The WTF Bach Podcast

Becoming familiar with Bach’s music is a never-ending process. First, there is the initial reading, which alone can occupy many happy years. What’s remarkable is that with each further reading, you’re astonished by the details you missed before—quite honestly amazed. You ask yourself: Where—or even who—was I during those earlier readings? You begin to measure your growth as a musician against the depth with which you can now understand the pieces.

One fugue, which I initially read with little interest, is the one featured in this episode: BWV 537. Suddenly, I’m struck by its raw power and its structural reliance on a chromatic line. Now that it has revealed itself to me, it will forever remain a favorite. I hope to share with you a glimpse of this experience in today’s episode.

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In this episode, we’ll explore Bach’s constant involvement with weddings. Weddings and funerals occupied a weekly place in Bach’s life in Leipzig and we’ll shed light on the various ways in which he was involved musically.

[I forgot to credit the last recording in this episode to Rudolph Lutz and the J.S. Bach foundation.]

Here are (some of) the beautiful parts which make up the chorales, BWVs 250-252. They are beautiful examples of Bach’s handwriting ca. 1730. Note that all three chorales are on the same page.

Soprano:

Alto:

Tenor:

Bass:

And the second horn part I fondly discuss in this episode:

All the parts are viewable at:

https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00002475

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A brief(er) episode for you today: Bach’s first published opus was his six partitas for keyboard. In some of the sources within Bach’s circle, copies retained as a ‘Handexemplar’ include revisions by a scribe we can almost say with certainty is Bach himself. The most consequential of these revisions appears at the end of the third partita, where the second half of the Gigue is re-written with what one might call ‘updated’ or ‘refined’ counterpoint.

Here we see the main source (G 25) in question:

Hard to see here, but if we zoom in, we see that this:

Is a correction of the original printings, which read:

This link here should allow you to download the original print of all six partitas.

N.B. As that link is the download of the original print, it will not contain any of the corrections mentioned in this episode. For a full list of the scholarship on these changes, see:

Wolff, C. (1999). Text-critical comments on the original print of the Partitas. In Bach: Essays on his life and music (pp. 214-222). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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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 youtube playlists) at the bottom:]

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The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to achieve maximum effect.

Volume One:

Youtube playlist!

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycy2fab7

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/nhfuws4t

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/mrxj7pws

Volume Two:

Youtube playlist!

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/msjyhamh

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mtykbxnz

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3m7b9v6w

Volume Three:

Youtube playlist!

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Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3e4kwnsb

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:

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The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to achieve maximum effect.

Volume One:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycy2fab7

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/nhfuws4t

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/mrxj7pws

Volume Two:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/msjyhamh

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mtykbxnz

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3m7b9v6w

Volume Three:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/4xneak6r

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mr44kwmf

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3e4kwnsb

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

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The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to make me a millionaire.

Volume One:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycy2fab7

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/nhfuws4t

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/mrxj7pws

Volume Two:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/msjyhamh

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mtykbxnz

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3m7b9v6w

Volume Three:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/4xneak6r

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mr44kwmf

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3e4kwnsb

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.

You can stream and individually purchase any track including the performer’s commentary from the second volume here. —More streaming links (including youtube playlists) at the bottom:

How To Support This Podcast:

https://www.paypal.me/wtfbach

https://venmo.com/wtfbach

https://cash.app/$wtfbach

or become a paid subscriber at wtfbach.substack.com

The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to achieve maximum effect.

Volume One:

Youtube playlist!

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycy2fab7

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/nhfuws4t

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/mrxj7pws

Volume Two:

Youtube playlist!

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/msjyhamh

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mtykbxnz

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3m7b9v6w

Volume Three:

Youtube playlist!

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/4xneak6r

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mr44kwmf

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3e4kwnsb

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 make a perpetual piece of music in several voices.

You will hear the solutions in the episode. Here is how they appear on the page:

This is the first canon discussed. From these two measures of music, eight voices are formed.

This is the second canon discussed: a four-voice canon with each voice entering a successive fifth higher than the last. It’s the four clefs at the beginning of the line that clue you in on this. The %-like symbol shows you where the next voice enters.

This is BWV 1074, the mysterious ‘Houdemann’ canon. Note the four clefs on the left of the staff, but also the four clefs to the right. They are inverted with a different key signature. Bach here was exploring the a truly symmetrical— not merely diatonic— inversion.

The final canon of the episode. The charming two-voice canon for one of his Godchildren. This canon is simple to solve and the easiest to comprehend.

Yes, the famous F-A-B-E-R, “mi fa, et fa mi est tota musica” canon will be in one of the next episodes— rest assured!

How To Support This Podcast:

https://www.paypal.me/wtfbach

https://venmo.com/wtfbach

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The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to achieve maximum effect.

Volume One:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycy2fab7

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/nhfuws4t

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/mrxj7pws

Volume Two:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/msjyhamh

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mtykbxnz

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3m7b9v6w

Volume Three:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/4xneak6r

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mr44kwmf

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3e4kwnsb

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 Podcast:

https://www.paypal.me/wtfbach

https://venmo.com/wtfbach

https://cash.app/$wtfbach

or become a paid subscriber at wtfbach.substack.com

The first three albums of the 'Complete Works for Solo Keyboard' are live everywhere. Stream while sleeping to achieve maximum effect.

Volume One:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycy2fab7

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/nhfuws4t

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/mrxj7pws

Volume Two:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/msjyhamh

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mtykbxnz

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3m7b9v6w

Volume Three:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/4xneak6r

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/mr44kwmf

Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/3e4kwnsb

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 episodes, but now it’s time to call it a wrap on all fourteen. These additional canons were discovered only as late as the 1970s. For a more detailed history, check the three previous episodes dealing with these canons:

Here is the image of the canon, “Christ will Crown the Cross-bearers” that appears in the family registry book belonging to J.G. Fulde:

And of course, Bach and his “business card:”

The bass line in both the images (and in all of the canons) is our beloved “first eight fundamental notes of the preceding aria” on which all the canons are based.

Be sure to get my forthcoming three albums on PRESALE before they go live on May 17th!

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

How To Support This Podcast:

https://www.paypal.me/wtfbach

https://venmo.com/wtfbach

https://cash.app/$wtfbach

or become a paid subscriber at wtfbach.substack.com