WTF Bach

I had the great pleasure of speaking with Mr. Paul Jacobs. On the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, July 28th, 2000, Jacobs played Bach’s complete organ works in one giant 18 hour concert— he was 23. Our conversation spans how to memorize, scholars vs. performers, pianists playing the organ, pop music, music for consumption , ‘social media musicians,’ music as a substitute for God, The Art of Fug...

Update: Just got five promo codes to download Time Guru (the cool metronome app mentioned in the episode.) Send me a message or let me know down below you’re interested and I’ll share the codes! Happy Practicing Let’s get our good new habits in early in the year! In this episode, I read practical advice from three organists/organ method books. The organ method books are in a class of their own— hi...

This famous piece: saw quite a few revisions between its conception and the version we know. For starters, note the earliest version’s key signature, and the E-flat in bar 2: The most striking feature of the early version is the abrupt end: No presto ? No adagio ? No allegro ? The fugue (in 3 voices) is a fugue with two countersubjects. See them here, the first on top, the second below. Both count...

We’ve traveled halfway through the chromatic scale and Bach celebrates this victory with one of the more complex fugues in the collection. The subject is somber, full of half-steps and even a cross. It foreshadows the true finale at the close of all 24 pieces: This is one of the only fugues to make strict use of the countersubject, occurring in all but one (!) appearances of the subject. This moti...

YouTube These Days.... Enjoying your contrapuntal journey? Here’s how you can help: We encourage our listeners to become a paid subscriber at wtfbach.substack.com Free subscriptions (yes, you can subscribe for free!) are also beneficial for our numbers. You can make a one-time donation here. We run a 501(c)3, so let us know if you want a tax deduction: https://www.paypal.me/wtfbach https://venmo.c...

Anyone else feel like we don’t have enough fugues in F major? In the last of Bach’s four layerings to the fair copy of The Well-Tempered Clavier , we see some beautiful details that would have been lost had Bach not made this last series of revisions in the 1740s. It makes you wonder if Bach would have made even more, should he have lived as long as Telemann! Bar 42 reads like this in A1-A3 into t...

Giving thanks to all my listeners today! Why do you listen to this podcast? The original Spanish of the Borges poem, as read by my good friend, Andrea Profili. Otro poema de los dones Gracias quiero dar al divinoLaberinto de los efectos y de las causasPor la diversidad de las criaturasQue forman este singular universo,Por la razón, que no cesará de soñarCon un plano del laberinto,Por el rostro de...

Something’s missing: The fact that this piece was conceived independently of its solo line is a marvelous insight into Bach’s compositional process. Somewhere along the way, Bach revisited the piece and added the upper line: Here is a link to the video where Schiff talks about the Well-Tempered. And don’t miss the Kurt Vonnegut moment at 32:45! We survive solely on donations. Thank you for your he...

Just a few moments ago, two newly christened works were connected to Bach’s name for the time after 320 years. Exciting news, have a listen! Many thanks to the Bach Archive in Leipzig for the production. (Sorry for any glitches in the production, episode made in haste!) Know someone who’d enjoy hearing about this joyous discovery? A link to the source of d minor Chaconne, BWV 1178 A link to the so...

—More matter with less art. (Hamlet, II.ii) Got friends who speak English? Spread W.T.F. P.S. The music at the end is a taste of a forthcoming W.T.F. Bach album: arrangements of the Orgelbüchlein . Album title suggestions welcome! We survive solely on donations. Thank you for your help! We encourage our listeners to become a paid subscriber at wtfbach.substack.com Free subscriptions are also great...

“Whoever has once felt this wonderful tranquility has comprehended the mysterious spirit that has here expressed all it knew and felt of life in the secret language of tone, and will render Bach the thanks we render only to the great souls to whom it is given to reconcile men with life and bring them peace.” -Schweitzer, Vol. 1 W.T.F. Bach wants YOU to subscribe A prelude in E-flat minor, with a f...

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...