WTF Bach

A most precious 15 minutes of audio. In improvised miniatures with different combinations of stops, Helmut Walcha gives invaluable insights into the world of improvising and the various colors on the organ. An assistant names the stops he will use before he plays— you can see the list of stops in the links. I recommend the first link in particular for its details on the restorations and the photos...

Continuing our study of The Well-Tempered Clavier , ( hear the first episode in this series via this link ) Bach begins the second quarter of the collection with a dramatic genre: a fugal prelude. Not only that, the fugue appears to be a double fugue! The prelude begins more contrapuntally than the preludes we have met thus far: After a few bars of this, Bach dashes our hope that the prelude will...

“Cheever was a reasonably tormented man.” -Jerry Lowenthal Enjoy this short story— one of the great American short stories— by John Cheever. Thanks!-Evan Help this resource survive for future Bach enthusiasts! 100% fueled by your support. We exist because of your Donations: We encourage our listeners to become a paid subscriber at wtfbach.substack.com You can also make a one-time donation here: ht...

How boring would this be? Admittedly, I still find that beautiful, but Bach is one note ahead of me: We have a prelude propelled by its instability. This might be something to pay attention to in The Well-Tempered Clavier —if not all his writing in the early 1720s— ordinary melodic shapes that become more compelling when slightly offset. We want YOU! to support WTF Bach We are 25% of the way throu...

While the ‘double-dot’ may well have shown up during Bach’s lifetime, I’m not aware of him ever using it. To assume that his music never makes use of such rhythm would obviously be incorrect. Instead, we need to seek out where it might and might not be applied. Continuing our tour through The Well-Tempered Clavier, in the D Major Fugue now, BWV 850, we see a possible implication of double-dots in...

(Rated PG ) Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth instamus tamen inmemores caecique furore, et monstrum infelix sacrata sistimus arce. Aeneid, II.244-245 (Yet blindly we persist, forgetful in our fury, and we place the monster, unhappy, upon our sacred citadel.) I like to think about the origins of phrases we use in English. Imagine you’re a foreigner and someone says, “go on, spill the beans…” Her...

J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works, Vol. 5- Musical Offering, Suite 823 is now available everywhere you listen to music— platform specific links below— have a listen! A Musical Offering ( Ein Musikalisches Opfer ) BWV 1079, is one of Bach’s late mono-thematic masterpieces. When Bach visited his son and King Frederick the Great in 1747, he was challenged to improvise upon the following, extemporane...

Enjoy this powerful story (1953) by Karen Blixen.-Evan We Survive on your Donations! Thank you! We encourage our listeners to become a paid subscriber at wtfbach.substack.com You can also make a one-time donation here: https://www.paypal.me/wtfbach https://venmo.com/wtfbach Supporting this show ensures its longevity! —Help WTF Bach reach more listeners— Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.s...

“Bach the master surgeon leaves no scar.” Listen on wtfbach.substack.com for the best experience. Subscriptions are free! There are only two five-voice fugues in The Well-Tempered Clavier, and only two triple fugues. This fugue is both— a five voice triple fugue. Should I be tempted to add some (perhaps too convenient) theological rhetoric to this fugue, an analysis might read like this: Three sub...

“It seems that classical musicians — and as I now understand, jazz musicians at conservatory— are trained to forget the purpose of the music right at the point they start interpreting it.” In this short episode (11 minutes of talking + 10 minutes of music) I read an entry from my practice diary which may be interesting enough to ponder… As it was passed around during covid, the “Coronavirus Etude”...

In the beginning was the arpeggio, and the arpeggio was in C major, and the arpeggio was C major… To which ill-tempered friend will you send this? We are lucky Bach bothered writing out his arpeggio preludes. Here, for example, is what would later become the C-sharp Major prelude, from Book 2: Who, without the aid of Bach’s revisions, would be so bold to turn that into: So too, in the early versio...

It’s high time we delve into what Schumann called a musician’s ‘daily bread.’ The Well-Tempered Clavier is one of the collections closest to the composer’s heart—and to the hearts of countless other musicians throughout history. The episode on temperament I mentioned. I think of the two books of this collection as having only outward similarities. The music in both parts are as separate as The Art...

PG-13 Warning . This isn’t the norm—just testing the cult of Shinners. Future episodes stay true to our Bach tradition. Enjoyed this? Do you want some more of my originals mixed in with your weekly Bach? Literally Can't Thank You Enough in Advance I try to “bear the burden of bitterness which experience forces on us with as much uncomplaining dignity as strength will allow” as restaurants around m...

A few months back I had the pleasure of interviewing Ton Koopman. If you’re at home in the Baroque, you’re no stranger to his work. Please enjoy this interview, marking the 100th episode of The WTF Bach Podcast! Thanks for your support, thanks to all those who make this work possible. Here’s looking forward to 100 more! Topics Covered (Chronologically) Works of doubtful authenticity (Violin Sonata...

Listen to the new album here : https://modernclassicalx.lnk.to/BachCompleteKeyboardWorksVol4PartitasPtOne Today I’ve released Volume 4 in my “Complete Keyboard Works” of JSB. This album contains three pieces by the master: Partita no. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825 Partita no. 2 in c minor, BWV 826 Partita no. 3 in a minor, BWV 827 Bach’s Opus One —the six Partitas of Clavier-Übung I —were first issue...

Would you object to the comparison of Messiaen and Borges? I see both 20th century giants deeply steeped in the masters of the past, throughly conversant in the antique, and yet they bring something uniquely modern— magical. Borges’ stories have the ability to stun, to make one wonder, or in the case of the story I read today, elicit tears. After Shakespeare’s Memory , (1983) which I believe is hi...

Yep. I based an entire episode on the pun. We study two works not usually heard in the organ repertoire, the Prelude (Fantasy) BWV 569 and the Prelude with Fugue BWV 551, both in a minor. These are not the best known pieces in the repertoire, but they command our attention—especially when you consider that one of them was written when Bach was just 14 years old. BWV 569 , composed around 1708 when...

The oldest surviving (ca. 1100) German church melody is centered around Easter and the resurrection: Christ ist erstanden . Luther adapted this into Christ lag in Todesbanden . Both texts culminate in a triumphant “Hallelujah!” What kind of music could Bach compose for such a joyous word? In every instance, it demands a distinctly exalted treatment. We discuss the origins of the word Alleluia, and...

Today, Good Friday 2025, marks 300 years since Bach performed the St. John Passion in Leipzig. … but it started like this: But wait, I thought the St. John Passion was: In this episode, beyond outlining the basic revisions between the 1724 and 1725 (and a few other) versions of BWV 245, we’ll study how people heard passion music, the purpose of a passion setting, and how Bach, by changing the open...

The organ held a central role in the life of a baroque keyboardist. Not only was an accomplished harpsichordist or clavichordist comfortable playing with their feet, but the art suggests that the repertoire often called for ad libitum pedal additions. In J.S. Bach’s second collection of chorale prelude for organ, he introduces obligato pedal parts. Below is an image from his Bach’s earliest choral...

A beloved cantata from Bach’s early 20s, the Actus Tragicus anticipates the future of opera more than it foreshadows Bach’s own later cantatas. Albert Schweitzer’s beautiful writing on Bach features heavily in this episode. Here is the tuning video with chorale in question toward the end of the episode: WTF Bach is a listener-supported publication. To receive new episodes, to support the work, con...

The bard— not the brook, but don’t worry, this podcast isn’t going to become an English lesson. Thanks for reading WTF Bach! This post is public so feel free to share it. Here is my reading of Shakespeare’s first publication, Venus and Adonis , a poem that is pure music. If I were to list my favorite lines, I might as well copy out half the poem. Just something that pops into my head would be a li...

UPDATE: One of my astute listeners pointed out that it is in fact Jones’ review of Butler’s work in Music & Letters, and the original work by Butler is this book . Thanks for the correction! Don’t miss the end of this episode where I play three of Bach’s earlier settings of the same tune, BWVs 700, 701, & 738! We finish our study of this late masterpiece by reading some scholarship on the two diff...

Today, as we did in episode 5 of this miniseries, we’ll examine the revisions Bach made from engraving copy to handwritten copy. This is an important view into the composer’s workshop, and unlike clear ameliorations between layers in his other works, the two versions of BWV 769 present a unique challenge in seeking the “best” version. Changes like this (first beat, alto) are minute, yet fascinatin...

Show me a finale as densely packed with thematic material as this one. Here are the five bars — the only five bars — discussed in today’s episode. You might listen while looking at them: Notice the finale comes in two stages, first diminution, then stretto. The signature in the final bar is noteworthy (though it should be mentioned that the letters are an addition by the editor.) And here is a vid...