Bach: Endlessly Rising Modulation Canon (with score!)

[NihilNominis]

Apologies if my video response was deliberately removed...I was having YouTube difficulties, and so I reposted it.

[AsmodelSoljah]

...whoa...

[bobmusick]

What BWV number is this piece?

[thebpl]

@bobmusick Part of BWV 1079.

[gatesurfer]

I heard a group led by Frans Bruggen do this piece. They played it as if the music started at some indefinitely low pitch, below the range of their instruments, and would then continue up the scale and beyond. So in the beginning you only heard a couple of notes, then a few more as the canon repeated, then a few more. Eventually you heard everything, then the lower pitches would drop out, then more, until it all disappeared, as if the music were on some kind of teleprompter. Fun, and weird.

[exelpaperclip123]

It's an amazing canon. Love it!

[mxgirl918]

nice analysis. can someone explain the bass clef and the tenor clef together on the bottom?

[thebpl]

@mxgirl918 Those two clefs indicate the two different voices, each playing in a different key.

[MrJackanthony]

@thebpl Harpsichords kinda irritate me hehe. Got an anecdote? Bach. now he's a genius squared.

[1401JSC]

Clever stuff.

Wonder why Bach didn't get the job.

Eye music. The harpsichord doesn't let us hear the effects of suspensions.

Thanks for posting.

[guitarradeviento]

BACH, the great master!

[simonsmatthew]

This would sound better on the piano - if you had exceptionally good technique and pedalling that you could here the rich harmonic material.

[thebpl]

@simonsmatthew If you want to hear it on a modern piano, an instrument that Bach never heard of, try Konstantin Lifschitz's recording. It's pretty good, although I think he over-pedals the ricercars!

[SpatsMcGee]

@thebpl Bach had heard of the piano, Frederick the Great even led him around his palace, showing off his collection of Silbermanns. Bach supposedly even met with Silbermann himself and criticized his instruments and was possibly a driving factor in later improvements.

[thebpl]

@simonsmatthew If you want to hear it on a modern piano, an instrument that Bach never heard of, try Konstantin Lifschitz's recording. It's pretty good, although I think he over-pedals the ricercars!

Also, my own recording (this one) sounds a lot better on the CD than it does in this video copy from it.  I "overheld" some of the arpeggios to bring out their harmonic content, which is easier to hear there than it is here.

[mightyafrowhitey]

@simonsmatthew Actually, the piano was invented right before Bach's death. It wasn't a modern piano however. I personally think that the piano is a much better sounding instrument and that certain aspects of it suit Bach's style better. If you want to hear some good piano versions of his work check out Glenn Gould.

[ImDrunkOnBaileys]

YOU MUST READ! ETERNAL GOLDEN BRAID!

[thebpl]

I did: in 1982. Good book. I sent the author a copy of this recording and some other notes a few years ago (c2008), since his work had inspired some of mine.

[JupiterIV]

@thebpl How do you read the original score? I'm try openly score it myself, but keep coming up with uninteligible dissonance whenever I try to realize it.

[chenhsi2]

@ImDrunkOnBaileys I'm listening to this BECAUSE I read the book.

[MaggieFloats]

@ImDrunkOnBaileys Great book... Gödel, Escher, Bach...

[bretbryan]

@ImDrunkOnBaileys I did once.....still 'reading'!

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

Read about Bach in Wikipedia. They don't clean up his life like most bios. Both parents dies when he was young. He went to jail for a month for reusing to stay at a job. Almost pulled a knife on someone in a fight. Theres sadness and pain in his music. As muych as Beethoven. More than Mozart, until his Requiem. What they tell you is, he was a religious family man. Yeah well, that's only part of the story.

[wcbroccoli]

@BaronVonLichtenstein According to the Weimar ducal court secretary's report, Bach was confined "for too stubbornly pressing the issue of his dismissal," not "for refusing to stay on the job." There was plenty of "sadness and pain" in the lives of both rich and poor in those days. There's no evidence that Bach had more than his share. Bach & his contemporaries would find odd the notion that a composer's music is supposed to tell a story about his life. That's silly 19th romantic thinking.

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

@wcbroccoli

No evidence Bach had more than his share of pain? His mother died at 9, his father a year later. Did your parents both die before you were ten?

[wcbroccoli]

@BaronVonLichtenstein We're not talking about our time. In those days many children were orphaned at a young age. The children of one of Bach's Weimar ducal employers were both orphans. Bach's Coethen employer, Pince Leopold, who was about the same age as Bach, died in his 30s, within months after both his children died. Young and old, rich and poor, died unexpectedly from common illnesses that we routinely cure with antibiotics or prevent with vaccines.

[cambridgewong]

G.E.B.

[fracche]

Bach is the perfection..stop

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

Bach was uneven. His best is as good as anyone's but he wrote a lot of boring organ music. And like most music to order. However Handel, Corelli, Gabrieli and a few others were more consistent. In general, I prefer baroque, but still think nothing beats Mozart's Requiem. He didn't use minor keys much.

[bubblykings]

I favourited and rated this video a five star before I even before I heard the music, because Bach is Bach, ever so amazing...indeed it didn't let me down!

[paradoxicus]

Subiendo,siempre subiendo para encontrarse sin bajar y así hasta el infinito.

"La bandera se mueve".

"El viento se mueve".

[bernhardfranz]

@paradoxicus basto !

[rh7189]

are there any modern day baroque composers alive?

[Roy161718]

i'm not sure but this beautiful music should never die.

[fortune32]

Yes. Sure. But i don't know anyone who has earned succes with baroque music, maily cause it's just out of date. But among amateurs, (some are quite good, accually really good) you have baroque composers.

[JMCaldwellAcademy]

no.

there might be composers with a great talent in counterpoint and canons and such, but the baroque period was between (aprox obviously considering all forms of art) 1500 to 1750, with the death of JS Bach.

So unless, there's someone that's a couple of hundred years old, there's no baroque composers around :)

[wcbroccoli]

@JMCaldwellAcademy The baroque music era ran from about 1590 to 1760. Counterpoint wasn't invented in the Baroque. And there were canons in the Miiddle Ages. And canon didn't end with the baroque. Mozart wrote canons. One of William Schuman's symphonies opens with a canon. Canon is a compositional technique, not just a type of composition.

[skinkusmetalicus]

@wcbroccoli Bach is the undisputed father or music as we know it. There was an eight voice chorale found not long before Mozart's death and upon seeing it, Mozart laid the score out so he could see it all and hear it in his head as only he could. Even after all the composing he had done to that point he made the most profound and shocking statement in music's history. The elderly Mozart said, "Wow, I can learn so much from this". He knew who the master was.

[wcbroccoli]

@skinkusmetalicus The 33-year old Mozart's statement was neither profound nor shocking. It merely shows his own shock upon hearing some Bach vocal works for the first time, works which were unknown to him, had never been printed, and reflected a musical tradition that he and his generation were out of touch with.

[Renshen1957]

@wcbroccoli 26 y.o. Mozart was introduced to JSB by Baron van Swieten in 1782 and Mozart transcribed fugues from JSB's WTC bk 2 for string trio, Contrapunctus 8 Art of the Fugue, a prelude JSB's Organ Sonata No 3, a prelude Bach's Organ Sonata No. 2, fugal 3rd movement in C minor from the same sonata; and Fugue No. 8 by W.F. Bach. Mozart wrote about 10 plus Masses, with Fugues; in the conservative bastion of Church music, Mozart was well acquainted as were others with "a music tradition."

[wcbroccoli]

@Renshen1957 Even before Bach's death many of his keyboard pieces were already known in Austria, France, Italy & England via hand copies. WTC was widely circulated in hand copies & AofF was published in 1751. So it's no surprise Mozart was acquaitned with these keyboard works. But in Mozart's time Bach's vocal works were unpublished and virtually unknown outside Leipzig. Mozart did not encounter Bach vocal works until his visit to Leipzig in 1789.

[wcbroccoli]

@Renshen1957 You confuse the tradition of composing masses with the musical tradition of an era. A Mozart mass is nothing like a Palestrina mass. The fact that Mozart composed many masses doesn't signify that he had any familiarity with church music of the time of Palestrina. or. for that matter, Bach. No one will ever confuse the sugary masses of Mozart's era with sublime church pieces of earlier generations.

[wcbroccoli]

@Renshen1957 Mozart was introduced to Bach vocal music (which you can't seem to distinguish from his keyboard music) in a visit Leipzig 1789. It is that visit that I commented about before you put in your 2 cents. According to an eyewitness account, "Mozart knew Bach more by hearsay than by his works, which had become quite rare; at least his motets, which were completely unknown to him" and came as revelation, even shock, to him.

[faleru]

@skinkusmetalicus mozart was never an elder xD

[Renshen1957]

@skinkusmetalicus I thought the story was Mozart heard a performance of Bach's motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied under the direction of J F Doles (a student of Bach who became Kantor of St. Thomas Kirk) that reportedly made such a deep impression on Mozart. Mozart looked at all the parts of the score as there was no complete manuscript at the performance.

[VolkColopatrion]

@JMCaldwellAcademy

maybe in the style but not in the period.

[NihilNominis]

@JMCaldwellAcademy There are Neo-Baroque composers around. ;) Some of us don't think those Classical modernisers ought to have had the last word.

[kratanuva725]

@NihilNominis Please tell me you use modern harmony and rythyms along with your baroque influences, or something else new, and are not just copying Bach...

[NihilNominis]

@kratanuva725 I have to reach Bach's level before I can exceed him. Further, I'd like an example of something I could use which Bach *didn't*?! :D

[kratanuva725]

@NihilNominis Bach didn't use 5/4 time... (as far as I know anyway, if he did, I would really like to hear it)

[1401JSC]

@kratanuva725

No indeed, but he did write an impossible low B for organ pedals.

Handel wrote an aria in 5/8 in "Orlando" (mad scene).

[JamesTR4]

@NihilNominis I'm sorry...ur request is contradictory...

[PraeludiumUndFuge]

I can't think of any who have actually poured all the labor into the craft they did back then, even the best ones of nowadays... the modern lifestyle simply doesn't allow it.

[PraeludiumUndFuge]

The depth of the old music is unmatched basically.

[parquar]

@PraeludiumUndFuge but Bach would have dominated all of creation if he had computer programs. As he said, it is just about hard work so somebody could do it if they were rich or a music major not into some John Cage bullcrap

[Dodlemcno]

I think Bach too would have been distracted by all the flashyness of computers and wouldn't have had the peace of mind to compose like he did. Hence why there are such few legends these days

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

It is interesting to wonder what Bach would like. Who can say? Coldplay? U2? Quadraphenia? Ygwie Malmsteen? There's no way of telling. Unless there parents put them through training the classical composers could have just formed rock bands. Been the next Black Sabbath. Bach's parents were both dead by the time he was 10. Maybe he would have joined a punk band like Blink 182. Born in the 1920s or 30s he might have written swing. It's impossible to say.

[Dodlemcno]

Bach was in to harmony. He was a religious man. Sure if his life experiences were different he would have been a different man. But the Bach that was would find very little interesting in what you mentioned. His ear may be picked by Yngwie, but then he'd realise he was being plagiarised. And not convincingly.

So there. I can say.

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

@Dodlemcno @Dodlemcno

Religion is another thing based almost entirely on upbrining. It is unlikley he would have been religious brought up today. Bach was a natural keyboardist. Maybe he would have done something like Eric Carmen, Elton John, Billy Joel, ELO, ELP? He had soul. A lot of his music was dark, from both parents being dead by ten. He practically knifed someone once.

[wcbroccoli]

@BaronVonLichtenstein EVERYONE in Bach's day was religious. Everyone in the Lutheran Germany of his era learned the Lutheran catechism, sat in church for 3-6 hours on Sundays, listened to hour long sermons flanked by cantatas, heard organ chorale preludes and sang chorales, and read (if they could read) the Bible. Religion poked its head into everyone's business 24x7. There was no escaping it.

[wcbroccoli]

@Dodlemcno Every composer in Bach's era was "in to harmony", and everyone in Lutheran German of his day was religious.

And the hysteria over "plagiarism" is a modern preoccupation, along with copyright hysteria. Only people of our generation fret over such things.

[skinkusmetalicus]

@wcbroccoli Everyone was religious? I don't believe that anyone has ever been religious. They were forced to act as if they were. You can't claim to know what is in other people's heads. Look at the church now. These are despicable people. They would not do what they do if they really believed what they talk about. Also, deep down society knows that it is hogwash. We put people in asylums for talking to ghosts, why not believers? Cos we know it is just theatre. Embrace your atheism!!

[faleru]

@BaronVonLichtenstein then why discussing it?

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

Well you get chessmasters, olympic athletes. But that is a good point. It would be very hard to write like Bach without constant training, exposure to that music. Its so much easier to just write pop rock. I knew someone that went to Julliard very young, and his originals were like a bad imitation of Asia. I think the best schools take students with clerical skills, and dont even look for imagination.

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

I dont even think there are many modern day classical composers alive. Who has both the training and skill?

[RainMan34]

Classical music does NOT = baroque, alone. This is a misconception among peeps who aren't very familiar with classical music.

There are many forms and styles of classical music which are very much alive and well currently.

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

I didn't say it wa only baroque. Just that there are not many writing classical music now, outside of movie scores.

[RainMan34]

That's incorrect. What are you basing this on?

[RainMan34]

That statement is completely false.

[RainMan34]

No need to get feisty, Mr. Credible.

Btw, credibility is not gained through providing offensive dialogue. Your commentary, and refusal to accept the idea that classical music still exists outside of the film format, is indicative of a reactive, sub-par intellect.

It also does nothing to boost your argument. Your first statement is as silly as all that follow.

Not trolling just telling you to pipe down if you don't know what you're talking about.

Keep that in mind.

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

Then list classical composers today outside of film scores, you incompetent liar.

[RainMan34]

Now then. I'll explain my position.

I'll give you this... Classical composers day are not as widely known by name as film scorers for the fact that 'serious' classical music has been eclipsed in popularity by other styles of music for the past 60 years or so (if not longer)... therefore other musicians of other styles receive more attention NOW.

This is NOT to say that classical composers aren't around and this is NOT to say that classical music is dead.

[wcbroccoli]

@RainMan34 Isn't that why they call it "classical"? E.g., classical music, classic art, classic literature, classic cars?

They don't make these things anymore, and if they did still make them, then they wouldn't be called "classic" or "classical", would they.

In the early 18th c, they mostly listened to and played contemporary music. There wasn't much interest in "classical music." That didn't happen until the end of the 18th c., with the growth of public concerts.

[parquar]

I could only see your latest comment in my email so I'm just replying to this one. I think Bach might have been a scientist or something. If Bach were in the 21st century though and could use computers, his output would be insane

[Chromometron]

@rh7189 The Baroque period is long over. In fact, it died together with J.S. Bach.

[tempodimarcia]

loool. Writing a canon that modulates with every repetition isn't that difficult xD

It's all just music theory. Of course this kind of thing wasn't done very often during Bach's lifetime though, and it takes a great deal of skill to do this without any "model" to look at. Good piece, good performance! (It takes patience to write out all that by hand, too!)

[sailingforde04]

I think its the harmonisation that is used in this piece that we have to look at , and admire , which is amazing : )

[PraeludiumUndFuge]

@tempodimarcia I realize this but there is a certain level of artistry and high quality in Bach's compositions which elevate them beyond mere exercise. It's hard to match him even if you are well trained and consciously imitate him. Mozart fell short in his attempts. Beethoven, Haydn and Albrechtsberger also did. I know how to look at Bach in perspective since I have studied him in depth but he is really quite implacable.

[man0fthehour]

Its so beautifully eary. Almost sureal.

I am actually getting freaked out listing to it

[RainMan34]

it's eerie b/c it defies our ability to interpret where it is going to lead to. We can't own or predict it. Such insight is rare. Such talent is infinitely rare.  Where does this kind of insight to create come from... it seems impossible that a keen eye of a man like bach can detect mathematical principles in nature to a degree which seems to indicate a spiritual link to another world.

It's taking us somewhere we haven't been, as all good works of art often do. It's beautiful.

[parquar]

well said rainman. Many Bach pieces take numerous listens for the 'surprises' to go away and for me to remember what is happening

[RainMan34]

Absolutely. When I hear a Bach piece (especially from contrapunctus variations), it is like falling in love for the first time or riding a roller coaster for the first time.

There is something unexpected and exhilarating about it

[anisometropie]

Hmm i don't understand. when you read the original score. the 2 last notes of the first bar. when you read with the F-clef : B-flat A , ok.

but when you read in C-clef : F-flat E ?

[anisometropie]

How do you know which one of the 2 voices start first on the lower staff? why is this the bass key that goes first ?

This is just impossible to play it with the original score, you have to read the 2nd staff with 2 different clef and you have to read it on 2 differents bars at the same time, and when the first voice come back to the first bar in G minor, the second voice is still at the last bar i C minor !!!

how could even Bach write something like that ?! and so beautiful !!!

[FireAndFlames]

I know Bach did compose a piece called "The Little Harmonic Labyrinth," but man that name could very very aptly be used for this piece. It sounds like you're walking in a spiral. A very eerie spiral.

[acurrucu3]

Don't you have a ruler?..

[msopher]

I don't get it.  Somebody explain it please.

[thebpl]

The way the composition goes up by a whole step every time it repeats?

[msopher]

I don't hear anything repeating. Where does it go higher each time?

[thebpl]

It repeats itself every 35 seconds (approximately) in this performance, a step higher each time.

[msopher]

Okay, got it.

[Patryczeq155]

Look, you start in c-minor, when it ends it means it starts again, but in d-minor, then e-minor, f-sharp minor etc.... And then you have one more time c-minor,then d-minor..... Neverending..... :]

[smalin]

What's the BWV number of this?

[JupiterIV]

One Thousand, and Seventy Nine

[turatino]

beo beo beo!!!!!!!

[debartzen]

Reincorporad Introduccion:Canon Eternamente Remontante Crearéis Anteponiendo RICERCAR.

[jerguismi]

wow, incredibly amazing.

[Davidoff73]

nice work ! !

[ezekieloak]

So this just goes on until you run out of keyboard? Or do you have to jump down a register or five to start again? How funny! It just sounds like.. I dunno... a joke or something. I keep wondering when the fingers will run out of keys! I can´t stop laughing! This is SO FUNNY!

[Funkypotat0]

In the words of Ton Koopman...

"Bach is for me the greatest genius in musical history, and that is because there is a fantastic balance between emotion and intelligence.

I think this piece really shows the intelligent side of Bach more than anything.

[codonauta]

Did you copy this entire manuscript, manually, with pencil?

[thebpl]

Yes. A good exercise, writing out the whole thing. That's the way Bach taught his own students, too: make a handwritten copy of the piece....

[codonauta]

Yes, I do that too , ( or did ). But to music softwares. We really learn a lot doing that.

[wcbroccoli]

@thebpl LOL How else would one of Bach's students have obtained a copy? There were no copy machines!

[88ale]

How can I learn to really appreciate this kind of music ?

[danielleosimpson]

It sounds like you already do. Keep listening and follow scores with the audio.

Daniel Leo Simpson

[Isosphere]

Learn piano tuning. How-to-do's are availanle on the internet. Buy an old 5$ piano on a flea market, put it in your garage and try to make it "sounding". Listening to the intervals, chords and overtone interferences will suddenly make you recognize what Bach wants to tell us.

It's all about harmony.

[eliodevoto]

bach o chaz

[eliodevoto]

bach o chaz

[ariastoteles]

Great and marvelous post. Thanks for posting about the Prince of baroque musicians: Bach.

Salut!

[clubsandwedge]

king

[Timrath]

astonishing!

[stankylittleangus]

I do like this better.

[jannokas85]

That was very useful studying this canon ;)

[KrazyKrasinski]

Great for my students!

Thanks!

[wolfgang7445]

BAch is the true father of music

[yashil17]

says Wolfgang Amadeus!

[Lavariall]

good job. thx for the notation

[Monrealese]

Thanks for posting, wonderfull!