Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Bach to Classical music

Today we find ourselves remembering an individual who added to our enjoyment of life, musically speaking that is.

Today was the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Born the 21 of March, 1685, and:
"athough he introduced no new forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust contrapuntal technique, a control of harmonic and motivic organisation from the smallest to the largest scales, and the adaptation of rhythms and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France. He is regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time."

Amen, whatever that all means.

So why not celebrate today just a bit, by getting Bach to classical music.

Pour yourself a class of your favourite beverage, pull out some of your favourite classical music and sit down a bit and just listen.

Course, if you are beauty poor and you have no classic CD's or Albums, you can simply tune into one of the CBC 2 online Radio feeds for a dose of classical. And if those long "boring" classical pieces make you weep, jump over to ClassicFM and have a listen. (They will ask you for a postal code so I use the one they put up there, WC2H 7LA works fine.) I do believe they don't play pieces longer than 5 minutes.

And enjoy.
It'll do you a world of good.

Happy Birthday Bach.

5 comments:

  1. Like something from the soda class? Or an alcohol class? I think I'll take you up on your suggestion while pouring myself something from the lovely class of Chai Teas.

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  2. We were at the Saskatoon Symphony this past Saturday. It was pretty good. The selections were:
    Edvard Grieg Lyric Pieces, no. 4 and 5, op. 68
    P.I. Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no. 1, B flat minor, op. 23
    Johannes Brahms Symphony no. 4, E minor, op. 98

    In the program it was pointed out that Brahms "brought nothing new" just as your quote said Bach didn't either. I have such a small education in music that I couldn't tell you much about any differences anyway. Most well known classical songs, or their most well known movements, just remind me of Looney Tunes or the Simpsions anyway. Unfortunate in a way.

    I did have one revelation that evening though when the guest artist Yuli Chen was playing Tchaikovsky and just hammering on that piano. It was loud. Pleasing to my ears as I listen to much Christian rock but I couldn't help but think of the irony of some parents approving of such heavy music as this classical but disproving of other genres of heavy melodies.

    My wife added more irony by commenting that when we were younger we were never allowed to hammer on the piano like Mr. Chen was last Saturday.

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  3. I'm no Bourgeoisie snob Melissa.

    whichever class fits you.


    :)

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  4. Or if you really want into the Bachness of the day crack open a copy of your riemenschneider and harmonize a choral or 2, we used to for A-level music and was probably the only homework I enjoyed at 6th form.

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  5. I've always liked Bach. Devilish to play, though and I wasn't very good. But I walked down the aisle to Arioso and back up the aisle to Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, so I had a bit of a Bach wedding. (And because it was the 70s, a friend also played the guitar and sang a song by Honeytree and The Wedding Song. :) )

    I think I'll go to the library and check out some Bach.

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