It occurred to me whilst watching this part that this is the very same film I saw as a teenager that first made me fall in love with Bach. I think it was Schiff's performance of the fifth Goldberg Variation that did it. So wonderful to see it again, thanks!
Joanna MacGregor is performing with and directing Britten Sinfonia at Londons Roundhouse on 23th Jan. Including Bach's Keyboard Concerto No.5 in F Minor and No.1 in D Minor.
well i don't know about his life being boring. He was in jail once, wasn't he? And showing the life he had with all those children would be interesting.
@linceed87 but they could just make it about his inner thoughts and composition. I'm sure getting in a sword fight with a student is interesting enough. They can play off of things like that, but mainly show things like how he improvised fugues and crazy crap like that
@linceed87 A film about Bach could be IMMENSELY interesting. He lived a long. eventful life. His biography tells of him being a prisoner, a widower with three young sons, an unconventional teacher who got in a sword fight with a student, a man with conflicts between his employers and the sacred and secular, and ESPECIALLY a father: his interactions with his sons, e.g. Bernhard whom Bach pushed to estrangement and had an early death, or even the (possibly) autistic Heinrich are great material.
@MPernelle770 You're right. With that patchwork biography and CV he would nevermore make a professional career in our days.He wouldn't even get any job today!
Well there exists a movie about the life of Bach. A four-part TV-movie with a total lenght of 345 minutes, produced in GDR in 1983/84. I remember it being watched in school some 13 years ago. It's just called: Johann Sebastian Bach, director: Lothar Bellag. Maybe you manage to find it somehow. Would be useful to understand german but maybe there exists already a translation.
12992: I'm guessing he's just kind of improvising or varying the tune of the Air over the same baseline. I'm pretty familiar with much of Bach's music and have never heard that exact thing before.
Yes, and he was probably the worst composer of them all. His keyboard music was mostly written to show off his pyrotechnic piano technique (12hrs practice a day). But his music was otherwise superficial and mathematical. Bach actually became conscious of the problem of letting the fingers override genuine musical decisions. Even Chopin (though a much greater composer) ran into problems in his orchestrations for piano concertos as his harmonies were based on piano chords not on free counterpoint.
I meant Chopin was a much greater composer than Liszt -not than Bach. I also hate most of Isaac Albéniz piano works. It's the same kind of music to me -impressive and difficult but otherwise of no real substance.
i agree, chopin was a better composer than liszt, and i think that bachs compositional techniques kick the shit out of pretty much all the techniques that came after him. his music, i think, should be the basis on how to write and compose music
You're absolutely right. Bach was conscious of that problem that's why he specifically told all his students to NOT compose at the keyboard but rather on pen and paper away from the keyboard like all masters did (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach). The new school of unmusical retards and showmen like Liszt all let their fingers do the composing, they didn't actually have any musical technique or CRAFT, i.e. compositional knowledge to be able to do what the true masters did.
The problem being that for a normie like me or most people, it's hard to compose without an instrument/computer programme at hand because you don't know if you're definitely putting down what's in your head! - it might start on the wrong degree of the scale etc., even if the melodic shape is exactly what you had in mind. Then there's the harmony, well.. can't imagine doing that straight into paper (even when I finally acquire some harmonic proficiency), you'd have to understand it all at once!
it takes years of training and practice. No one said it is easy, why do you think only true masters are able to fluently do it? I have been doing it for years now and can proficiently do it but still require the use of keyboard for more difficult passages but then even Mozart had to "work out" his very contrapuntal passages on a separate paper away from the original copy like is evidenced by the surviving sketches of the Jupiter Symphony; evidence shows he composed at the piano at times as well.
Well hopefully starting my attempts at it at 18 isn't too late. Ah, for the skill & facility of the greats! And yeah, I read that composers like Mozart still often played their pieces as piano reductions to test ideas etc., I suppose even if it's clear, even to the extent of genius, in your head (with the Mozart at least, and probably the other greats, being able to hear the separate parts in their head at the same time) the world of actual sound is still very different and needs verification
not late at all, I started composing at around 19 or 20 and not SERIOUSLY until later and I am now one of the better classical/baroque revivalist composers in the world
How interesting! Revivalist eh, that is encouraging, since I always compose in former idioms, often Baroque - I don't have the genius to pave a new way for music hehe, which makes it all the more fascinating that these now very old styles were once the up-and-coming thing in the musical world! You say 'in the world' which is a massive claim! - would I recognise your name then? And is there any way I can hear your compositions?
Bit random, but you wouldn't know any techniques for learning to compose straight to paper would you? I'd love to be able to step out into the countryside and sketch my ideas down confidently, knowing that they are what's in my head (not that what's in my head is much worth putting down :( especially as it's all unharmonised, but hey, I guess everyone should strive to work at their best within their own capacity). Btw I agree about Liszt etc.
the #1 technique is learning RELATIVE pitch (as opposed to absolute/perfect pitch which isn't as useful) and solfege techniques. The most important is knowing music THEORY and harmony strongly so that you don't need to know what a note sounds like in your head to know whether it would fit into the harmony you're writing well or not. Hum major and minor scales in your head a lot and learn to give yourself a starting pitch and be able to hum any degree of that scale (based on that starting tonic)
Hey, thanks for the info, I really appreciate it. Yeah I can imagine relative pitch being the more important one, as a violinist it's lucky that I have to think about the music I'm playing for the purpose of true intonation, so hopefully I have my foot in the door. And yeah, I enjoy studying music theory (I don't see it as the boring bit of learning the violin), enjoy studying and following scores, & ofc, composing! Harmony is one of my key areas for improvement I think, the theory behind it all
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
Bach wasn't popular in his day.Particularly Germanic culture regarded his music as stuffy & mundane.All is so predictably sequential-ized,with no respect for imaginative suggest-ion.The part writing is so overly realized & the lack of rhetorical invention so overbearing,it's no wonder his son Carl was considered the (Real) Bach.Most of Johann's phrases aren't interesting & his inability to write idiomatically 4 anything beyond organ explains why he was accepted as a great organist only.
Are you some kind of troll? You are either a troll trying to bait people, or this kind of crap "opinion" is probably why you are relegated entirely to expressing your poor musical taste on youtube and a crappy website. Much finer musicians and musical academics than you treat Bach as the highest musical genius. From looking at your various reviews and comments, it seems you like to disagree with established musicians out of jealousy or just for the sake of trying to be different.
Either that or you are just musically deaf and don't realize it. Probably true. In my entire course of research I've never seen or heard a professional classical musician or theorist profess an opinion on Bach like yours. I've always seen them profess exactly the opposite, even if just in passing.
wow that female singer is weak and horrible.
johnsmith21197 3 days ago
The english choir singers are crap.
weddinganejakopp 2 months ago
Could you please help me finding the music piece starts at 0:20? Tnx
JuxtaposedJinx 9 months ago
@JuxtaposedJinx
It's the "Air", the 2nd piece of the Orchestral Suite Nr. 3 in D-Major BWV 1068
If you want the musical score and a royalty free recording just look up BWV 1068 on imslp.org it's legal ;)
bassmajor 8 months ago
I've never heard a voice so beautiful before ;-;
Samoriah 1 year ago
Wow.Bach really influenced Haydn and Beethoven and Mozart.
Akee1990 1 year ago
@Akee1990 Don't forget Chopin, his 24 preludes were a tribute to Bach.
bsd300d 1 year ago
"Everything has got value" Well said
metalbeethoven 1 year ago
It occurred to me whilst watching this part that this is the very same film I saw as a teenager that first made me fall in love with Bach. I think it was Schiff's performance of the fifth Goldberg Variation that did it. So wonderful to see it again, thanks!
Kitsua 1 year ago
I love this, thank you so much.
venusbuddha 1 year ago
Now I would like a move of Bach as well from young age when he had that sword fight and Bering in jail, and his MUSIC!
That will be awesome
stargirlsusan 1 year ago
Joanna MacGregor is performing with and directing Britten Sinfonia at Londons Roundhouse on 23th Jan. Including Bach's Keyboard Concerto No.5 in F Minor and No.1 in D Minor.
tomkihl 2 years ago
Why was that guy playing air in key of C? It is d major if i am not mistaken.
mortson978 2 years ago
It sure would be nice if a movie was done on Bach.
plumflowerblossom 2 years ago 25
wonderful musician but he actually had a very boring life, so it wouldn make a good movie
linceed87 2 years ago
well i don't know about his life being boring. He was in jail once, wasn't he? And showing the life he had with all those children would be interesting.
plumflowerblossom 2 years ago
@linceed87 but they could just make it about his inner thoughts and composition. I'm sure getting in a sword fight with a student is interesting enough. They can play off of things like that, but mainly show things like how he improvised fugues and crazy crap like that
parquar 2 years ago
im sorry but how in any possible humanly way was Bach's live boring?
ticallionstall 2 years ago 4
@linceed87 A film about Bach could be IMMENSELY interesting. He lived a long. eventful life. His biography tells of him being a prisoner, a widower with three young sons, an unconventional teacher who got in a sword fight with a student, a man with conflicts between his employers and the sacred and secular, and ESPECIALLY a father: his interactions with his sons, e.g. Bernhard whom Bach pushed to estrangement and had an early death, or even the (possibly) autistic Heinrich are great material.
MPernelle770 1 year ago 2
@MPernelle770 You're right. With that patchwork biography and CV he would nevermore make a professional career in our days.He wouldn't even get any job today!
weddinganejakopp 3 months ago
@plumflowerblossom
Haha I guess it would be alot of humor when he gets into fights with the council heads, the princes and church authorities....
Afterwards he'd stamp into his house and play a few fuges on his harpsichord to cool down.
DeHeld8 1 year ago
@plumflowerblossom Yeah! Like Amadeus or something! That would be sweet! :-D
HerrWarja 1 year ago
@plumflowerblossom
Well there exists a movie about the life of Bach. A four-part TV-movie with a total lenght of 345 minutes, produced in GDR in 1983/84. I remember it being watched in school some 13 years ago. It's just called: Johann Sebastian Bach, director: Lothar Bellag. Maybe you manage to find it somehow. Would be useful to understand german but maybe there exists already a translation.
Arsamenes1 1 year ago
@plumflowerblossom
It was ;) It's called "Grosse Geschichten 25 - Johann Sebastian Bach" I just don't know if it's available in English but it's really great!
bassmajor 8 months ago
@plumflowerblossom im sure they do... they probably just suck lol
LINX29X92 8 months ago
@plumflowerblossom - there is a German movie done on Bach, unfortunately I can't recollect the title.
AlsatianCousin 8 months ago
@AlsatianCousin There's one movie called Die Stille Vor Bach--The Silence Before Bach. Pierre Portabella directs, I think...
TheMboucher 3 weeks ago
that soprano sang in one of Yanni's Acropolis performances!
susumu07 2 years ago
anybody know what the song is being played on the piano right after Air in the beginning. 0:34 - 0:45
12992 2 years ago
It is Loussier invention, I presume
pierrot79 2 years ago
12992: I'm guessing he's just kind of improvising or varying the tune of the Air over the same baseline. I'm pretty familiar with much of Bach's music and have never heard that exact thing before.
Elhardt 2 years ago
why do you stop that a wonderful music
stargirlsusan 2 years ago
Andras Schiff is wonderful - in his playing and his words, you can really feel his connection to the music
orangewill 3 years ago 2
Glenn Gould???
bkk10230 3 years ago
liszt didn't learn to compose studying Bach. He didn't even pay much attention to Baroque music.
morelli6 3 years ago
Yes, and he was probably the worst composer of them all. His keyboard music was mostly written to show off his pyrotechnic piano technique (12hrs practice a day). But his music was otherwise superficial and mathematical. Bach actually became conscious of the problem of letting the fingers override genuine musical decisions. Even Chopin (though a much greater composer) ran into problems in his orchestrations for piano concertos as his harmonies were based on piano chords not on free counterpoint.
IsaacIsaiahMusic 3 years ago
I meant Chopin was a much greater composer than Liszt -not than Bach. I also hate most of Isaac Albéniz piano works. It's the same kind of music to me -impressive and difficult but otherwise of no real substance.
IsaacIsaiahMusic 3 years ago
I totally agree with you. I find Liszt incredibly boring and unmusical. the only thing that I like is his sonata.
morelli6 3 years ago
i agree, chopin was a better composer than liszt, and i think that bachs compositional techniques kick the shit out of pretty much all the techniques that came after him. his music, i think, should be the basis on how to write and compose music
robecre2 3 years ago 2
You're absolutely right. Bach was conscious of that problem that's why he specifically told all his students to NOT compose at the keyboard but rather on pen and paper away from the keyboard like all masters did (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach). The new school of unmusical retards and showmen like Liszt all let their fingers do the composing, they didn't actually have any musical technique or CRAFT, i.e. compositional knowledge to be able to do what the true masters did.
requiemaeternam7 3 years ago 2
The problem being that for a normie like me or most people, it's hard to compose without an instrument/computer programme at hand because you don't know if you're definitely putting down what's in your head! - it might start on the wrong degree of the scale etc., even if the melodic shape is exactly what you had in mind. Then there's the harmony, well.. can't imagine doing that straight into paper (even when I finally acquire some harmonic proficiency), you'd have to understand it all at once!
thelightisahead 3 years ago
it takes years of training and practice. No one said it is easy, why do you think only true masters are able to fluently do it? I have been doing it for years now and can proficiently do it but still require the use of keyboard for more difficult passages but then even Mozart had to "work out" his very contrapuntal passages on a separate paper away from the original copy like is evidenced by the surviving sketches of the Jupiter Symphony; evidence shows he composed at the piano at times as well.
requiemaeternam7 3 years ago
Well hopefully starting my attempts at it at 18 isn't too late. Ah, for the skill & facility of the greats! And yeah, I read that composers like Mozart still often played their pieces as piano reductions to test ideas etc., I suppose even if it's clear, even to the extent of genius, in your head (with the Mozart at least, and probably the other greats, being able to hear the separate parts in their head at the same time) the world of actual sound is still very different and needs verification
thelightisahead 3 years ago
not late at all, I started composing at around 19 or 20 and not SERIOUSLY until later and I am now one of the better classical/baroque revivalist composers in the world
requiemaeternam7 3 years ago
How interesting! Revivalist eh, that is encouraging, since I always compose in former idioms, often Baroque - I don't have the genius to pave a new way for music hehe, which makes it all the more fascinating that these now very old styles were once the up-and-coming thing in the musical world! You say 'in the world' which is a massive claim! - would I recognise your name then? And is there any way I can hear your compositions?
thelightisahead 3 years ago
I think that if somebody has to refer to themself as a "true master" (on youtube no less) they're a bit delusional.
thereisonlyonething 2 years ago 6
Bit random, but you wouldn't know any techniques for learning to compose straight to paper would you? I'd love to be able to step out into the countryside and sketch my ideas down confidently, knowing that they are what's in my head (not that what's in my head is much worth putting down :( especially as it's all unharmonised, but hey, I guess everyone should strive to work at their best within their own capacity). Btw I agree about Liszt etc.
thelightisahead 3 years ago
the #1 technique is learning RELATIVE pitch (as opposed to absolute/perfect pitch which isn't as useful) and solfege techniques. The most important is knowing music THEORY and harmony strongly so that you don't need to know what a note sounds like in your head to know whether it would fit into the harmony you're writing well or not. Hum major and minor scales in your head a lot and learn to give yourself a starting pitch and be able to hum any degree of that scale (based on that starting tonic)
requiemaeternam7 3 years ago
Hey, thanks for the info, I really appreciate it. Yeah I can imagine relative pitch being the more important one, as a violinist it's lucky that I have to think about the music I'm playing for the purpose of true intonation, so hopefully I have my foot in the door. And yeah, I enjoy studying music theory (I don't see it as the boring bit of learning the violin), enjoy studying and following scores, & ofc, composing! Harmony is one of my key areas for improvement I think, the theory behind it all
thelightisahead 3 years ago
his father made him learn all the WTC and he played them in recitals when he was young
robecre2 3 years ago
that was beethoven
morelli6 3 years ago
and look how that turned out for him. Liszt became one of the worst and jokiest composers in history.
requiemaeternam7 3 years ago
air on a G string :D
rasmus91 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Bach wasn't popular in his day.Particularly Germanic culture regarded his music as stuffy & mundane.All is so predictably sequential-ized,with no respect for imaginative suggest-ion.The part writing is so overly realized & the lack of rhetorical invention so overbearing,it's no wonder his son Carl was considered the (Real) Bach.Most of Johann's phrases aren't interesting & his inability to write idiomatically 4 anything beyond organ explains why he was accepted as a great organist only.
ClassicalMusicReview 3 years ago
Are you some kind of troll? You are either a troll trying to bait people, or this kind of crap "opinion" is probably why you are relegated entirely to expressing your poor musical taste on youtube and a crappy website. Much finer musicians and musical academics than you treat Bach as the highest musical genius. From looking at your various reviews and comments, it seems you like to disagree with established musicians out of jealousy or just for the sake of trying to be different.
SANPH 3 years ago
Either that or you are just musically deaf and don't realize it. Probably true. In my entire course of research I've never seen or heard a professional classical musician or theorist profess an opinion on Bach like yours. I've always seen them profess exactly the opposite, even if just in passing.
SANPH 3 years ago
you tell 'em.
requiemaeternam7 3 years ago
The first piece is from what i can tell an improvisation on "Air". The left hand is the same.
daciarulz 3 years ago
its just amazing to watch him playing the variation at 5:35 even if u mute the sound ! the hands are dancing with each other
waeman 4 years ago 2
Is this part of the Great composers Dvd's
andypsk 4 years ago
yes
The Great Composers Series by the BBC
elton1981 4 years ago 2