Bach - Musicalisches Opfer - 16. Ricercar A 6

[abenobu009]

Gooood piece. Who's playing?

[abenobu009]

Gooood piece. Who's playing.

[Laudan08]

This is fucking Bach!

[cliveso]

Can I ask who was playing?

[bandassj]

foi o primeiro contato meu com o bach

[dsa10]

Superb playing, very very difficult piece

[dsa10]

Superb playing

[kierkegaardrulez]

You suck.

[wcbroccoli]

Bravo. Very stylish playing.

[xenon0203]

Un vero capolavoro di architettura musicale, fusione di arte ed ingegno. Bach fu e rimane unico.

[fagottist]

0:43-0:45

fucking brilliant, the best bit

[fagottist]

@fagottist why has this been given so many thimbs down?

i was making a gemuine point

[isomolle]

Einfach genial.

Bach - primus inter pares

[groznypopara]

What a shock!!! John Lennon playing Bach!

[ahgblopes]

@groznypopara

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[gene15644a]

Very fine presentation, not too flashy but lively. I see someone has the "Bach touch" but also plays piano too. The way he attacks the keys? An inspiration for the rest of us....

[obscurewinter]

Meravigliosa.

[debartzen]

Maravillosa ésta música que transciende lo humano.Seis voces,seis.Mucho más que el Ricercare que parece..,

[anisometropie]

so beautiful, and so complex at the same time. absolutely perfect

[angoranimi07]

Bach is a genius, simply.

[chrish12345]

duz anyone else feel that piece is kinda static - it doesn't seem to move anywhere :/

[Imonlysleeping9]

I have to disagree! It simply moves in very gradual stages--all the voices entering in and then the beautiful free material afterwards, new episodes, etc. and all the amazing emotional plateaus of each stage of the journey!

[chrish12345]

I'm not denying any of that or saying it in a derogatory sense, its just a feeling I get from it - its not like the 3 part one which clearly is always going somewhere.

[wcbroccoli]

Oh, it's always going somewhere.

Maybe you have a tin ear that can't recognize the expositions, cadences, episodes and modulations.

In the course of the piece each voice plays the theme twice.

[nikes1988]

geil

[LDGuy]

The thing that I think is amazing is that the date we have recorded for Bach's meeting of King Frederick is 2 weeks prior to Bach's publishing of The Musical Offering. He wrote all of it - all the canons, the ricercars, and the trio sonata, in two weeks.

[gspaulsson]

That's not counting travel time, which wasn't trivial. Mind you, what else did he have to do while he was bouncing around in a stagecoach than work it all out in his head.

[chrish12345]

you know its too bouncy in the coach to hold a pencil

[KickaPoohbeans]

Work it all out IN HIS HEAD.

[chrish12345]

yeah slow

[wcbroccoli]

To amazing to be true.

The historic meeting, documented in newspapers of the time, occured May 7, 1747.

The Musical Offering was presented TWO months later, not 2 weeks later.

The dedication letter Bach wrote to Frederick was signed July 7, 1747.

[canman5060]

For anyone interested in the most complicated analysis of this work. There is a book called Musical Offering History Interpretation and Analysis.

[canman5060]

I know soneone who wrote a twelve part ricercar to challenge Bach ! The problem with that is all twelve parts sounds together !

[gspaulsson]

Yeah, it's like Tallis's 40-part motet: you can't really hear that many parts separately, it just comes across as a wall of sound.

[havetohavemusic]

Yeah, but what a wall.

[radurak]

As soon as you get accustomed to it, you can distinguish the different voices. It's quite possible to hear even more.

[chrish12345]

i did a 50 part one but was too long, but u could hear all the voces seperately, so was better than Bach

[canman5060]

This is the most ingenius work of "jigsaw puzzle".

[canman5060]

This is my professor most favorite to give to his students for his Music Analysis Class Assignment.He requires in no less than 100 pages of analysis !

[SD201]

For anyone interested, there is a book called Evening in the Palace of Reason by James R. Gaines that discusses the meeting between Bach and Frederick in great biographical detail. It's a really good read.

[SmurfBreath]

Brilliant rendition of the best thing Bach ever wrote. I could never get into piano versions of it.

[RocketRalf]

Well that "best ever" claim can be argued, if I were a harpsichordist or pianist I'd have to agree with you but as im a violinist I'll have to say the Chaconne is better :P. Great performance. There's no words to describe how beatiful Bach's music is, but plenty to say about it's complexity.

[gspaulsson]

A lot of candidates - Kunst der Fuge, the Partitas (#6 my fave), Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue. But for breathtaking splendour surely you have to go to the choral music, especially the St Matthew Passion and the B minor mass.

[chrish12345]

no thats untrue

[danielgdecastro]

Despues de escuchar esto en el arreglo de A. Webern y en su versión original, no sabría con cual quedarme. Maravilloso.

[carolvsmagnvs359]

What is the instrument - Shudi/Tschudi copy? Who's the harpsichordist?

[800220]

The harpsichordist is Andreas Staier.

[Anomlies]

i am sure its an original

[SubtlyRough]

Well, it SHOULD be original (authentic), since Musica Antiqua Koln is always referred to as an orchestra of authentic baroque instruments. ;-)

[mercuriuscompany]

@carolvsmagnvs359

The harpsichord is an original 1755 Kirckman housed at the stunning Russell Collection of Early Keyboards Instruments, Edinburgh. The video was recorded in their adjacent concert St Cecilia's Music Hall, a Georgian building (unusually oval) which held the first series of public concerts in Scotland.

[esslaee]

I also knew it as him improvising a 3-part Ricercar..

[schindler91589]

next, I'm pretty sure this isn't the piece Bach improvised at Potsdam. he improvised his OWN fuga a 6 voci. This six-voiced fugue based on King Frederick's theme was not an improvisation at all. he spent some time on it. and with good reason, because writing a six voice fugue for piano, a brand-new instrument at the time, was borderline insanity.

And that's why there'll never be another JS Bach.

[MCtheMD]

I think you're right, Schindler. I think it was mentioned in Hofstadter's 'Godel, Escher, Bach' that he improvised a three-part fuge there and then, and then went away to write the Musical Offering that we have today.

I could have that totally wrong though!

MC.

[gspaulsson]

The version of the story I heard is that Frederick offered him as a challenge to improvise on his subject, which used 11 of the 12 chromatic notes. Frederick was sure it couldn't be done. Bach then improvised a fugue in 2 parts, then 3, then 4, then couldn't quite manage 5. He begged the king to forgive him, went home, wrote his improvisations down and added the rest. This was from my music history teacher, Godfrey Ridout.

[chrish12345]

no, he improvised a fugue in 3 voices and one in 6 voices for Freddie. He then asked him to improvise one with even more voices, and was unable to do so. Theres' NO WAY of knowing whether this one or the 3 part fugue are what Freddie baby would have heard.

[wcbroccoli]

It's very likely that the 3-part ricercar is Bach's his recollection and reworking of the fugue he impovised.

Not very likely that he improvised a 6-part fugue (nor an 8-part fugue, as Baron van Swieten claims he was told by Frederick about 24 years after Bach's death).

In Bach's letter to the King he said he soon realized that he was not prepared to improvise a 6-part fugue on the theme and would need time to work it out properly. Two months later, Bach presented the Musical Offering.

[schindler91589]

so much ignorance surrounds this piece...

first off, there's little evidence to support hte claim that king frederick was pleased. that's just one of those things people like adding to the backgroudn story cause a piece this magnificent carries with it a certain amount of mythology.

[HaMoOhAhA]

I actually heard that it was likely Frederick didn't like it much as he was not a fan of "complicated" music. Plus the six-part fugue challenge was more to embaress Bach, and Im sure he could care less if bach followed up or not.

[gspaulsson]

Frederick was a pretty accomplished composer himself, so I'm sure he both understood it and was impressed.

[wcbroccoli]

Perhaps. But just 4 days after the historic meeting, the Berlin Spenersche Zeitung reported that when Bach improvised a fugue on the King's theme, "not only His Majesty was pleased to show his satisfaction thereat, but also all those present were seized with astonishment." While it's possible that newpapers of the time might tend to exaggerate, I doubt that they would run the risk of misrepresenting the King.

[bwv548]

Una delle fughe più belle di Bach.

[silla20]

so fucking great

[qixoty]

fuck, fuck, fuck !!!

"silla" like "silly" ???

[Guaguanco11]

I can see why Prince Federick would have been pleased with this.

[kuraimen]

dummkopf

[DerowEgen]

hä?

[alra1975]

It was very good for its time...

[igalk474]

i think you need to tune your harpsichord to play half tone higher , because you press on the right keys , but the note are lowered in half a tone, so try to fix it

[saintdebourges]

You are funny you! You don't know that during the baroque the tuning fork wasn't at 440 as today but it's lower (415 or 395 or other) and it's why you don't hear a C but a B!

[thigwid]

also you can see that it is being played in C minor

[igalk474]

it should be played half-tone higher than that

it supposed to start in C, not B

but it's played very well!!!

[shalimarite]

You are correct igalk474, because Bach improvised this 6-part ricercar on Monday, May 8th, of 1747,(which,incidentally, would have been Life Day for 18th century Berliners)in Postdam, in the Church of the Holy Ghost, on an organ which is tuned to approximately 437. As for the playing, it took me a couple of takes, but eventually, I nailed it.