Hacker News Reader

Comment by User23 | Hacker News Reader

If I had a time machine watching a live JS Bach recital would be near the top of my list of things to do. It’s wonderful to see a talented musician make this work more accessible.

View on HN

JS Bach is without a doubt the man I would most want to meet, interview, view perform, etc. It is hard to put into words, but his music is just inexhaustibly deep, challenging, joyful, profound, etc. in any given week I will spend some time listening to some modern band, maybe dabble in Beethoven symphony or two for a few hours, get pulled into a Stevie Wonder album, but I always, without fail, return to Bach. He is literally the “sun” in my little galaxy of music; all rotates around him and no matter where I am in a given day, I may just cut what I’m listening to short and put on some Bach.

I struggle to think of anything that engages my analytical brain and artful soul so fully and simultaneously. How the hell did he do it?!

The scope of his creation is just unfathomable. The utter profundity of his pieces, followed by the sheer proliferation.

Yes, this is what keeps blowing me away. There are ever more pieces to be discovered and listened to and he had to make all that stuff, write it down, be a dad to a whole bunch of children, spend time 'fundraising' and playing nice with royalty and clergy for access to instruments and at the end of all that he did it without any kind of digital assistance.

Oh, and he died at 65, old for the time he lived in but still, that's pretty young by today's standards for a life full of accomplishment.

I think you'd have to line up in a very long line of other people. Come to think of it, and even though I would like to do the same I'd get the hell out of there in the hope that he would compose just one more piece instead of talking to me.

I struggle to listen to Bach for an extended period of time. I think I don't "get" him. Tbh it's probably that, because actually playing his music on the piano is always a joy so it's probably skill to listen + analyse which is lacking.

These days I am much more Schubert and Beethoven, but I feel a certain guilt for not being able to appreciate Bach more. Both Mozart and Chopin worshipped him amongst others (iirc both were known to copy out das wohltemperiete klavier by hand as an exercise of love)

Any tips on grokking Bach? Feel like I have to concentrate super hard - to the point I either go a bit numb or lose focus

EDIT worth mentioning I'm not really a casual listener. More like a failing amateur musician with no talent. (Probably more so than Salieri :p)

Did you try the easier pieces, like the Brandeburg concertos? Also, it may help for some more cerebral things such as the violin partitas to listen first the "adaptations" such as Busoni's chaconne (which makes it easier to the untrained ear by providing all the notes that are implicit in the original version).

It definitely took my some time before I "got" Bach, but once I did I've never been the same.

Here are some recommendations:

1. Listen to works for solo instruments; this allows you to focus in on what's going on

2. Watch videos for solo instruments; this allows you to really take in what the musician is doing to perform this work

3. When listening to a piece, say to yourself "I am going to focus on X" and try to hear that part is doing throughout the piece in relation to the other parts. E.g. "I'm going to listen to the bass voices in a solo work" or "I'm going to listen to the oboes".

4. I often find myself being very physical when I listen to Bach...e.g. clapping or slamming my hands on various cues.

5. LISTEN TO THE SAME PIECE OF MUSIC A LOT...either same performance or different ones. You are given new revelations as you get to know a piece more, certain harmonies, certain voices, etc that you never noticed before.

Do you always have to listen with such focus? No, as it seems your brain then becomes able to enjoy pieces more casually as it is trained to hear these things.

Here is a fun piece to "train" yourself to enjoy Bach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3lH_Tevw5o

One of the eyewitnesses to Bach's playing was Constantin Bellermann. (chronicled in the Bach Reader)

Bellermann wrote about a pedal solo that Bach played: he “ran over the pedals so quickly that his feet appeared winged, with a thundering fullness of sound, and penetrated the ears of the listeners like a bolt of lightning”, and that he “was admired in amazement” by Prince Frederick van Hessen. The prince removed a jewelled ring from his hand on the spot and gave it to Bach. If he had earned that just with the speed of his feet, wondered Bellermann, what would the prince have given him if Bach had used his hands as well?

There is a German lady called Barbara Dennerlein that is a bit like that, her footwork is nothing short of amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Dennerlein

There are some youtube videos of her playing jazz.

I saw her in Chicago in 2009, playing the pipe organ at the Rockefeller Chapel, in a wonderful but utterly poorly-promoted performance. The audience was tiny for such a magnificent space, and I thought it a crying shame.

It's hard to think of a pipe organ as a jazz instrument, but then again, any instrument is a jazz instrument.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com