Buried Under Bach
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.
Objective goodness
I’m now up to – well, six clearly – little composer bio op-ed type thingies. It’s difficult to write about Bach and Mozart, because while I respect their music I don’t feel it speaking to me in the same manner as Shostakovich or Prokofiev, or 
pretty much any of the other, later, composers. It’s generally harder for me to appreciate the stuff before 1800. The music seems less surprising to me, perhaps because I have been so exposed to that music in my life. Or, perhaps it is because the focus in that era was (as I have heard people claim) the perfection of a particular style, to write the one perfect concerto or sonata. This stands in contrast to the later goals of fully exploring the range of human emotion, or the capabilities of the orchestra, or the limits of tonality. These aims excite myself more than the clockwork perfection of Bach’s music does.
I’m being a bit contradictory, clearly, since my dissatisfaction would seem to very much not imply perfection. It does make sense though, honest! (I’m actually trying to convince you as much as me right now). It’s similar to how when seeing a painting by da Vinci I can feel and see the perfection, but it’s in a cool, detached kind of way. His rough sketches are far more attractive and satisfying to my aesthetics, but even more appealing are the stylized explorations by people like, say, Klimt (on the right). It’s the roughness which is grabbing, which really touches me and me brings me into the music and gives electric on my vertebrae.
I would never make the claim that Klimt was the better painter… but why not? Is it just because I have been conditioned by culture to think of da Vinci as the more exemplary artist? I don’t think so. Not completely. I can sense the cleverness in his work, sense some underlying mastery above and beyond others who I actually prefer. the mastery doesn’t mean I enjoy it more. Then, what value am I ascribing to him? I just don’t know… I need an aesthetics philosopher to help me out, pronto!
“A classic is a book everyone wants to have read and no-one wants to read”
- Samuel Clemens