KVR Audio

kevvvvv · Post by **kevvvvv** » Sun Oct 28, 2018 9:31 pm

Love Bach, but didn't know this until tonight.

Head stretchingly wonderful, and played by the master.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Sun Oct 28, 2018 9:40 pm

kevvvvv wrote: Sun Oct 28, 2018 9:31 pm Love Bach, but didn't know this until tonight.

Head stretchingly wonderful, and played by the master.

WHAT? You say you "love" Bach and didn't knew his "musical testament", his "legacy"?

BTW: The work is idiosyncratic, it wasn't written for any instrument in particular. That's why there are many versions (for harpsichord, organ, piano, and even ensembles). Piano is NOT the best way to listen to it, IMO.

rp314 · Post by **rp314** » Mon Oct 29, 2018 9:48 pm

fmr wrote: Sun Oct 28, 2018 9:40 pm BTW: The work is idiosyncratic, it wasn't written for any instrument in particular. That's why there are many versions (for harpsichord, organ, piano, and even ensembles).

And Gould himself also recorded it on organ.

A prolific composer like Bach provides folks many opportunities to discover his works, and the seemingly endless re-interpretations.

stratum · Post by **stratum** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:58 am

Sounds like as if it has no end. Reminds me the album "Endless river" by Pink floyd, except that it had that impression only in the title.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:02 am

stratum wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:58 am Sounds like as if it has no end. Reminds me the album "Endless river" by Pink floyd, except that it had that impression only in the title.

What sounds "like as if it has no end"?

stratum · Post by **stratum** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:09 am

fmr wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:02 am
stratum wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:58 am Sounds like as if it has no end. Reminds me the album "Endless river" by Pink floyd, except that it had that impression only in the title.
What sounds "like as if it has no end"?

The art of fugue. Like as if he could play forever and still wouldn't create a recognizable form of repetition.

Harry_HH · Post by **Harry_HH** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:24 am

Glenn Gould and his Bach interpretations especially, belong to the absolute peak of the music literature. His mature older age (didn't get very old) work play almost daily in my home, car or mobile. Its hard to imagine anything more meditative.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:25 am

Art of the Fart

stratum · Post by **stratum** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:27 am

Aloysius wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:25 am Art of the Fart

Surely not the modern Art of the Loop for which 3 seconds of listening would be adequate before I hit the close button.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:31 am

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:37 am

stratum wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:09 am
fmr wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:02 am
stratum wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:58 am Sounds like as if it has no end. Reminds me the album "Endless river" by Pink floyd, except that it had that impression only in the title.
What sounds "like as if it has no end"?
The art of fugue. Like as if he could play forever and still wouldn't create a recognizable form of repetition.

The "repetition" in a canon or a fugue doesn't work the same way as in a song, where you have the chorus coming in again and again. Pop music lives from repetition. Many hits almost have nothing else than a chorus.

A canon comes from the polyphony era, and there is no repetition. Each voice evolves continuously, and the other voices follow it repeating what was played previously. However, since the first voice is continuously evolving, vertically there will hardly be any repeating pattern.

A fugue follows the same principle, although there are "sections", and you can have some repetitions, However, those don't appear after 10 seconds - you may have to listen for more than two minutes, before having a repetition.

On top of this. "The Art Of Fugue", as I said previously, was the final work from Bach (he left it incomplete), and was intended to be his "testament". His aim was to reach the pinnacle of an abandoned "art form", the art of polyphony, from which the canon and the fugue are special kinds. So, for an unprepared listener, it may be a difficult work to begin with. It's like someone who only ever read comics suddenly jumped to "War and Peace" from Leon Tolstoi, The Karamazov Brothers, from Fiodor Dostoievsky, or "Les Misérables" from Victor Hugo.

This kind of music requires a lot of attention, concentration, and commitment from the listener.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:42 am

First, watch this:

Then, this may be a good way to better introduce yourselves to the work:

stratum · Post by **stratum** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:47 am

Hi,

Thanks for the explanation.

And even if you aren't listening carefully enough, it's a nice background sound to have while you work because it has no easily recognizable form of repetition.

waiting man · Post by **waiting man** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:50 am

...and guitars.

IncarnateX · Post by **IncarnateX** » Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:57 am

fmr wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:37 am A canon comes from the polyphony era,

...and is, for the worth of a pedagogical comment, an excellent point of departure if you want to train tonal counterpoint. In contrast to two simultanously but different melodies interacting, the polyphony is achieved by using the same melody but shifted in time. Writing a simple canon in a tonal framework is not as easy as it may seem and it will get you an idea of how to create harmonies (and not a pile of dissonances) by paying close attention to the steps of the melody.

Bach's Art of the Fugue