Here is a short piece on Bach written by Arthur Johnstone (pictured above), who studied under Mr. W. Custard the well-known organist, and later made his name as music critic of the Guardian.


"Bach is not one of the composers . . . whom it is allowable to dislike," he writes. "Any person whom Bach entirely fails to interest had better give up all pretence to being musical." That is so right isn't it. Any comments/musical examples?

That's funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing.

I spotted this earlier today:-


Mozart Handel & Bach
 
Eric Bergerud wrote (April 13, 2006):
Just got a copy of Paul McCreeh's version of the Mozart Great Mass. In keeping with McCreesh's policy of jamming every possible bit onto his CDs, it is accompanied by Haydn's "Scena di Berenice" and Beethoven's "Ah! perfido", giving the listener over 74 minutes of music on the disc. And as is the norm with McCreesh the engineering is absolutely top drawer. The performances are not as idiosyncratic as some of the conductor's other efforts, but sweet to my ears.

The following appears in the liner notes. It might be of some note as apparently Richard Taruskin is arguing that the continuity between the German baroque and German romantic composers was an artificial construct created by German musical nationalists after the Franco-Prussian War. (He may be right I suppose. Would Handel count as a representative of the German baroque?)

Mozart wrote his Mass soon after his friend Baron Gottfried van Swieten loaned him the works of Bach (possibly including a copy of the B minor Mass obtained from C.P.E. Bach) and Handel. These were to have a profound effect on the young composer, and his own Mass setting shows the influence of his baroque predecessors.

****

The article does go on to say that Handel is the greater influence on Mozart's Mass, also that Handel was perhaps the greater composer.

Comments?   

 

Assuming that Mr Taruskin considers Mendelssohn to be a Romantic composer, then I should like to see him prove conclusively that (1) Mendelssohn's organ prelude, Op 37/1 is not written in a baroque style; (2) that the same composer's Mitten wir im Lebens sind, Op 23/3 was not influenced by Schütz!

I could not have put it better myself!

Now let us think: "Mrs Kerfoops"? Spoof+rek? (I'm sure it will come!)

In the meantime Mr Martle's picture strikes a particularly affectionate accord I feel. 

Baziron

Evening Baziron

Baz(iron), you've come and gone enough before for us just to wave you through: we know who you are, and that you know the ropes. At the moment, sorting out spammers is a rather higher priority, to be honest.

Schönberg's friend the violist and conductor Hermann Scherchen, who conducted the first performance of the 1911 Chamber Symphony, enjoyed Bach's Art of Fugue so much that he recorded three different orchestrations thereof (those of Graeser, Vuataz, and himself). Here is what he had to say about Bach:


and he added: "Only with the Art of Fugue does the true being of music begin."

In 1946 he published a book entitled "Das moderne Musikempfinden," a somewhat ambiguous title; does it mean "The Experience of Modern Music" or "The Modern [way of] Experiencing Music"? That is to say, does "modern" modify "music" or "experience," and is the object of the experience "modern music" or "music" in general? Any comments/musical examples?