Buried Under Bach
July 31st, 2007 Posted in bach, classical music, mp3
Oh my gosh. Once upon a time a bunch of years ago someone gave me a great present, the goodness of which wasn’t really that obvious to me at the time. It was a set of the complete organ works of J.S. Bach
I kept leaving it behind in England whenever I went back because it would sneak out of the way until everything was all packed up and my suitcases were already twenty pounds too heavy. Then it would leap out, waving it’s inlay and demand to be remembered and loved and transported. Up until the last expedition I had not yet caved into it’s demands.
But now, the little guy is sprawled eagerly over my desk. We’re (it’s a joint venture between me and him) up to CD number 7 in the MP3 conversion extravaganza.
I guess I never quite made it into Bach. Every time his music is on it feels so overwhelmingly ornate and difficult. You might even call it baroque (sigh). And 17 CD’s is a lot of organ music. Sometimes I listen to it while mentally changing the instrument from an organ to an electric guitar – it switches over very nicely, I think modern heavy-metalists owe a big debt to mister Bach.
August 1st, 2007 at 4:06 am
There’s also a 2 CD version of Peter Hurford’s Bach. Maybe you could look up the track listing of that on Amazon, and make yourself a playlist of the highlights to begin with?
The Passacaglia And Fugue In C Minor, BWV 582 is great.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:26 am
Cheers, that’s not a bad idea at all….
August 1st, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I also have the 2 CD set. Its excellent. I second BWV 582, and of course the ubiquitous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565.
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:36 am
I have a CD of the old Virgil Fox “hippie” concert, which really rocks! To quote him, from his Wikipedia article:
“There is current in our land (and several European countries) at this moment a kind of nitpicking worship of historic impotence. They say that Bach must not be interpreted and that he must have no emotion, that his notes speak for themselves. You want to know what that is? Pure unadulterated rot! Bach has the red blood. He has the communion with the people. He has all of this amazing spirit. And imagine that you could put all the music on one side of the agenda with his great interpretation and great feeling and put the greatest man of all right up on top of a dusty shelf underneath some glass case in a museum and say that he must not be interpreted! They’re full of you know what and they’re so untalented that they have to hide behind this thing because they couldn’t get in the house of music any other way!”
Needless to say, that is not the only correct view of J.S.! But V.F. does have fun with him.