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Do you ever just sit down to play something, and then all of a sudden you notice something in the music, and then you look closer and you suddenly notice something else and something else and something else and something else and something else and then you notice how all of these somethings are all intricately tied together and brilliantly crafted?
Well, that just happened to me tonight with the Prelude in C# Major from WTCI.
Bach is the supreme god and ruler of the musical universe.
Sam
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Wait until you play the C# Minor Fugue - it's Bach's masterpiece in my opinion.
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yeah, i wouldn't call him the supreme god and ruler of the musical universe just by studying the c sharp major fugue btw who here likes his ORGAN fugues? the dorian toccata and fugue is absolutely breathtaking
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I cannot listen to the Aria of the Goldberg Variations without thinking to myself, "This was crafted by something greater than human." I've listened to it over and over, thousands of times, and it NEVER looses it's mystical genius... I wouldn't say that he himself is "greater than human" or "godlike", but he was certainly tapping into something greater than human when he was inspired to write these works.
By the way, I didn't necessarily mean that in a spiritual or religious sense...
- Zack -
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I've experienced similar things with Mozart... When I was playing the Rondo Alla Turca, when I was 18, and didn't know much about key changes, I just couldn't understand what Mozart was thinking when he augmented the 6th note of the scale (in A minor... near the beginning), still using the 7th note as natural... I had seen many 4th notes used in its augmented form, so I didn't immediately connect those two things, and so it took maybe some months before I realized that Mozart had simply and seamlessly changed the key from A minor to E minor for a while (I would recall this revelation had something to do with fugues, because they usually continue in the key of the fifth note of the original key). I was even more puzzled when I was learning the first movement of Mozart's A minor sonata... Though I must say that Bach's C minor prelude from the 1st Book wasn't necessarily less puzzling... But anyway, I consider Mozart to be the unrivalled master of meaningful, musical chromaticism (and equally meaningful and musical, and seamless key changes... and as far as chromaticism is concerned, he's more daring in his works in major keys (which is because major keys can take more chromaticism without losing their tonal centre, or characteristic mood (try to use the augmented third note in a minor key, for example, without modulating into the corresponding major... might be difficult ))... Well, at least if we don't count Wagner... But Bach can be amazing, too...
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Originally posted by iamcanadian: Wait until you play the C# Minor Fugue - it's Bach's masterpiece in my opinion. I played this for a competition about 2 weeks ago.. It's... TOO good... I played it for about half a year (and it wasn't even perfect after that neither, it's insanely difficult too) and I never got sick of it. You'll always find new ideas (well, not hard with a 5 voiced triple fugue O_o) and it just doesn't get boring. Extremely powerful music, my fav p&f by FAR.
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Which one is th C# minor?
- apple who adores Bach and still can't identify key signatures by the number of sharps or flats.
accompanist/organist.. a non-MTNA teacher to a few
love and peace, Õun (apple in Estonian)
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No.4 I agree with you, Sam. Bach's music is endlessly fascinating. The WTC alone is just an extraordinary, amaranthine challenge.
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley
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apple - the Bach WTC starts in C major, and then C minor, and then ascends a semitone and repeats the pattern - so it is fairly easy to work out which key is which number in the WTC
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now that's a useful bit of information .. Max, thanks
accompanist/organist.. a non-MTNA teacher to a few
love and peace, Õun (apple in Estonian)
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Originally posted by apple*: Which one is th C# minor?
- apple who adores Bach and still can't identify key signatures by the number of sharps or flats. OK, Apple; here you go. There will be a quiz on this Friday morning. Sharp keys : 1 sharp = G major, E minor 2 sharps = D major, B minor 3 sharps = A major, F# minor 4 sharps = E major, C# minor 5 sharps = B major, G# minor 6 sharps = F# major, D# minor Flat keys : 1 flat = F major, D minor 2 flats = Bb major, G minor 3 flats = Eb major, C minor 4 flats = Ab major, F minor 5 flats = Db major, Bb minor 6 flats = Gb major, Eb minor Note that this completes the basic key signatures with F# major (6 sharps) being the enharmonic of Gb major (6 flats) - same sounds, just a different way of "spelling" the key. No need to worry about the rare writing of compositions in 7 sharps or 7 flats. Remember, no coffee Friday morning until you can recite these perfectly!
BruceD - - - - - Estonia 190
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Wait until you take classes in fugue and counterpoint, and try to write a few tonal fugues yourself! It made me respect Bach much more. Another interesting thing is the worldwide, timeless respect for Bach... from Bach's time to Mozart's to Beethoven's to Chopin's, to Ligeti's, and to my own compositions (about as modern as it gets, considering my last piece finished yesterday) Another wonderful thing about Bach is that in about every aspect he was ahead of his time. He was Avante-Gaurde and Contemporary then, which is another good reason to promote new music now!
"Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time."
-Albert Camus, Jim
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Originally posted by BruceD: OK, Apple; here you go. There will be a quiz on this Friday morning.
Remember, no coffe Friday morning until you can recite these perfectly! tests
accompanist/organist.. a non-MTNA teacher to a few
love and peace, Õun (apple in Estonian)
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Originally posted by L'echange: Another wonderful thing about Bach is that in about every aspect he was ahead of his time. He was Avante-Gaurde and Contemporary then, which is another good reason to promote new music now! I've been sightreading his chorales, and there's some wierd stuff in there (some really strange dissonances that you would expect from 20th century composers, not Bach).
Sam
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Does anyone else think that Bach violin pieces are more romantic than Romantic violin?
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I really like Prelude 21 (in Bb?) from WTC I. It is so nice to listen to, it doesn't sound so serious as the other Bach pieces, just wounderful... Originally posted by Mikester: Does anyone else think that [b]Bach violin pieces are more romantic than Romantic violin? [/b] Yes.
Kawai ES-110
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is never enough for music." -Sergei Rachmaninoff.
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Originally posted by pianojerome: Originally posted by L'echange: [b] Another wonderful thing about Bach is that in about every aspect he was ahead of his time. He was Avante-Gaurde and Contemporary then, which is another good reason to promote new music now! I've been sightreading his chorales, and there's some wierd stuff in there (some really strange dissonances that you would expect from 20th century composers, not Bach). [/b]Sam, have you read #216? Est ist Genug? That'll knock your socks off.
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Originally posted by BBBworship: yeah, i wouldn't call him the supreme god and ruler of the musical universe just by studying the c sharp major fugue
btw who here likes his ORGAN fugues? the dorian toccata and fugue is absolutely breathtaking I do and you're right the Dorian is an architectural masterpiece. I listened to the Passacaglia earlier today. But a few of my favorites are these; Toccata and Fugue in F; the toccata is an amazing exercise in modulation, the double fugue is too cool. Prelude and fugue in e minor (wedge); a symphony for organ in two movements, the fugue is a virtuosic masterpiece that will leave your head spinning. Prelude and fugue in Eb; a religious statement, the prelude and fugue each have 3 themes depicting the trinity. In the fugue the first theme is very fatherly, the second seems to me to describe an active young boy, and the third is a spirited dance. All three fit together to describe Bach's view of God. BTW, the Eb Prelude from WTC Bk 1 is sometimes considered a study for this prelude and fugue. Finally. Jerome, Bach was capable of some serious dissonance, check out the transition from the Adagio to the Fugue in Bach's Tocatta, Adagio and Fugue in C for organ. Also the end of the D major prelude is pretty cool (and the fugue rocks).
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one day i was reading bach's preludes and it struck me like a lighting bolt his music is DEEP-there was something else guiding this man's pen no doubt
a deeply religious man,i heard he lost his sight later in life but God gave him his sight back 3 days before he died so he could see his kids one last time
"musical training is a more potent instrument than any other because rhythym and harmony find their way into the inner places of the soul" -Plato
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I agree, when somoane listen/play Bach, you cannot understand that, that piece has been composed by a human been, is just A GOD WORK....
^^
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