In memoriam Bach's 270th death anniversary

Of course, today, there's only one Bach, although CPE and others are worth listening to as well.

Here's a few items from my YouTube libraries that I find particularly noteworthy, not just for the pieces, but the performing individual or group and their interpretation.

Selected organ works by Hans-André Stamm. Great performances on a fine instrument:



Bach organ music generates a lot of debate, but I like this.

Oboe and oboe d'amore concertos:



There are other recordings of these, but that's the one in my YouTube library.

Bach's magnificent B minor Mass:



In my opinion, you cannot go wrong with Gardiner, whatever outfit he's leading.

Transitioning not just to a specific conductor but a specific outfit for the Brandenburgs:



I first heard them doing the Mozart Requiem, Levin realization, after hearing another group play it live in Dallas.

Finally, one more. This is a slower take than I would always like, but, it's in the hands of a master. The Musical Offering, Jordi Savali.



Introspective, and very transparent, whether I agree with every tempo line or not.

I'm going to offer one more, to show that interpretations of Bach aren't dead and also that there's young 'uns revitalizing classical music in general.

THIS on the storied Passacaglia and Fugue:



A&A is worth a listen on all sorts of classical and non-classical music.

Bach cello suites ... "at home"

I had yesterday heard the first suite played on viola, which I liked a lot itself.



But, I can't find a recording of the entire cycle.

Then, tipped by someone's comment on another YouTube selection, of the first movement of the fourth suite, on viola ... I thought period instruments.

And, I found what I didn't think about.

The full cycle, on the original instrument — a viola da gamba. Scratch that. The original one is no longer availalble.

But here's another:



Enjoy!

Overall piece length similarity can mask differences

In case the header didn't give it away, I'm talking about classical music, and about large-scale works in particular.

Given that I've had multiple posts about Mahler recently, you might guess this is another. But, it's not.

I've been YouTubing multiple recording of the Bach B minor Mass recently.

I've found three about the same length overall, around 1 hour 45 minutes, which means they're not draggy. (Please, no 2-hour performances from mid-20th century Romanticizing conductors.)

One's John Eliot Gardiner with the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir. The first Kyrie had a quite slow start, but then got to what I would consider a decent tempo. (Gardiner to me is interesting in general. I like him on Beethoven. He does a good Symphonie Fantastique with period instruments, and a highly rhythmic Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances; the third movement alone is all worth it. But, his Mozart Requiem is draggy at the start and never recovers.)

The second is Franz Brüggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century. I've got this on CD at home. It's got a full volume and balance. Solid tempos overall. It has less nuance in tempos than Gardiner does. In this case, it's neither all good nor all bad for either one. At the same time, there's a crispness to phrasing, subtle but audible, from

The third is one new to me: The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, conducted by Daniel Reuss. This one appears to have a bit more gravitas in spots. Also, it's in a more intimate setting, with even smaller choir size and instrumental size than the others, or so it seems. And, thus, it has very "clean" sonic lines. I do know that the basses come "out" a lot more on this recording than the others.

None is wrong, not at all.

But, overall, I like the Reuss best, followed by the Brüggen then the Gardiner. And, my opinion of the Gardiner may have been influenced by first sampling his Mozart.

Anyway, here's the Reuss. Listen for yourself.

Bach until you drop, rapper!

That was the stance of Champaign County (Ohio) Municipal Court Judge Susan Fornof-Lippencott, when she offered a lower fine amount to Andrew Vactor, convicted of playing rap music too loud on his car stereo, in exchange for him listening to classical music for 20 hours.

We need more judges like this, with creative sentencing to fit the offense.

Irony alert – New York Philharmonic

The NYPhil is tonight, on its national concert broadcast series, playing Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion,” as conducted a few years ago by Kurt Mazur.

But… Easter was last week. And… Passover hasn’t yet happened.

Will we get Stravinsky’s “Abraham and Isaac” next week? The NYPhil may not even have played that in the past 20 years for all I know.

A new take on what Bach looked like

Dr. Caroline Wilkinson, head of Scotland’s first forensic art unit, set up at Dundee University in 2005, has used state-of-the-art technology to recreate the head of the musical master himself, Johann Sebastian Bach.

Here’s the result, with details of the process below: