Keith Jarrett plays Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C Minor

[glenngrabcello]

harpsichord isn't as expressive as the piano....it has no way to make a crescendo or vary the touch....

[EduardHeinrichAlfons]

Holy jumping jesus!

What a musician! What a comoser!

[golfdiesel1978]

From this you can clearly hear that if Bach would have been alive today he would be a jazz musician.

[Hazelrat10]

@golfdiesel1978 Bach would have perfected and perfected Jazz music until it became entirely something else

[EliasCalabretta1]

@VonNashman

I may not be coming from a prestitgious or ilustrious background for music, but I strongly have the belief that both musicians are both fairly similar. I may be starting a match in a room filled with gunpowder here, but a lot of the great jaz musicians had some form of classical music training or admiration for. The problem I have is that you can't compare them both together because they are both the children of music in a sense.

[secons83]

Lascia stare la classica ! Improvvisa che è meglio,,

[VelikyUstyug1]

If you want to hear performances of Bach that show the differing possibilities of each piece, surf the following performers: Edwin Fisher, Piet Kees, Harold Samuels, Samuel Feinburg, Hopkinson Smith, Kenneth Gilbert, Lena Jacobsen, Nikolai Demidenko, Sviatoslav Richter, Maria Yudina, Ton Koopman etc... just to name a few.

[xszvfr]

Haha.. funny pic.. i didn't know that scarlatti was a black guy who played piano...

[VelikyUstyug1]

It could easily be Kenneth Gilbert, Glenn Gould, or Gustav Leonhardt etc... so clone-like is his thinking on this piece.

[KABRIS1]

@VelikyUstyug1 I think you're confusing the similarity of the sound of Bach's music with

very different interpretations.Keith is not even close to achieving Gould's steady tempo and depth of interpretation.

[str3123]

I love how an interpreter can transform something perfect in something imperfect by giving it a "life" so that we can comprend it.

[nyshoefly]

swings hard

[dannyjam]

He understands Bach - 5 stars

[dulcicantor]

He's so good. And he's my cousin. Well, cousin once removed. My grandma was the one who inspired him to play.

[hypsophilus]

you are his cousin and you need to listen to his music here on youtube!?

[dulcicantor]

Wellit's more of a cool thing. I've actually only met him once after one of his performances, and that was 8 years ago. Someday we'll meet again.

[aperisimo]

@hypsophilus

those morons

[concertobub]

this sounds like (and is in modern tuning at A-440) b minor - I guess the period tuning was a semi tone down. On another site I heard another c-minor prelude and fugue a WHOLE tone down! I have perfect pitch and noticed this.

[KindFurryBoy]

not standard tuning, though standard in terms of keyboard it is tuned on the tempered scale and every thing is a bit sharp as it is -supposed- to be on a keyboard, especially considering well TEMPERED clavier is designed to be played on the tempered scale.

[dbassman09]

period tuning was not a precise amount in terms of pitches. back then they tuned to A-413 or 414 instead of 440.

[rdccdr801]

Right, exactly. Fugue is almost completely sterile, but it's still fairly entertaining to listen to because it's so challenging.

[davidweiner23]

this is truly unbelievable, not even considering he's known mostly for jazz

[KindFurryBoy]

in my proffesional oppinion jazz is exceedingly more difficult than classical music (im a classical musician)

[1810to1849]

i notice that jazz musicians are awed by what classical musicians ('serious' musicians!) do, and the other way round. grass always greener etc. - i wish there was not this uniquely 20c separation between improvising and interpretation from scores.

[mdroach9]

@1810to1849 but then again, jazz musicians are awed by what other jazz musicians do, along with musicians of rock, and other styles. And classical musicians are awed by other classical musicians...

[Dihelson]

@1810to1849 Jazz musicians are the TRUE musicians of our time, those one who create music from scratch. Classical musicans are Parrots who only know to repeat or play something that some other people wrote, like ice frozen by the time. I praise those great classical masters like Godowski, Rachmaninov and a few that understood that music goes very far beyond playing a piece of paper by creating his own music. The classical pianists or our time can´t create a single music line !

[VonNashman]

@Dihelson That's like saying the only "true" actors are those who write their own plays. As a jazz musician myself, I praise and admire classical musicians and recognize their artistry and skill sets are different in many ways than jazz musician's, but by no means are they less authentic, creative, skillful, brilliant, etc., because they don't improvise and compose. Marlon Brando was no less and artist because he didn't write the lines he spoke.

[mozgren]

@VonNashman I understand Bach was known in his lifetime for his improvisational skills. He reused music here and there... Listen to the Orchesdtral Suites or the Brandenburg Concerti for melodies being tossed around and between performers with rythmic intensity as riveting as the recorded 20th century genius of Ellington. Too many performances lack the vitality Jarrett has here.

[mozgren]

@VonNashman What matters most is the awareness that any opinion about music is subjective.

[VonNashman]

@mozgren We're not talking about taste, preferences, or subjective impressions, but whether the statement "Jazz musicians are better musicians than Classical musicians" is true, valid, fair, or sensible. If someone says, subjectively, "I don't like Horowitz as much as Jarrett," it would be pointless to argue w/ them -- but if they say objectively and categorically that "Horowitz was inferior to Jarrett because he didn't play BeBop," they will have an argument on their hands.

[mozgren]

@VonNashman I would not try to compare chalk and cheese.

[mozgren]

@VonNashman I agree.

[BBalarinMusic]

@Dihelson That's just an stereotype that most of the classical pianists have set. A TRUE musician knows how to interpret a piece rather than just repeating like a parrot and I can assure you that most great classical musicians can improvise and also compose.It's because of ignorance that parrot pianists become famous by repeating the work of others, but that doesn't make them as great as the composer. You need to listen more of these to make a comment that has a clearly uninformed critic.

[Dihelson]

@BBalarinMusic I agree with you. I said that to provoke some discussion. Thanks

[mozgren]

@Dihelson The technology of Bach's time left behind only written scores with little in the way of expression or dynamic marking, until Beethoven. These bare bones may be read by a midi sequencer with surprising results but a good performer brings vitality. My favourites are Nikolayeva and Gould (both sadly demised) but this is, of course, a very subjective opinion - as is any about music I write music but cannot play a piano! Purism and snobbery make 'classical' music inacessible to too many

[valvetrom]

@KindFurryBoy Die Innovation of Werckmeister 12th root of 2 was a door opener, now they could modulate freely into all keys(Tonarten) before there was a limit and the dreaded Wolf's 5th

[maestrojimbo]

@KindFurryBoy You are no professional (at 20 yrs old)l if that's what you think. Both are difficult, for different reasons.

[mozgren]

@KindFurryBoy That sounds like a true musician's comment!

[BachScholar]

I respect Jarret as a musician, but I find his playing here quite mechanical. The prelude is fine, it's just the fugue that I'm talking about. It's so metronomic, too fast, and has no depth or feeling. This is one reason why I believe the piano is better for Bach.