WTF Bach

One of the most important documents we posses about J.S. Bach— indeed the first biographical writing— is his obituary, written by his son, C.P.E., and his student, Agricola.

Also referred to as the ‘Nekrolog,’ the obituary appeared in Mizler’s (yes, the Society of Musical Sciences gentleman) publication, Musikalische Bibliothek, in its very last installment.

In this brief portrait of the greatest composer, we are struck by the renown of his family tree, the unanimous admiration of all those who heard Bach, but ultimately by the humility of his spirit despite his towering achievements.

Write That Fugue!

The obituary is also important because it contains Bach’s ‘first list of works.’ The five cantata cycles and five passions mentioned in the list are addressed in this article on Bach’s missing works:

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The music at the end is BWV 600, from a forthcoming ‘electrified’ arrangement of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein.

The beautiful passage toward the end of my rant— with the koto accompaniment and bird song— comes from one of my absolute favorite books: R.H. Blythe’s writings about Haiku. Blyth considered the three greatest geniuses of time to be Basho, Bach, and Shakespeare— in that order! Wow! What am I missing with Basho!?

More than a podcast. This is WTF Bach.

I take my groceries from the bag and notice the bag says,

This is more than food.

More than food? But I want to eat …food. Just food. Maybe they’re referring to the packaging? This is more than food: it’s packaging wrapped around the food. But then I read on:

This is impact.

Impact? Do I want to eat impact? Does impact have gluten?

My chocolate bar, too.

This is more than chocolate.

Uh-oh.

This is freedom.

Yikes. Should I …eat the freedom part? Maybe I shouldn’t. Sounds like something a dictator would do.

How would you like your freedom Signori Mussolini?

Rare. Very rare.

My milk says something too. Goddamn! When did food get so talkative?

For Family Farm Dairy, milk is more than just a drink.

Oh here we go again…

Our Cows are family.

Family? With, like, beds in the house? I thought dogs in airports was too much, but now: cows… Do not pet. Emotional support heifer.

And while I’m in the airport, I need something to eat. I’m still hungry because this all this impact and freedom hasn’t filled me up. I see a sign,

Eat beautiful.

Eat beauti…ful…? Oh I get it, ‘Subway. Eat Fresh.’ now this. But this is somehow worse. We all want fresh food, even if it is grammatically incorrect fresh food, but beautiful food? I’m not ready for that. Especially since it’s …at an airport.

Eat beautiful? What was wrong with eat beautifully? But then again, what is eating beautifully? Picture Sophia Loren eating sushi. But eat beautiful? Sorry, don’t eat adjectives.

Eat photogenic. Eat prepossessing. Someone will drop one of these on us soon enough.

Sirs, our data reports show that people are consuming 20% more beautiful, but they’re not eating enough of our product! Hence, our new slogan: eat sexy.

Oh yes, yes! Eat sexy. Fantastic, brilliant. Maybe we can get some pink ribbons and black and white photos on the edamame. Could we wrap the steaks in lingerie? Who would eat beautiful when they could eat sexy?

Spread the Happy.

This is a real one. These are all real ones. Honey, can you, uh, pass the happy? I know we’re in a sexless marriage and our children never call, but if we just spread a little more of this Happy…

Cadbury told us to Free the joy

Now it’s on us to free something? To free an emotion? We wouldn’t have to if they didn’t trap it in there. One chocolate bar is freedom, another is enslaving joy. Poor joy, all trapped in that wrapper. Here let me set you free.

It’s all spin-offs on Coca-Cola, anyhow, the greatest grifters of all time. Open happiness. God, it’s brilliant. It preys on people. Open happiness, I even like it.

But then they changed it to taste the feeling. The feeling. What feeling? The feeling of… tasting? Taste the feeling of tasting. It’s weird. It’s just shifting around words until they’ve lost all meaning. But that’s old hat by now because these days coca-cola tells us it’s real magic. Magic. We’ve gone from happiness to magic.

Ah. I see where this is going Allow me to save coke years of market research, what you’re after is, “Coke: the Carbonated Christ.”

Food is out of control— and arrogant! I liked it when food was food. I’m sick of eating beautiful and happy. I want a meal! Would you care for some freshly ground joy on your magic? Oh grow up! Are you living in Never-Never Land?

Remember, “the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup?” Nice, simple. Somewhat true. The best part of waking up, after, naturally assuring yourself you haven’t died in your sleep, could well be a cup of coffee.

Folgers never said, “we’re more than Folgers, we’re a cultivated set of moral codes, congratulations.” Nowadays our coffee tells us, This is more than coffee. It’s Starbucks.

Oh! I see… Well, you should be the first to know that this podcast is more than a podcast. It’s WTF Bach.

Don’t you feel lucky.

Maybe junk food needs to speak. Your body can’t possibly feel good about washing down your chocolate taco with that coke, so you need a mind-numbing mantra as you do it. This… is happiness… c’mon, c’mon, cram more of that happiness in there…

But then— but then!— my rice spoke to me— rice! Rice isn’t supposed to talk. Rice is a quiet food— The zen meal. But today at the store, all the rice said,

Live like you mean it.

Why, the thought never occurred to me! Like I mean it? Have I been living like I don’t mean it? How does one mean… wait, What is meaning… is this one of those Buddhist riddles…

When did rice figure out the meaning of life and why are they announcing it on a pouch?

Live like you mean it… what is it? Life? Like I intend to keep liv…? oh… I see. By eating. Don’t starve, eat food if you want to go on living.

“We all eat in complete solitude; the melancholy of the four seasons bathes us in its pitifulness. And deeper even than this is our perception of the pathos of eating. We eat to live. We are but a step from starvation, a hair’s breadth from death. And the obliviousness of [ourselves to our] own pathos, the self-forgetful state in which [we are] while eating, induces in us the same state of unselfconsciousness. This is the realm of pathos (in the sense that All is Pathos) to which this verse leads us with such gentle hands.”

Well if you put it that way, I agree. You must eat to live, so pick me! Pick me!

I’d always assumed that food didn’t need to tell the humans to it eat it, but hey, I am glass half-full kind of guy. Glass half full of Aspire. This is more than water. This is daydream.

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Volume 6 in ‘J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works’ is on presale today! Here are the relevant links:

* J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works, Vol. 6 - Arrangements of Albinoni and Reincken(https://modernclassicalx.lnk.to/JSBachCompleteKeyboardWorksVol6FromArrangementsofAlbinoniandReincken)

I might call this volume a ‘headphones album’ or perhaps one to listen to in the car: The sonic space shifts throughout the course of these pieces. I describe this process in depth in the episode, but essentially each track is two recordings of the piece, playing simultaneously: one recording is the original live performance, while another is that very same performance, played back through the Disklavier with the dynamics flatlined— as if the piano keyboard were incapable of dynamics — like a harpsichord. The two recordings were then ‘live panned’ during the mixing according to my feeling for the music. The result, while perhaps less extreme than this all sounds, is certainly a noticeable phenomenon, especially in headphones or seated between two speakers as in a car. But enough about that, let’s get to the music.

Fugue it:

Reincken, one of the two composers Bach arranges on this album, is mentioned in Bach’s obituary:

During this time, about the year 1722, he made a journey to Hamburg and was heard for more than two hours on the fine organ of St. Catherine’s before the Magistrate and many other distinguished persons of the town, to their general astonishment. The aged Organist of this Church, Johann Adam Reinken, who at that time was nearly a hundred years old, listened to him with particular pleasure. Bach, at the request of those present, performed extempore the chorale ‘An Wasserflüssen Babylon’ at great length (for almost half an hour) and in different ways, just as the better organists of Hamburg in the past had been used to do at the Saturday vespers. Particularly on this, Reinken made Bach the following compliment: “I thought that this art was dead, but I see that in you it still lives.” This verdict of Reinken’s was the more unexpected since he himself had set the same chorale, many years before, in the manner described above; and this fact, as also that otherwise he had always been somewhat inclined to be envious, was not unknown to our Bach. Reinken thereupon pressed him to visit him and showed him much courtesy.

Reinken was only in his late seventies— not a hundred— when he and Bach met, but he had already been an important part of Bach’s early development. Around 1714 Bach made arrangements of string chamber music by Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751) and Johann Adam Reinken (1643-1722.) Where Bach’s concerto arrangements BWVs 972-987 for harpsichord, and BWVs 592-597 for organ, maintain the general structures and forms of the originals, Bach’s Reincken and Albinoni music is arranged with much more freedom, especially in the fugues, where Bach often doubles, if not triples, the length of the original models.

The full track listing to the forthcoming album, on presale today, available October 23:

1: Fugue in A major, BWV 950 (on a theme by Albinoni)

2. Sonata in C major, BWV 966 (after Reincken): I. Praeludium 3. Sonata in C major, BWV 966: II. Fuga4. Sonata in C major, BWV 966: III. Adagio – Allegro5. Sonata in C major, BWV 966: IV. Allemande

6. Fugue in C major, BWV 946 (on a theme by Albinoni)

7. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965 (after Reincken): I. Adagio8. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: II. Fuga9. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: III. Adagio – Presto10. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: IV. Allemande11. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: V. Courante12. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: VI. Sarabande13. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: VII. Gigue

14. Fugue in B minor, BWV 951a (early version of BWV 951)15. Fugue in B minor, BWV 951 (on a theme by Albinoni)

16. Fugue in B-flat major, BWV 954 (on a theme by Reincken)

Write That Fugue!

We’ve covered one of the pieces on the album on the site before. In a post from September 2025, I described in depth the transcriptive changes between Bach’s BWV 965 and Reinken’s Hortus Musicus. In this post, you can see excerpts of the scores of both the Bach and the Reinken. It might be helpful to see this again:

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We’ve now covered the seven surviving earliest vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach! This episode is a brief tour through the episodes we dedicated to these pieces, refreshing our memories and attempting to identify unifying stylistic features.

All the episodes covering the Arnstadt/Mülhausen cantatas can be found at:https://wtfbach.substack.com/t/early-cantatas

Wanna Cantata?

Here’s an image that might help you wrap your head around the earliest cantatas:

For the first time I spoke about Bach’s librettists. We will meet them as our study moves into the later cantatas. There are five identifiable poets, and one anonymous. What did you think about my mnemonic?

Solomon Franck (a.k.a Solomo)Erdmann NeumeisterGeorg Christian LehmsChristian Friedrich Henrici (a.k.a. Picander)Christiane Mariane von Ziegler

S-N-L-P-Z (Saturday Night Live PiZza…Anyone?)

And wasn’t it thrilling to hear the similarities of styles between the cantata composed by Bach’s third cousin, Johann Ludwig Bach, JLB 7, and BWV 143? The JLB cantata survives in a copy by JS himself. Have a look at JL. See the relation?

Johann Georg Sachs’ organ music, as promised. He was the cantor who gave Spitta the (once misattributed) cantata BWV 223.https://imslp.org/wiki/Charakteristische_Orgelstücke_(Sachs,_Johann_Georg)

Write That Fugue!

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Summary:

Bach’s early cantatas, seven surviving works from his Arnstadt and Mühlhausen years (BWV 4, BWV 71, BWV 106, BWV 131, BWV 143, BWV 150 and BWV 196), are quite special works. Their texts use mainly the Psalms and Lutheran hymns rather than freely composed poetry. Instrumentation in these early cantatas is generally light: five of the seven use five parts or fewer, apart from the singers and continuo. Recitatives, closing chorales and da capo arias are almost entirely absent. The choir runs through the works rather than appearing only at the beginnings and endings. Tempi and meter shift freely, and suddenly, and the text appears to drive the music. We also conclude (or try to conclude) our thoughts on the authenticity of the cantata BWV 143. We also discuss the case of BWV 223, a fugue snippet left by Spitta, thought to be a lost Bach cantata until about 2004, but now attributed to Handel (and still missing? Anyone able to clear that up?) Performers featured were Koopman and Suzuki.

“The consummate expressiveness of {BWV 4] has always been marvelled at. Each verse is as if chiselled in music.” -Albert Schweitzer, Vol. 2

Bach’s early Easter cantata remains one of the most beloved in the entire canon. Barely 22 years old, he is already in full command of his tone-painting. Here are three measures particularly packed with symbolism:

Filling the music with rests at the word nothing, ‘one death eating another’ through the closest possible canon, crosses both in shape and every note ‘sharped’ (gekreuzt,) dripping blood on the Passover doors with short 8th notes, leaping a diminished 12th (!) in the bass aria at the word death, this cantata is a dictionary of text painting.

…und singen Halleluja!

The chorale cantata was probably composed for Bach’s Easter Sunday audition in 1707 for the organist post at St. Blaise’s Church in Mühlhausen, left vacant by the death of Johann Georg Ahle. Bach’s older cousin, Johann Gottfried Walther, had an audition for the same post, but withdrew— possibly because Bach himself was interested! Later, Bach revived this cantata his first two Easters in Leipzig, 1724 and 1725. Only the Leipzig parts survive, hence the original 1707 version is lost. Any differences between the revised and earliest versions— which may have been substantial— are lost. In any case, the remaining style certainly reflects his early vocal writing par excellence.

The cantata is one of only a handful of per omnes versus cantatas, going through all seven verses of Martin Luther’s 1524 hymn text. Theologically, the text goes deeply into Lutheran ideas linking Jewish Passover— the blood-marked doorposts and unleavened bread— to Christian Easter, reading the Passover lamb as a prefiguration of Christ’s crucifixion and the Eucharist. Such deep theological reflection was something Bach understood and made apparent in tone.

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PS! Shelly conveniently does in fact quote the biblical, ‘O Death, where is thy sting?’ but the poem I was thinking of was Pope’s, The Dying Christian to his Soul:

VITAL spark of heav’nly flame!Quit, O quit this mortal frame:Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,O the pain, the bliss of dying!Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper; angels say,Sister Spirit, come away!What is this absorbs me quite?Steals my senses, shuts my sight,Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!Heav’n opens on my eyes! my earsWith sounds seraphic ring!Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!O Grave! where is thy victory?O Death! where is thy sting?

Write That Fugue!

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Sometimes an article from the EB strikes me as so amusing, I simply have to share it with you. See you next week (or the week after, latest) for the conclusion of our early cantata survey, with Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. Thanks for listening!

Well, That’s Fascinating!

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Q: If, after you attended a Bach concert, someone told you that your favorite piece on the program was not, after all, by Bach… how would you feel?

Does this cantata actually fail to move us? Or does it fail to move us when we know its authenticity is up for debate? Can we truly hear some compositional weaknesses?

If we are to ascribe this music to Bach, it was probably from the years 1709-1711. No other cantatas from the period from his first years in Weimar (that is, before being promoted to concertmaster) survive. The early cantatas are occasional, sporadic, and very different to one another. Richard D. P. Jones says, on the extant early cantatas: “since at a later date Bach very likely came to regard these early works as outmoded—perhaps representing that ‘former style of music’ which ‘no longer seems to please our ears’—he seems to have made no attempt to preserve them, with the result that the few that survive do so by accident.”

Jones himself excludes this cantata from the canon, but, on the subject of authenticity, admits there must be some subjectivity when making such cuts: “No less thorny is the issue of authenticity. … There are inevitably borderline cases, however, and in this area the author has had to make up his own mind as to which compositions merit inclusion and which do not.” Among other scholars— as far as I can tell— this cantata’s authenticity is still up for debate.

Oh, Bach’s Art. The Prelude to my Heart.

Fun fact! If this indeed is Bach ca. 1709, that would make movement 3 the first recitativo in Bach’s works. It’s only five measures long!

I neglected to mention the text in the movements where Du Friedefürst Herr Jesu Christ is the cantus firmus, these are stanzas 1 and 3, sung in movements 2 and 7, respectively:

You prince of peace, Lord Jesus Christ,

Well, what do you think? Does this piece sound like early Bach? Do you care? Could you enjoy it even if it were written by... gasp! …Telemann!?

Write That Fugue!

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Concepts covered: The 3 corno da caccia in this cantata, the difference between natural horn and corni da caccia, the authenticity of this cantata, the early cantatas pre-weimar, word painting, text settings from Psalm 146, and hymns, Bach’s earliest recitativo.

The performance of Inssbruck, ich muss dich lassen can be heard here (there is one other verse!)

Forever paired with the giant Toccata BWV 540, it’s unlikely the two were conceived together. Still, owing to certain sources and the fact that this fugue is a dignified and stately complement to the capricious toccata, the pairing works delightfully.

Now, is this the fugue, BWV 540? Or which piece is this?

And is this not the same music?

Top: Italian Concerto. Bottom: today’s fugue. Seeing such similar vocabulary is as thrilling as it is remarkably rare in Bach’s works.

Wow. That Fugue!

Here are the fugue’s two contrasting themes. The first, slow moving, noble:

The second, carefree and playful:

They combine toward the end of the piece to marvelous effect:

A complete version of the MIDI synths in the episode (Headphones are best! I found it quite relaxing.)

I said I would attach the MIDI files, but Substack won’t allow it. If you leave a comment or send me a DM, I’ll send them over. Thanks!

Spread the Counterpoint. Share WTF Bach.

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Bach married his second cousin, Maria Barbara, on October 17, 1707, in St. Bartholomäi’s Church (pictured in the cover image) in a charming little village called Dornheim. They were both 22. According to Spitta, some eight months later, Bach and Maria returned to that same church to attend the wedding of the man who had officiated their own: Johann Lorenz Stauber. J.S. Bach carried with him the parts to a cantata, and this work was heard for the first time in June, 1708.

…or so the legend goes. Modern scholarship calls Spitta’s anecdote into question, but in any case, Der Herr denket an uns BWV 196, is one of Bach’s earliest vocal works.

Despite being from the same period as the other cantatas we recently covered, the work might show more outward signs of being similar to Bach’s later cantatas: we get a da capo aria for the first time, and the choruses only figure into the first and last movements. We see no sudden shifts of tempo, and movements are clear cut. The only abrupt change of texture comes in the second movement:

‘The lord blesses us.’ Segnet uns. Bach will set the word ‘bless’ differently in every movement. Notice how the soprano soloist amplifies the Lord’s blessings:

Despite these examples, the cantata fails to impress us the same way his other early cantatas do. Instead, we take joy in the fugal writing in the outer movements. The finale of the opening chorus is a fugue where the subject is never absent. A glance at a few pages shows this:

The closing movement features a fugue with two subjects on the word, Amen! I called the first theme the ‘stomping theme’ and the second theme the ‘climbing theme’ —whatever helps you understand the distinct shapes. When looking for wedding ideas to back up Spitta’s story (though we must be aware of confirmation bias!) I might see the musical representation of two separate figures, always appearing together, never one without the other:

Bach adds a classic ‘early Bach’ touch at the end, ending the entire cantata piano, disappearing with a whisper:

Write That Fugue!

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Concepts Covered:

Bach's Cantata BWV 196, Der Herr denket an uns (The Lord Thinks of Us), one of only seven surviving cantatas from Bach’s earliest period. The traditional story behind the piece — Bach wrote it as a wedding gift for the pastor who had officiated his own marriage to Maria Barbara — and examines why modern scholarship casts doubt on that account, since the text itself doesn't clearly point to a wedding occasion. Bach draws his libretto directly from Psalm 115, making this one of the textually simplest cantatas in his early output, how a single rising melodic motif ties together the Sinfonia, arias, and choruses. Bach's word painting on the recurring word "bless" (segnet), walks through the construction of the cantata's central choral fugue, and highlights the soprano aria's use of da capo form — possibly the earliest example of that structure in Bach's output. Vokaleinbau ‘vocal insertion’ might be used here for the first time. The cantata's final movement, a double fugue built on two contrasting ‘Amen’ subjects, other early stylistic features and analysis.

Opsimath Organist

My first trip to Germany (I was 21) I walked into a church in Weimar and heard— by beautiful coincidence— an unseen organist play Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue, BWV 582. This was a piece I heard for the first time only a year before. I remember exactly in which chair I first heard it. If the Chaconne is Bach’s universe tightly wound into a handheld box, the Passacaglia is a different vision of the same, exploding through thousands of pipes. It is a piece you cannot overlook when thinking of the crowning achievements in Bach’s career.

At 21, I knew Bach was Bach, but I hadn’t yet dedicated myself to him fully. Even so, I knew Bach’s organ works could be the supreme solo musical activity: the most complete musical experience had by a single person. Think about it: it’s making music with all four limbs, drumming on multiple keyboards. The soundboard of this instrument is a church.

But I was a pianist, not an organist. At that young age, I had already excluded myself from being able to participate in certain musical activities. Why? Where did I get this notion?

Knowing your limitations is healthy in many areas of life, but in music— especially young musicians— you should know: your potential is unlimited. I don’t know how or why one draws the line at what a student can and cannot do, why some teachers restrain enthusiasm, or make students feel limited to certain areas from a young age. I’d guess it’s a mixture of abuse and a fear of money.

Abuse is handed down: the teacher was told they can’t do X, soon the student learns to stay away from X. ‘It deepens like a continental shelf.’

We glorify abuse on the screen: teachers inflicting suffering so the student may rise stronger after being broken… but this makes for a good film— not a good life. To actually teach like this is nothing more than sophisticated child abuse. As I’ve said on the show in my ‘advice to musical teens,’ if you ever find a teacher who leaves you feeling worthless or unhappy with music, leave that teacher immediately. There is no reason why a musical education shouldn’t be full of joy and happiness and discovery. Yes, hard work, too, but under the right teacher, hard work can be a joy, not a punishment.

One objects, saying a line must be drawn early in order to mold the student into an employable musician. “You should focus on only one instrument, kid.” In an era of specialization, this seems almost necessary. But is the ultimate goal of music a job? Money? A c-a-r-e-e-r? My colleagues reading this can confirm that many of us in the business have lost the spark that initially made us want to become musicians.

But I won’t harp on the perils of ‘building a career’ or the traumatic musical upbringing I experienced. I want to focus on how, during my few decades in music, I have time and time again doubted my abilities, only to find that there was no reason for doing so. Rather than passing the blame, I’d like to revisit these moments and focus on how I overcame such a crippling emotion.

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Transposition

I remember learning a concerto when I was 16 or so— probably Mozart or Beethoven, and I was trying to memorize a section that happened earlier, only now it was in a new key. I explained to my father that, could I transpose, I wouldn’t have to struggle to learn the passage more than once— if I had the type of mind that could transpose. He shrugged and said, ‘so learn how to transpose’ and walked away.

That made me mad. What an idiot! I thought. One can’t learn such things. Some are born with the gift of transposition, I wasn’t.

Why I thought this at such a young age is a bit sad and confusing (and I’ll resist launching into a rant about how, if a student is advanced enough to play Beethoven, transposing should be something they learned long ago.) For whatever reason, in my mind, I couldn’t transpose.

Of course, one does learn how to do such things, and I did— even if it was nearly a decade later. One starts with little things: simple melodies, popular songs, dances… For me the major turning point came when I stopped seeing harmonies as ‘E-flat Major’ or ‘d minor’ but rather as numbers, positions, relations to other chords, ‘this is the sub-dominant’ or ‘this is a whole-step down.’ The name of the chord is meaningless but its number is full of meaning.

At one point, transposing seemed unreachable, unimaginable. But one can always learn the most complicated musical thing if you are completely focused on the specific goal for a very long time. I kept a fortune cookie in my nightstand when I was a boy because I thought the image was hilarious, not because I found meaning— but how wise it seems now! ‘If enough people bang their heads on a brick wall, the wall will eventually fall down.’

Rock, and other genres of music

The next big obstacle in my thinking came at Juilliard, when my roommate, a jazz musician who was more into the NYC rock scene, asked me to cover for the keyboardist in his punk band. Not only had I never played any music besides classical music, I knew I couldn’t play any other music. (I wonder if the arrogance I had developed about classical music as the ‘pure’ art, was fear masking my inability to partake in any form of more social music. I wonder if this is the arrogance of many…) Whatever the case, my roommate didn’t have my personal obstacles in his head. He didn’t see any reason why I wouldn’t make for a fine punk keyboardist.

While most of the songs never had more than a few chords, and there’s nothing ‘technical’ to play, rock music was an absolute education. Never learned from sheet music, finding where and how to improvise, finding a ‘feel’ that is unlike anything in classical music, this was a new world for me that influenced the way I think about music to this day. Again, there was an initial stage of feeling stupid, both musically and socially: all of this can make you feel out of place, but pushing past this doesn’t take very long.

Rock music opened up other genres to me, bluegrass, jazz… my forays into these genres helped develop my ear. I learned to play the accordion because I wanted to play with my friends who played bluegrass outside. (The accordion, by the way, expanded my mind: the left side is buttons, organized by circle of fifths. The right side is a normal keyboard. When I realized this is because harmony, the left side, doesn’t move by step like melodies, but moves by fifths, I was forever changed.) I ended up touring with some bands for a few years, playing in settings that undoubtedly made me a better classical musician. If you can handle people spilling beer on you, you can handle an audience clearing their throats.

Why I had assumed I couldn’t play rock is maybe not so bad as why I assumed I shouldn’t play rock. Both ideas were built into my identity as a pianist. When I was in the van, driving to grungy venues, playing for $13 a show, when my instrument was missing two of few of the plastic keys it had, was I a pianist?

Giant, impossible Bach

The next large hurdle deals with those activities that a pianist should do, namely, memorize large amounts of music. When I had heard of Paul Jacob’s triumphant marathon playing the complete organ works, my immediate thought was, ‘I could never do something like that.’ My reaction to Paul’s achievement was one of instant self-doubt. Had someone shrugged like my father, and said, ‘so memorize all of Bach’ I would have said, again, what an idiot!

I hadn’t set out to achieve any goal: my marathon started small, with a single volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier., and I didn’t set out to memorize that either, but after two years playing selections in concert, I realized I had performed most of Book Two. Could I memorize all 48? There are rumors of pianists having had all 48 from memory, could I join that club? This was something I never imagined I could do, in fact when I played my first prelude and fugue at 16, I was told it was already too late.

A year later and I had done just that. Looking at the density of the counterpoint, I was quite convinced that I had memorized some of Bach’s most complex music, so would the suites come easier? Another year, I had all the suites, the next, all the partitas, on and on until about eight years later, I had memorized Bach’s near-complete keyboard works. I celebrated by playing everything in six five-day, five-hour cycles at the first Bach Store.

Were my past self to look at this accomplishment, I’m quite sure he’d say, ‘I could never do something like that.’ This is because it really does look impossible —but it isn’t! It might take nearly ten years of fairly constant dedication, but that time is the blink of an eye, and such discipline stays with you forever.

Pianist or keyboardist?

I was having an identity crisis: was I a pianist? Or was I into Bach? Are these ideas mutually exclusive? How could I consider myself ‘into Bach’ if I wasn’t familiar with his instruments? Yes, Bach on the piano is a miracle, but a Bach pianist sounds sort of like hypocrisy.

I started small: I was given a clavichord by a lovely lady who hadn’t ever used it but as a table. I brought it home and, within seconds— this is an accurate measurement, not an exaggeration— I realized the way I had been fingering Bach and other early music wouldn’t work on such an instrument. Could it be, I asked, that our modern approach would have been completely foreign to Bach? This instant lesson from a clavichord put me in the middle of a dark forest.

I set out to tune the clavichord, but I didn’t have a hammer so I used pliers. I broke strings which distressed me immensely at first, but later became a blessing: the world of instrument repair is not something most pianists are familiar with, but it was a world that Bach knew intimately. Learning how to wind a tuning peg, how to tie hitch pin loops, these are skills that put me in direct touch with an older world of musicians who knew how to care and look after their instruments. This gave my musicianship a feeling of competence I never knew about. Again, I wonder, is the disdain with which pianists look down on the humble life of a piano tuner a fear of not knowing how to tune their own piano?

Now, the clavichord is a nice transition for pianists because one can still inflect, it is very much like a delicate piano, but the harpsichord is utterly foreign. So was I pianist or Bachian?

I went to France to study harpsichord. I am also the proud owner of a harpsichord which I now know how to maintain, tune, repair, voice, even build parts of. But this began with real sadness and frustration, wondering why I’d put myself through such trials. Feeling like a beginner again, and telling myself ‘I can never be a harpsichordist… it’s too late! It’s too late to learn.’ All the skills I now possess began to the sad tune of ‘I can’t do this.’

I was wrong!

The king of instruments

Once, I was shown into an organ loft where I could go and play for however long I liked. This is a life changing experience— seriously. I urge every musician reading to go into that church you’ve never been in, and ask to play the organ. Even if you can’t play anything but a chord, pull out all the stops and play that chord. You’re not going to break the organ, you’re not being rude. Put yourself in the thick of all that power and you’ll see it is no accidental nickname, ‘the king of instruments.’

I used those few hours to figure out what all the buttons and levers do, playing one stop at a time, completely overwhelmed by the physical vibrations— simply stunned by the force and the arrangement of all the pipes. To sit in the middle of such a machine is awesome. Some readers won’t know that organ pipes are often arranged in a ‘stereo’ fashion, where one pipe is placed on the far left, and the closest half-step is on the complete other side of the loft. So, playing a chromatic scale sounds as if each note is alternating from ear to ear — this is an amazing sensation that should be experienced by every musician.

With my interest piqued, but still saddened that I was born ‘pianist,’ I must have mentioned my identity crisis to my wife, who, not plagued by my crippling self-doubt, simply walked into the local London church and mentioned my curiosity. (Nothing anybody could have done for me could have been kinder.) Suddenly I had an instrument!

When I first met with the local organist, I assumed he would be a genius like Paul or Helmut Walcha. Again, self-doubt convinced me that I could never measure up to the musicianship of an organist, even the local church organist, but it didn’t take long before I saw that, while he certainly had more physical ease at the instrument, there was little apart from this physicality he could teach me.

The local organist was also timid in making repairs on the 250-year-old instrument, but I, from my work with harpsichords and clavichords, was not shy. Soon enough I found myself on the inside of the instrument, tuning flue pipes, voicing reeds, replacing trackers, fixing an organ— feeling deeply connected to Bach. Would my 16-year-old self have adored or despised this vision of me, covered in century-old dust, gently tapping pipes into tune?

As for my playing with my feet, I spent only a week or 10 days in London every month. Any progress, therefore, disappeared quickly. I had the same frustrating experience many times: becoming comfortable playing the bass with the feet— not the left hand, a mental gymnastic that must be very familiar to keyboardists. Even after months of practice, this would still take some 24 hours to ‘click.’ By the third day, I had dusted off my brain and was ready to get my legs into shape. Maybe five days later, I was playing organ music— some of it even convincingly! The first time I played, fluently, even the simplest Bach organ piece brought me to tears. Why had I rated such a skill as beyond me? Why don’t other pianists know how to do this? Why did no one encourage this?! What is wrong with the world of music? Playing one page of Bach’s organ music for yourself is worth so much more than a life onstage! Why…?! Why…!?

But then, my sojourn done, I couldn’t practice for another three weeks. Progress faded, improvement was slow. I doubted I would ever be able to play the great masterpieces.

This frustrating period of two years came to an end when my wife and I settled. I bought an organ console. In addition I was given access (and instantly became the local organist) to several churches in nearby towns (the UK is great for that.)

My progress exploded. I had daily access and no excuses now. I began tracking my progress meticulously, noting which pieces I was learning and how fast I could play them. Gradually, as if I were a teenager again, I increased the speed week to week. Since my very first years of learning music, I hadn’t ever permitted myself to go so slowly, to really sound as if I were a complete beginner.

My birthday present to myself

These days, I meet weekly with another organist in the area and we trade ideas about registration (which combinations of stops to pull) which is an endless art, even on the small organ where we meet. One can never forget the comment about Bach pulling ‘the most unexpected combinations of stops to the organ builder’s horror, but, once heard, they found the most agreeable tones.’ Two weeks ago, after I played the ‘wedge’ prelude and fugue— already a huge accomplishment for me— without saying anything, the organist flipped a few pages to the Passacaglia. I laughed in disbelief— still so full of self-doubt!

I went home and began learning it at a very slow tempo. A tempo, by the way, that was already nearly three times what I’d have needed just to get through the notes those first days in London: I used to practice at 20 BPM to the 8th note! There are no shortcuts to learning something new.

Learning the Passacaglia, it dawned on me: it was two months before my 40th birthday. I am going to perform the Passacaglia and Fugue before I’m 40. This is where it was all leading. My life, my goals, my work, my passion… I, was going to be that unseen organist in Weimar I heard nearly 20 years before. I was going to travel back, travel through time and pay a visit to my old self, head full of ambitious Beethoven-based goals, and I would drop this orhwurm in his head.

What’s more important, fame or your health?

Objection: Who has the time to work on such difficult goals in the first place? After all, I’ve got to learn the Nellinini quintet-fantasy next week! I can’t just play organ music in slow motion for months!

I read a line in the Tao Teh Ching, ‘What’s more important? Fame or your health?’ This line saw right through me, attacked me, really. It unsettled me but I didn’t know why. I was focused on the conventional path in music: learn big programs, win this award, get this management, A+B+C = career. This is, after all, the way we are told careers happen, unlock one door, then the next one, then the next.

But Lao Tze pierced me. Fame or health? What!? Is it a dilemma? He was staring at me with the same eye-twinkle only the enlightened can give you. I suddenly realized why this line upset me: how could I possibly choose fame over health? Health, meaning mental health, meaning going deeply into all that keeps you sane and happy.

I had (and continue to have) an inner debate about success and validation— are they the same? Can I be fulfilled accomplishing things I value, or would I be happier reaching goals that other people can see: awards, reputable venues, playing with famous people. Or maybe I don’t value the right things? What you personally call success, vs. what the ‘business’ calls it, these might not be mutually exclusive, but for many of my colleagues— and maybe for Lao Tze— they are. There seemed to be a distinct line between what musicians wanted to be doing, and what they were doing. I’ve heard a depressing amount of times, sentiment like, ‘of course I’d rather stay home and play Bach all day!’ But my colleagues were concerned with an image, or a sort of relevance to their community. Of course they wanted to hole up in a cabin for three years, learning exactly the music they most loved, but when they emerged, the business would have passed them by…

But what is this business? I’ve had some colleagues rise to world fame, while others dropped off the face of the earth, and the musicianship, the talent, the hard work, none of that seemed to match proportionally. I was unsettled by the notion of ‘fame’ being something through which others view you, whereas ‘health’ was how the self views the self. ‘Career success’ could emerge or disappear suddenly and without warning, but ‘inner success?’ That would never disappear.

Committing to those ideas which meant inner success, dedicating myself to goals that meant ‘health,’ this required the boldest act of leaving self-doubt behind: it meant trusting that I alone could be the judge of my own success, not other people. I’d never trade my ability to play the organ for a concert at Carnegie Hall. And anyhow, if Carnegie Hall is a reflection of the truth in any way, the people who dig deepest into themselves will play there more often than those who pursue the tired avenues of competition, management, labels…

Opsimath organist

Learning the organ has been the hardest thing I can remember doing. It has taken me back to the beginnings of learning music. I have felt the same states of wonder I felt at nine years old, when I looked at a clef, wondering how it works, counting ledger lines looking for an answer, or writing in one fingering and crossing it out five minutes later. I have sat witnessing my brain form new trenches, uncovering strange habits. I found various rhythms between feet and hands that my body simply refused to do, as if I only just realized I can’t pat my head and rub my belly. These basic problems required such slowing down that I embarrassed my brain by watching how slowly the body was learning.

I feel like I’ve lived a second musical education. In this time, I’ve been able to look back on the organ repertoire as I looked at pieces in my childhood: they looked so much bigger back then! Certain measures of the organ repertoire made my jaw drop at the mere thought of being able to play them. Now I play some of them without thinking. So what am I? Where has all this doubt led me? To an organist? A pianist? A harpsichordist?

I won’t pretend I am as proficient on the organ as I am on the piano or harpsichord, but after all, I’ve only been seriously practicing for 13 months! But this experience has, above everything, affirmed that I can and, should I continue to set lofty goals — goals which at one point I would have deemed impossible— I will.

I performed the Passacaglia (from memory! Thanks, Paul!) two days before my birthday on a program of other organ music no organist would sneeze at. But my next goals are bigger, my next goals I currently think are impossible. Impossible: that is the place to start.

[Music heard in this podcast is the aforementioned Helmut Walcha from his great Mono cycle of 1947-1952. It is available here: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_G-4DGqgY2FJw9bjsuOXIRLIN-FRbqml&si=fcJB6-_v3W5W4JRJ]

Write That Fugue!

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