Bach, Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein

[erroll9621]

@TheosAthanatos How nauseatingly mawkish.

[RemovdSande11]

amazing piece again.

[jaryH3]

Is everything in that piece dis-harmonic?

[UberMenschNowFilms]

This sounds oddly similar to a sitar.

[sasghn]

Is this what people called stacatto method of playing instrument? 

[smalin]

@sasghn No.

[dubedition1111]

@sasghn This is more of a legato.

[Enopione]

@sasghn I think it is called "staccato"

[wenaolong]

I could swear that I've heard this piece before, but on a real harpsichord, especially on 0:43 to 0:51.

[danielkirk1]

Beautiful sound. With some imagination, you can really hear how it would sound for voice (like all of his music).

[wafflesguitarpie]

can i get the sheet music for this?

does it come for guitar/piano those are my instruments

[puppyfish11]

Absolutely wonderful! This piece reaches the deepest part of my feelings. I've never heard it on clavichords - Thank you for uploading. Do you know where I can obtain the sheet music at all?

[googlekopfkind]

bach i love u

[RemovdSande11]

a fantastic piece indeed... Im still amazed how well he masters counterpoint ^^. Very much wish to learn it.

[chapmmel]

Smalin, you should check out some of Yann Tiersin's work :) He is a fantastic composer and you're a fantastic pianist :) Give it a go!!!

[smalin]

Not much to my taste, sorry.

[thrashforlife420]

no offense to anyone but the clavichord sounds like an out of tune guitar lol

[pieguyfry22]

that's exactly what i was thinking of, only more of an out of tune sitar.

[artois54]

The piece we hear was composed decades before bach's death. He altered some notes hours before he died, but from this altered version the second half is lost. You can find the rest in the NBA (18 Choräle)

[smalin]

Hey, you're right. I didn't realize that. Thanks for the correction.

[artois54]

No sweat. Even most Bach- Players and musicologists don't know that.

[b0ttomzone]

@artois54 why would bach, on his deathbed and in the heat of a fever, go through the trouble of digging out a chorale from his youth and nitpick it to perfection? maybe there is still, after all, something special about a humble little tune called "in front of your throne i step with this" to a dying man.

[artois54]

@b0ttomzone Yes, maybe there is!

[silosteve5101]

awful

[audiouroboros]

Love these videos--more than once have shown them to self-defined "non-musical" friends, and they seem to appreciate the music more.

This chorale is a particularly gorgeous for me. The minimal adornments (at least when compared with the copious organ versions on here) make it more severe, but in a good way...like the notes carry too much emotional weight to chop up even finer. Well done :)

[germancali]

hi im from of argentina you are de capo man very good your post i liked very much conglatulations hurra the music

[smalin]

:-)

[larmithith]

"Dictated it to someone" - Actually his student and son in law JC Altnikol according to the sleeve notes of the LP.

[Poekiemolens]

JS Bach thank you

[TenoValdi]

Where can I find the notes for this piece?

[halloerde]

It is sometimes known as " Vor deinen thron tret ich hiermit." Bach's sons added it to end The Art of the Fugue, after the unfinished quadruple fugue. The Dover edition of Art of the Fugue and Musical Offering has it. It is far more beautiful than this performance would indicate.

[Rysio90]

Yes that was hypnosites (I'm not english ;) )

[themusicaltones]

I am in need of some guidance. I am a musician, and as I make my personal journey of discovery, I am naive to many styles. One being classical music sadly. Where do I start? I feel like Bach is a good one.

[smalin]

I'd suggest: BACH Brandenburg Concertos (Concerto Italiano), Well-Tempered Clavier (Glenn Gould); BEETHOVEN Late String Quartets (opus 127 on, esp. 133), 9th symphony; BRAHMS opus 60, 3rd mvt. (try mine); CHOPIN opus 53 (Blechacz/YouTube, he's about your age), opus 27 #2 (Margulis/YouTube, he's older, hard for a youngster to get this right); RAVEL Le tombeau de Couperin. If you still have your socks on after all that, try: STRAVINSKY Rite of Spring.

[Echnaton1993]

if you feel "ready" for it you should listen the art of fugue BWV 1080 of J.S. Bach. It's the best music. There are a lot of things to discover in the counterpoint but even if there's so much "musical math" it sounds nice.

[smalin]

The Art of Fugue is really good, but I worry that it might be hard for a person without much experience in listening to counterpoint to appreciate. It's gorgeous, but it's subtle, and if you aren't adept at following multiple lines, there's a lot that would go right by (especially in a keyboard performance, where more of the burden of keeping track of the parts falls on the listener).

[Echnaton1993]

Yes, you're right and that's why I said "themusicaltones" should listen to it if he feels "ready". When I heard it the first time I didn't know much about music and nothing about counterpoint. But I liked it above everything else.

By the way: I like your compositions too, especially your fugue's. They sound really well!

[smalin]

Thanks!

[BouXIII]

and don't forget

beethovens moonlight sonata 3rd movement (on youtube played by wilhelm kempff) wich is ... stunning!

and if you needa time to chill out simply lsiten to yann Tiersen "Comptine d'un autre été l'ápres midi :D

[Sandman1278]

I don't understand how to "count the notes" to get JSB? i get 10-19-2 but were does that come from?

[hiddensob]

you can't see it here, it's on the score of the track, the piece of paper that the musician reads to play.

[xleeca]

i didn't notice that the blocks were a whole step apart until i tried to sing along with the notes.. these visualizations are quite complex in their own right

[Schleitz]

Das Muster hat was hypnotisierentes

[MrAlbatroz00]

Would you be so kind to upload that video again in HQ? Awesome work by the way!

[smalin]

I will eventually, but there are other things that are more important that I need to do first.

[FoceBock]

Thankyou Very much for making this magical music available to listen to on this website

[MortiCarthago]

So wikipedia says if you transpose the last three notes to something something you can see the "JSB" in roman characters... what the hell does this mean?

[Machdelu]

JSB=Johann Sebastian Bach

[smalin]

Which Wikipedia article says that?

[MortiCarthago]

the one about JSB himself, it's the last paragraph of the leipzig section, right before the death section

[smalin]

Ah, thanks.

The way I read that, it's not saying that you "see" his initials, but that if you count the notes on the three lines of the score in that passage, you get the numbers 10 (J), 19 (S), 2 (B).

[WPL3yur2]

よく出来だ　動画アニメです

[Gravedigger114]

einfach nur genial!

[smalin]

In der Musik, ist nichts einfach. :-)

[milroxsox]

i like bach's work, but this isnt my favorite...

[KIMAEREE]

심성이포악하고 삐툻어지신분은 연주하시면않좋읍니다 어울리시는 직장을 찾으셔야합니다

[nolanryan999]

i hadn't heard this piece yet, till now. very beautiful, even though i'm not the hugest fan of bach's hymns

[CH1PP0]

it's too bad we only have the first page of this piece, what a tragic loss.

[Waytofindyourself]

You pronounced the title false. It has to be "Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sind" to be right. I am German.

[smalin]

You may be German, but I guess you're not familiar with Paul Eber hymn (upon which Bach's piece was based). I'll add something about this to the FAQ.

[Waytofindyourself]

Ok, i see, you are right. My fault ;)

[smalin]

Hey, no problem ... I don't know everything about English yet, either. ;-)

[JonasDelany]

That made me smile.

[chenierchenier]

you can't own smallin he is the master of the fugue in 2009

[miguelmouta]

Sorry for that, for the next 936 years of bloody shame .

[CracknHack]

This "wir sein" instead of the "wir sind" is still spoken in southern Germany and Austria.

[X4nd3Rde]

CracknHack:

not. ^^ i'm livin there so... never heard it once.

[wlh1us]

has anyone ever finished Beethoven's unfinished sonata

[h3115r3p3ntanc3]

no, hence the unfinished

[ByrdWhiteMovie]

If anyone ever touched it, he would rise as zombie Beethoven & jab their pencil in their ears.

[JSBach325]

Smalin, this is one of my favorite pieces. Thank you. For anyone still looking for the score, you can often find it amended to The Art of Fugue, also composed near the end of Bach's life. Dover has a combined publication of The Art of Fugue, A Musical Offering, and this piece all together. This chorale prelude is often referred to as "Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit" and can be found along with some recordings of The Art of Fugue.

[Apumrepublican]

Absolutley beautiful

Thank you so much for posting this

[MortiCarthago]

That's disgusting, so he wrote a fugue in his head? I'm not smart enough at music to know, but did he drop out motivic themes (he seems to rework all the themes he uses many times in a piece) in this piece, unlike his others?

[smalin]

No, it's a chorale setting (it might be a "chorale prelude" ... I'm not sure about the technical term), and it's common in those to take each line from the original choral tune, do something with it, and then move on to the next line. In this one, all the voices do each theme (with the pedals doing it half as fast).

[MortiCarthago]

oh yea, and where could I buy the music for this online/procure this music?

[smalin]

If you mean the score, it's in the Dover (re-)publication "Johann Sebastian Bach Organ Music", ISBN 0-486-22359-0. If you mean a recording, I can't help you.

[MortiCarthago]

I meant score, thanks a bunch.

[smalin]

>Beethoven sonata

Agreed; it's on the to-do list.

BTW, there's a Beethoven Bagatelle on my DVD.

[jgmovieman26]

do u own all of these intraments or is it computer generated or midi

[smalin]

They're sampled instruments.

[jrsharfan]

I <3 Bach. Nice work on this one as well Stephen. We love listening ... and love watching.

[alexegeviz]

the sound is very good!almost like real!

[Alliednations8]

sounds different than your other videos, oh well, i wouldnt know if this piece calls for a different sound. you make great vidoes, keep it up!

[smalin]

Yes, this is the first time I've used a clavichord on any of my videos. Bach dictated this piece on his deathbed, when he was blind. I think of the clavichord as the "bedroom" instrument (since it's quiet enough that you can play it at night without waking your spouse). If Bach ever heard this piece (aside from hearing it in his head), it's possible he heard it on a clavichord.