by Rebecca Cochran
 
“The first jazz musician in the world has been Bach.”— Jacques Loussier

Hear Jacques Loussier's Bach to Bach Trio with André Arpino, drums and Vincent Charbonier, bass in their version of Bach’s Toccata And Fugue in D Minor.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
“The music of my father has higher intentions; it’s not supposed to fill the ear but to make your heart move!” — Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach

by Rebecca Cochran
 
The French Suites (BWV 812-817) are comprised of six pieces that Bach composed for keyboard during his tenure as chapel master for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. The first five Suites make up part of Bach’s 1722 Notebook of keyboard music for his second wife, Anna Magdalena.

My favorite is Suite No. 4 in E-flat major (BWV 815). For me, the opening Allemande represents Bach’s continually unfolding love for Anna Magdalena whom he had married a year earlier.
 
I love this recording by pianist, András Schiff.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Bach’s Cantata 140, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Sleepers Awake) is one of his most popular cantatas. Dating from his tenure in Leipzig, Bach gave one performance of it there in 1731.
 
Bach scored this cantata for three vocal soloists (soprano, tenor and bass), 4-part choir and an orchestra consisting of two oboes, taille (a tenor oboe), horn, violino piccolo, strings and continuo (including bassoon). It consists of seven movements, three of which are closely based on the Lutheran hymn, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme. An unknown author provided the poetry for movements 2, 3, 5 and 6.
 
The sixth movement, Mein Freund ist mein! (My Friend is mine!), is a duet for soprano and bass with obbligato oboe. Though the text refers to a love duet between the soprano Soul and the bass Jesus, the musical style is akin to an operatic love duet!
 
Here is a rough translation of the text:
 
“My Friend is mine,
and I am yours,
love will never part us.
I will with You,
you will with Me,
graze among heaven’s roses,
where complete pleasure and delight will be.”
 
Enjoy this joyful recording with Lisa Larsson, soprano, Klaus Mertens, bass, Marcel Ponseele, oboe and Ton Koopman conducting the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
“Gould revealed us a thing that had not been perceived by anybody else in Bach’s compositions and, simultaneously, he taught us that the role of the executor was not to serve but to provoke the art and thus to reveal not only the most beautiful but also the most difficult to bear.” — Murray Perahia

by Rebecca Cochran
 
There is a beautiful film from 2014 in which harpsichordist, Ton Koopman and Melchior Huurdeman take us on a tour of the Thomaskirche and the Bach Archives in the town of Leipzig. There, they retrace the steps in the church where Bach’s St. Matthew Passion was performed for the first time.

The film is in German and English subtitles are available. Enjoy it here. 

by Rebecca Cochran
 
“Sometimes I say for the fun of it: If Bach isn’t in heaven, I don’t want to get there at all. Bach is probably the only composer whose work is so excellent, so challenging for the musician and so rich of spiritual power for the audience and for interpreters, that you would love to spend one year alone in his company.” — John Eliot Gardiner

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Bach’s Invention in A minor (BWV 784) was the inspiration for Thomas Ott to compose his Tango Invention for accordion orchestra. The result is lovely.

Enjoy this recording of the work by the Akkordeon Orchester Passau. 

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Bach’s Partitas (or suites) for harpsichord (BWV 825-830) were published under his own direction from 1726-1730. Though technically demanding, Bach dedicated these works to “music lovers, for the delight of their spirits.”
 
The keys of these six Partitas (B-flat major, C minor, A minor, D major, G major, E minor) are not as random as they may, at first, seem. They actually form a careful sequence of ascending and descending intervals, starting with the key of B-flat, representing the first letter (in German) of Bach’s name. The progression continues, moving up a second (B-flat to C), down a third (C to A), up a fourth (A to D), down a fifth (D to G) and, finally, up a sixth (G to E).
 
And, somehow, despite the technical demands and somewhat formulaic method of key selection, the Partitas represent some of Bach’s most free-ranging and expressive works for keyboard.

Enjoy this video of pianist, András Schiff in a live performance of Partita No. 2 in C minor (BWV 826).

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Today is the birthday of French composer, Claude Debussy (1862-1918). Like Bach, Debussy was a composer who broke the rules of his day. And, like Bach, Debussy is considered to have structured parts of his music mathematically. It has been suggested that some of Debussy’s works reflect the golden ratio, using numbers of the standard Fibonacci sequence.
 
Debussy summed up his respect for Bach in this quote:
 
“And if we look at the works of J.S. Bach - a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity - on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered. And in his works we will search in vain for anything the least lacking in good taste.”
 
Happy birthday, Claude.

​by Rebecca Cochran
 
Bach has a way of calming me when I need calming. His music is capable of bringing me to “center” when needed. His music can also enliven me when I need enlivening!
 
I know of no other composer like J.S. Bach. 

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major (BWV 1050) is special. It is considered as one of his fifteen concerti for harpsichord(s), yet it stands apart as the only one that is not an arrangement he made from an earlier concerto.
 
Composed in Cöthen in 1719, the Concerto No. 5 is scored for harpsichord, flute, violin, viola, cello and violone. The harpsichord performs dual roles as both a concertino (obbligato) instrument and a ripieno (continuo) instrument. And, to spice things up further, Bach includes a lengthy, virtuosic harpsichord cadenza in the first movement.
 
It is believed that Bach composed the work to demonstrate the new harpsichord that he had brought back from Berlin for the Cöthen court. A keyboard virtuoso himself, Bach was, most likely, the harpsichord soloist for the premiere.
 
Listen to a performance from the "Spiegelsaal" Castle in Cöthen by the Freiburger Barockorchester here.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
The Concerto No. 7 in G minor (BWV 1058) is one of my favorites of Bach’s concerti. It is thought to be his first complete harpsichord concerto, albeit a transcription of his Violin Concerto in A minor (BWV 1041). Bach transposed the violin work down a whole tone for the harpsichord version.
 
The concerto is in three movements. The second movement, Andante, begins simply, almost dirge-like. Our patience is rewarded a few bars in, as Bach gives us lucky listeners one of those gorgeous melodies that only he could write!

Enjoy this recording featuring harpsichordist, Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Another example of Bach’s Drammi per Musica is the cantata, Der zufriedengestellte Aeolus (Aeolus placated), BWV 205. It was composed in 1725 to celebrate the nameday of August Friedrich Muller, an academic at the University of Leipzig.

​The libretto, by Picander, is light and silly, even. The orchestra for this work’s premiere may have been the largest that Bach ever assembled! The cantata is one of twelve surviving works that Bach wrote for Leipzig University festive occasions. 

​by Rebecca Cochran
 
Choreographer, Jerome Robbins, used The Goldberg Variations as the score for his ballet of the same name. The New York City Ballet premiered the work in 1971. Robbins was considered to be a very musical choreographer. He respected Bach’s work and included all of the musical repeats in his version of The Goldberg Variations.
 
I recall enjoying a live performance of this Robbins work many years ago at the New York City Ballet’s summer home in Saratoga Springs, New York. The solo pianist played from the stage.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
In the early 1720s, Bach had the Leipzig court instrument maker build a viola pomposa. The instrument had five strings, being somewhere between a viola and a cello. The new instrument, held like a violin, acted as a substitute for the cello making some of Bach’s challenging figured bass accompaniments easier to perform.
 
Bach must have been pleased with the viola pomposa. It is widely believed that he composed his Suite No. 6 in D major (BWV 1012) specifically for the new instrument.
 
Enjoy this recording of Suite No. 6 played by Ulrich Koch on viola pomposa.

by Rebecca Cochran

Yet another 20th century composer who was greatly influenced by Bach was Eugène Bozza (1905-1991). A prolific composer of wind chamber music, one of Bozza's most popular works is Aria for alto saxophone and piano. Composed in 1936 for French saxophonist, Marcel Mule, Bozza literally quotes the Aria from Bach's Pastorale for Organ in F major (BWV 590.)

And, the 1957 Hommage a Bach for trombone and piano further reveals Bozza’s respect and admiration for J.S. Bach.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned Bach’s influence on contemporary composer, Arvo Pärt. The 20th century French composer, Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) was also influenced by J.S. Bach. His 1932 work for piano, Valse-improvisation sur le nom de BACH (FP62) is part of a larger, collaborative work entitled Hommage a J.S. Bach.

Hear Poulenc’s Valse-improvisation recorded by pianist, Pascal Rogé here.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Arvo Pärt, the Estonian composer born in 1935, is yet another example of a contemporary composer who was influenced by J. S. Bach. His Collage sur B-A-C-H (1964) for strings, oboe, harpsichord and piano is a work in three movements. Each movement is inspired by traditional Baroque forms: Toccata, Sarabande and Ricercar.

Enjoy this live concert recording with violinist, Axel Schacher and Symphony Orchestra Basel.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Gottfried van Swieten (1723-1803) was a wealthy patron of several Classical era composers including Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. 

A music lover and amateur composer, van Swieten had collected manuscripts of Bach and Handel during his years in Berlin. After moving to Vienna, van Swieten and Mozart became friends. Mozart visited him regularly and enjoyed playing from the manuscripts of Handel, J.S. Bach and his sons.
 
In a letter Mozart penned to his father in 1782, he wrote, “I go every Sunday at twelve o'clock to the Baron van Swieten, where nothing is played but Handel and Bach. I am collecting at the moment the fugues of Bach—not only of Sebastian, but also of Emanuel and Friedemann.”
 
The Bach effect is evident in many of Mozart’s greatest works including the C Minor Mass and the chorale prelude sung in The Magic Flute.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
I attended a private screening of The Music of Strangers last evening. It is the new documentary film by Morgan Neville on Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.
 
The film is extremely engaging, both aurally and visually. And, fittingly, the Bach unaccompanied Cello Suites play major roles, from the film’s opening bars to a later segment featuring an intriguingly-beautiful duet for cello and voice.

Go see it! Learn more here.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Today, I chanced upon an article describing a project of Zaha Hadid Architects. In 2009, the firm designed a chamber music hall specifically to host performances of works by Bach. The JS Bach Chamber Music Hall installation at Manchester Art Gallery featured a continuous ribbon of fabric designed to change and adapt to the performers and the audience.

The Independent referred to it as "The perfect union of sound and space."

Read more here.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
"If one were asked to name one musician who comes closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach." — Composer, Aaron Copland

by Rebecca Cochran
 
Some of Bach’s secular cantatas carry the title Dramma per Musica. This title was given by the librettist, not by Bach. These cantatas were meant to be performed in casual private settings such as a coffee house or town square, rather than on a stage.
 
A wonderful example of these drammi per musica is Geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde (Swift, you swirling winds), BWV 201. The libretto, by Picander, addresses the dispute between Phoebus and Pan, or the age-old controversy between “learned” and "popular" music.
 
Enjoy this video performance of BWV 201 at the 2011 Festival d'Ambronay.

by Rebecca Cochran
 
“I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach. I really can’t think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply and so consistently and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all of its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that, its humanity." — Pianist Glenn Gould