Culture: Conductor Jenny Wong Explores the (Spiritual) Depth of Bach

Classical KUSC ^

[khelus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgPGpd6V6Es

[SkyPilot]

trisham - post #14. Beautiful. Hauntingly beautiful.

That is what music is supposed to be. Bach was a rare genius.

[MarvinStinson]

They are not chorales.

They are motets.

[SkyPilot]

I actually don't think you judged Handel harshly at all. It is difficult to describe such composers work using a single word, but I must say you did pretty well - and stirred the debate towards an interesting direction.

I think that Handel was in some ways "staid" - because his traditionalism was comforting - at least some of his work is comforting to me. Because of Handle's deep faith in Christ, his work tended to reflect order. In order, we find God. That is why I despise postmodernism (especially in the arts). It is disordered, disjointed, illogical, and mocking - everything that the Creator is not.

I forgot about the Harmonious Blacksmith.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajk110pLZf8

Wonderful.

Again, I think you captured old Wolfgang perfectly by describing him as "exuberant."

In many ways, he was "out there" - but that is where his magnificance shines through. What do you think?

[SkyPilot]

I think that is a great example (especially the way it is played in that clip) of Bach's mathmatical precision.

I read an article a while back about a mathmatical analysis of Bach.

It's hard to imagine there is so much creativity in the human brain (well, in his, not mine).

Or as they said in that M*A*S*H episode:

[dfwgator]

That’s highly significant!

[dfwgator]

I’m partial to the fugue.

[SkyPilot]

Lol.

[SkyPilot]

Radar: Yeah. (checking another book) Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Sounds serious.

Hawkeye: Well, it was no picnic.

Radar: (reads) "The crumbling Roman Empire was beset with strife."

Trapper: You just spoiled the movie for me.

[dfwgator]

“I think I’ve been slaked.”

[SkyPilot]

So many great lines....

[dfwgator]

Back before M*A*S*H became “The Alan Alda Show”.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Brahms; Expansive.
Bach: Mysterious (among other adjectives)

[Sirius Lee]

Handelians I think are made so, chiefly through his operas. Despite the rather fluffy content of baroque opera, Handel manages to synthesize pure, simplistic unadulterated joy as in say "Happy, happy we" and switch emotional gears upon their consumption with the almost holy "No joy shall last" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEN6jiZdqcU

Handel is the master of baroque melody. Bach, the master of music in its purest forms. I play through various chunks of the WTC every night before moving on to Beethoven or Chopin and find something else in the way a phrase can be formed (Bach lets you do this) that changes the nature of the prelude or fugue.

Most composers give you exacting directions in the music, but Bach you get a very white canvas. You get notes, and rests (what the Japanese call the "Ma") and not much else.

The interpretation depends a great deal on one's knowledge or conception of baroque performance norms. The Bach of Czerny or Busoni is quite different than that of Andras Schiff or Gustav Leonhardt. But I would argue that they are all valid - at least in the case of Bach.

The nature of absolute music is that it is endlessly adaptable. Harpsichord, Concert Grand, Swingle Singers, Bela Fleck, Wendy/Walter Carlos, hot Russian chick with a guitar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olW6-jhSgMg, Stokowski with a full romantic orchestra, Mozart string quartet transpositions...

No other composer has that universality.

Still, Handel writes a better show tune.

[SkyPilot]

Handel is the master of baroque melody. Bach, the master of music in its purest forms.

Exactly.

Even though Bach was a barouque period composer, I don't think he is thought of as a quintessential baroque composer like Handel is today.

Bach is, well, in his own category.

I think you touched on it though - baroque celebrates the order of the universe.

But I have a weakness for baroque melody. I love Vivaldi. Isn't it amazing how many movies of the last 30 to 40 years have incorporated his work? The composer John Williams (who has written and conducted the musical scores for all of Spielberg's movies except for one) said he has used the influence of the great baroque masters in his scores.

Check this out:

John Williams - His film music and their influences

This is "Han and Leia's Theme" by Williams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxYIyPVo_Go

The melody is straight out of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D.

[Sirius Lee]

John Williams - His film music and their influences This is "Han and Leia's Theme" by Williams.

Wow, how funny. I had just dowloaded most of John Williams music for cinema yesterday afternoon before you responded. Leia's Theme is the real gem. The horns are straight out of P.I.T.'s Romeo and Juliet Overture.

[trisham]

Agreed! Thanks, SkyPilot.

[IronJack]

John Williams is the only modern composer worthy of the Classical pantheon. He is a genius on par with the greats. His Exultate Justi from Empire of the Sun is of Handelian magnitude, and he borrows from Wagner’s Ring Cycle for some of his Star Wars phrasings.

He is also a guitar virtuoso. And a conductor of the first order. A brilliant, brilliant man.

[IronJack]

Vivaldi, Scarlotti, Telemann ... Intricate, ornate, vivacious ...

[Larry Lucido]

Gary Brooker said he was influenced by Bach.