Choirs
Two Orchestras
Two Organs

What more could somebody of the early 18th-century possibly have added? This work, along with the St John Passion, also demonstrates the (rather well-established) notion that different instruments can convey different atmospheres and moods. Flurrying basses and cellos are used to convey an earthquake in one of the recitatives, whils a Viola da Gamba, an instrument traditionally assosciated with death (for some reason or another) is reserved for a single aria. Also bear in mind that despite the gargantuan forces, the instruments all carry distinct lines, rather than simply filling in the harmonies.

The thing is though, even all these instruments don't make Bach sound anything like Beethoven. If they did, I probably wouldn't like him as much. It's likely that the emptiness you perceive in Bach's instrumentation is precisely what I appreciate, and the oversaturation I hear in thick orchestration is precisely what makes you adore Beethoven. It's just about taste.

I'd say Buxtehude uses some subjects which are almost entire chromatic (with jumps, dance rhythms, etc) VERY often, and instrumental music was already pretty standard pre-Bach. Bach really didn't invent anything or made anything fantastic, he just grabbed things from other composers of his time and did his own thing which can easily be traceable to the composers that influenced him. Froberger and Buxtehude were both HUGE influences, Vivaldi and Pachelbel too.

What's more, "mastery of counterpoint" doesn't mean much, there wasn't anything ELSE at the time, and I would hardly call Pachelbel or Vivaldi anything but masters of what they did.

Too much worshiping Bach makes Bach look like some sort of monolith he never was, and it also makes him look inhumane, as if he never learned anything. Looking at his early Fugues for organ, they sound like down-right imitations of Buxtehude's style (Bach was a fan of Buxehude, this isn't surprising.) He transcribed works from Vivaldi for organ solo, and all of this had a great influence in what he wrote later.

Also: While Bach did attempt to add a certain flavor to his works, such as the french suites, italian concerto, etc etc, they are strictly in German tradition still. Nevermind that he was not the first to do this type of thing.

PS: Fugue-writing is essentially one of the least strict forms of the time, there's absolutely no pattern, and a lot of composers wrote fugues in entirely different way save for a couple of characteristics which identify it as something different than just an imitation at the 5th. Fugue is not a song structure, Bach himself used a lot of different structures along with his fugues, sometimes A-B-A, sometimes not. There's no "rule" that he establishes that he also doesn't break.

Bach > everyone.

Bach was the one who taught God how to play the organ. True Fact.

Originally Posted by SSC

PS: Fugue-writing is essentially one of the least strict forms of the time, there's absolutely no pattern, and a lot of composers wrote fugues in entirely different way save for a couple of characteristics which identify it as something different than just an imitation at the 5th. Fugue is not a song structure, Bach himself used a lot of different structures along with his fugues, sometimes A-B-A, sometimes not. There's no "rule" that he establishes that he also doesn't break.

This is true, but what about the canons?