WTF Bach

The final performer’s commentary episode for you. This is live commentating (the program notes of the future) on the last of my three simultaneous releases. This album is a bunch of preludes and fugues— some maybe you know, some maybe you don’t. You can stream and individually purchase any track including the performer’s commentary from the third volume below. [More streaming links (including yout...

Johann Adolph Scheibe went down in history for attacking Bach’s “turgid and confused” style. “…from the natural to the artificial, and from the lofty to the obscure ... one wonders at the painful labor of it all, that nevertheless comes to nothing, since it is at variance with reason.” Let’s examine the controversy from the beginning. How To Support This Podcast: https://www.paypal.me/wtfbach http...

On March 1, 1749, Bach penned the following into a Stammbuch : Today’s episode covers this canon in depth. What does it mean? How does it sound? Here is a link to the article by scholar, Anatoly Milka. The book, Bach and the meaning of Counterpoint, by David Yearsley is available here . How To Support This Podcast: https://www.paypal.me/wtfbach https://venmo.com/wtfbach https://cash.app/$wtfbach o...

Another performer’s commentary episode for you. If you’ve missed out on the second of my three simultaneous releases, you’ll have a chance to listen to it here, with my live commentary. This commentary specifically addresses the issue of the lute in Bach, and the question of ‘lautenwerk’ or ‘lautenwerck’ in Bach’s instrumentation. You can stream and individually purchase any track including the pe...

Thanks for your feedback on the last few episodes. I’ve gathered my listeners enjoy piecing together musical cells in their minds, so today’s episode will bring you more of that. The eight surviving canons, BWVs 1072-1078 (+BWV deest ) were written on small pieces of paper or penned into registry books. Their compact content, usually only a few notes, is then ‘solved:’ copied and transformed to ma...

If you miss those DVDs with the optional director’s commentary, you’re going to enjoy this episode. Each album in my ‘J.S. Bach Complete Solo Keyboard Works’ will be accompanied by this type of work, my commentating as the music plays. You can stream (and individually purchase) any track including the performer’s commentary from the first album here: How To Support This Resource: https://www.paypa...

You know that portrait of Bach holding a little scrap of music? Ever wonder what the piece was? What it sounded like? That piece of paper is a six-voice, triple canon : number thirteen in the fourteen additional canons found on the back of Bach’s personal copy of the Goldberg Variations. (Analysis of that specific canon around 32 min.) We’ve covered nine of these puzzling pieces in three previous...

ALBUMS ON PRESALE TODAY! BUY THE ALBUMS HERE! Volume One: Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/nhfuws4t Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/mrxj7pws Volume Two: Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mtykbxnz Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3m7b9v6w Volume Three: Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mr44kwmf Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3e4kwnsb As for the music covered today, we will hear Doubles layered...

Thanks for all your support during The Bach Store! If you’re in NYC on Friday, come to Le Poisson Rouge at 158 Bleecker Street at 7pm. Be sure to mark your calendars: April 24th, 2024, my new albums will be on PRE-sale. It marks the beginning of my most ambitious project to date: a very thorough, if possible, ‘complete’ set of the keyboard works of Bach. I will certainly send another reminder as t...

You read correctly: The Bach Store is back . In Erfurt, Thuringia, the state from where the Bachs hail. I will play for five hours, March 14-28, 12.00-18.00 GMT +1 (7AM-1PM EST.) You can (hopefully) stream the whole run on my youtube. Subscribe HERE . Or go to: www.youtube.com/@wtfbach Here is the latest video I mentioned in the podcast . Bach Store Merchandise is available on request. Send an ema...

This week I’ll be performing some flute chamber music in Santa Barbara, California. I realize I’ve never specifically mentioned Bach’s wonderful flute repertoire on this podcast. We tackle here what I find is the most complex composition in the repertoire: the first movement of the b minor sonata, BWV 1030. Pieces heard: BWV 1030.1 Source P. 1008, early version, harpsichord part. BWV 1030.2 The la...

This is the final episode introducing Bach’s cantata cycle of 1724. In the first four cantatas of the cycle, we heard how Bach used Lutheran hymnal melodies as cantus firmi in different voice parts in each opening movement (sopranos, followed by altos, followed by tenors, followed by basses.) Here, the next two cantatas see less predictable treatments of the old melodies. Bach evidently valued the...

Last episode we introduced Bach’s second cantata cycle from 1724. We saw in the first cantatas of the cycle, Bach used a church melody as the cantus firmus first in the sopranos, then the altos. This episode we will explore the next two cantatas where Bach sets the cantus firmus in the tenors in BWV 7, and the basses in BWV 135. About the melody you may know as “O Sacred Head Surrounded” Pieces he...

Peter Schickele was one of my idols. He died on Tuesday, January 16. His creation, P.D.Q. Bach , helped bring much needed self-effacing humor to the world of classical music. Links below to help you get into his (and Victor Borge’s— another giant of classical music parody—) life and work: Peter Schickele’s Obituary, NY Times Beethoven’s 5th announced as a baseball game (a classic!) The Short-Tempe...

In this episode we delve into Bach’s second cantata cycle begun in 1724. The first two cantatas are briefly covered, (with two further cantatas to follow next episode) as well as the connection between the Lutheran church melodies and the significance of the year Bach began this ambitious project. Pieces heard: BWV 20, O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (Click here to see the live video) BWV 2, Ach Gott, v...

I rarely just play on this podcast, but that’s how I’d like to package this little present for my listeners. Rather than spending days researching and writing, today I will play four fugues and introduce them only briefly. It’s some twenty minutes of music I hope you can enjoy during your holidays. The quote I read to introduce this short concert is by Mortimer J. Adler . Bach wrote this music bef...

In today’s episode we have a look at one of Bach’s Arnstadt masterpieces, the fugue in c minor BWV 574 on a theme by Giovanni Maria Bononcini (The composers Giovanni Bononcini and Antonio Maria Bononcini were his sons.) According to the Neue Bach Ausgabe, this fugue is the first double fugue in history. Here is a picture of the title page in his brother’s hand with the erroneous attribution to Leg...

EDIT June 2024. I have misunderstood the term ‘Applicatio’ in this episode. I now understand it to refer to the fingering and not the application of ornaments— despite the fact that many ornaments are ‘applied’ in the piece. ‘Applicatio’ as I now understand it sometimes referred to the hand position on a string instrument, or here, where to ‘apply’ the fingers. This video highlights the correction...

How did Bach understand the concept of Phi ? 1.618 …? Here are a few examples where Bach highlights the “Golden Section” in a piece through either a fugal technique, a shift in musical language, or something else. Send us your most remarkable golden section moments! For the first episode where I mentioned the golden section and Bach, click here . Pieces covered: Fugue in C major, BWV 846 Invention...

In this episode I delve into two very diverse chorale preludes: one from the so-called, “Great 18” and one from the individually transmitted. Here is a link to Bach’s own autograph of the Leipzig chorales. Beautiful handwriting! Marie-Claire Alain’s recording of BWV 655 (completely different to Koopman’s) The “Organ Sonatas” I recorded with LH/RH hard panning On Spotify on Apple Music We survive s...

-- I AM STARTING A SUBSTACK SOON SO JOIN THE FUN: WTFBACH.SUBSTACK.COM -- Thanks for listening! In this episode we discuss the history of the Chorale- how it became called 'Chorale' and how it factors into Bach's music. Pieces featured: BWV 691 and BWV 93 (Chorale) at the same time BWV 651 BWV 682 Performers were: Michel Chapuis, Kay Johannsen -- Here are the links to the cantata cycles mentioned...

Though this episode starts with quite the extended introduction, this is in fact EPISODE THREE In a four-part study into the 14 additional canons on the back of the Goldbergs, BWV1087. Here in this video, we dismiss a popular Bach video, and examine which videos are in fact Möbius strips.  Here is the  disproven crab canon video. Here are two studies which don't quite go far enough: One . I love t...

Finally! The influential Joshua Rifkin guests on the WTF Bach Podcast.  Rifkin made Bach fame with his groundbreaking (and controversial!) theory that Bach’s vocal works (and other 17th & 18th century) composers’ works were sung with only one singer per part. He recorded the b minor mass, several cantatas, and other Bach works in this format.  We spoke for almost three hours about ragtime, the...

Q: What if those really slow interpretations of the cello suites from the 30s and 50s could be sped up? A: Exactly.   https://www.jsbachcellosuites.com  - check out this website! It's a great source on the history of the recordings of these pieces.   Thanks for all your feedback, donations, ideas, everything. Please follow @wtfbach on instagram for (almost) daily Bach content.   We thank YOU for s...

Thanks for supporting us through 50 episodes!  What makes Bach, BACH?! As a special celebration, the 50th episode of The WTF Bach Podcast is a live lecture presented by Tonebase. The topic is the ever looming one: why is Bach's importance so great? Studying the ideas behind a few of his instrumental collections, we see that Bach's ideas are always expanding outward, perhaps lending to his all-perv...