Johann Sebastian Bach

 

J.S. Bach 
1685-1750

For those who like to move through a composer's compositions chronologically, Bach is a troublesome figure.

It isn't even a matter of finding recordings or choosing between recordings even. Instead, the sheer volume of music is frightening.

Thus, I tend to listen to Bach piecemeal. A cantata here, and organ work here, a violin Partita there. In my lifetime, I have no expectation of hearing even a small percentage of what the composer wrote. Move over Howard Ferguson!

While my introduction to Bach was probably his Air on a G String, it was actually the choral numbers Sheep and Lamb May Safely Graze and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring which amazed me. I remember taking the octavos home from choir practice and playing through the orchestral reduction, watching how instrument and voice moved separately, yet coalescing ingeniously.

Furthermore, when taking piano lessons, I was tasked some of Bach's Inventions and Sinfonias. If anyone tells you two parts or three parts are simple, give them some of Bach to put them in their place. My piano teacher had a harpsichord in her home, so I learned these pieces on that instrument, forming a lifelong dread of the instrument. I was never skilled enough to do Bach any justice whatsoever on the pipe organ, though.

Otherwise, I have come to revere Bach's Mass in B minor and Passions as masterpieces, and have performed a cantata or two over the years. Just because there is so much, I rarely get to the composer's instrumental music, although I am familiar with the most famous works and have a few recordings of each.

As far as this page is concerned, I doubt there will be much on it. I do not get to the Baroque too often. If I do, it is usually as a palate cleanser rather than a deep dive, with Handel and Vivaldi getting more love from my ears. Any listening I do of Bach is informal and hardly serious enough to procure a review out of me. That said, there will be a few here and there I will add, but don't expect consistent activity from me on this page.


Recordings and reviews currently on hand
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