A Moment of Bach – Details, episodes & analysis

An austere fugue subject here begins with a strange leap. To play this four-note opening on a keyboard is to outline a symmetrical structure, reminding us of the bare pillar that holds up the structure. Adorned on the structure are two faster, florid themes which enter later in this long piece. 

But our moment today is its ending -- a deceptive ending leads to a brief coda, but when it happens, its harmony strikes us with a surprising dissonance, feeling almost like the resolute major tonic triad that it wants to become. But a pesky A natural, the sixth scale degree, dashes this to pieces. 

Bertrand Cuiller plays the C# minor fugue (with prelude) for the Netherlands Bach Society

Today we bring you 24 repeated notes on the same pitch.  Can you think of any other Bach piece which features this special effect?  Certainly this is unique in the orchestrational context here: a high-pitched recorder, beeping out a digital-sounding alarm clock noise.  Or is it a bell ringing?  We explore what this all means -- because, of course, with Bach, it MEANS something.  

Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben (BWV 8) performed by the Netherlands Bach Society. Shunske Sato, conductor; Benny Aghassi, recorder solo

Yes -- the famous one!

One of Bach's most universal melodies, the melody in the strings opens a profoundly perfect setting of a verse of the hymn "Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying" in the central movement (4th of 7) in the beloved masterwork "Wachet auf" cantata. Here is the exceptional performance by the Netherlands Bach Society.

Why does this opening string melody stick with just about all listeners? There are secrets hidden in the very first few notes that we will dissect. Then there is the stately hymn tune which Bach seamlessly incorporates, with a text calling for longing, joy, love, and reverent magnificence.

PATREON for A Moment of Bach - always optional, always appreciated.

Huge thanks as always to the Netherlands Bach Society for allowing us to use their audio examples on our podcast.

Thanks also to Syndey LaCom for our podcast artwork.

To celebrate a milestone in downloads and a successful season wrap with Bachtoberfest, here is our last entry of the year: a blooper reel that we collected from a bunch of episodes in Season 1. 

Here's to the listeners who gave this little podcast ten thousand downloads. See you in Season 2 for more Bach!

In our season finale before we take a break and return early next year, we celebrate the first season’s wrap! For this "Bachtoberfest," we talk Coffee Cantata, German beer, and all things A Moment of Bach. We answer a bunch of listener questions about our own musicmaking processes and history with Bach, and we get deep into some listener ideas. 

Special thanks to YOU the listener for hearing 37 episodes! You made this a real thing. See you in Season 2!

We’ll drop one more bonus after this with the year’s blooper reel!

Artwork by Sydney LaCom

Musical examples provided by the Netherlands Bach Society

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en

Their All of Bach project: https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/allofbach 

The “iceberg”: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicalMemes/comments/7gm1az/the_classical_iceberg/

Today we are joined by Dr. William Heide, longtime music minister at St. John's Lutheran Church, Orange, CA -- as well as a longtime Bach expert.  He has conducted over 60 full Bach cantatas in concerts spanning the three decades of his tenure at St. John's.

The three of us chat about the lasting power of this particular work, in which the soloist sings about welcoming his own passage from life to death, about closing his weary eyes to rest, about leaving the pain of the world behind.  The middle movement is a masterwork within a masterwork -- a stirring yet peaceful exploration of what it means to encounter death, replete with musical silences throughout.

We also feature Dr. Heide's own arrangement of "Abide with Me" for organ, which intersperses the main theme from the "Schlummert ein" movement.

This is our second-to-last episode of the season!  Please ask any question or make any comment -- we'd love to read and answer everything during next week's episode. You can use our website to interact with us at https://amomentofbach.com/ or simply email us at amomentofbach@gmail.com 

Next week: BACHTOBERFEST! The last episode of Season 1 of A Moment of Bach!

Netherlands Bach Society performance of "Ich habe genug (BWV 82)"; Lars Ulrik Mortensen, conductor; Thomas Bauer, bass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_5DG9BD-SU

Dr. Heide's arrangement of "Abide with Me" with melody from mvt. 3 of "Ich habe genug" was part of this concert of organ preludes (skip to 28:50 to see "Abide with Me"):

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=716469542277195

An article about the timelessness of "Ich habe genug" (shared with me by Carol Knox):

https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=55b23eb4-c387-4805-b3d3-a4a5bf65d15c

Huge thanks as always to the Netherlands Bach Society for allowing the use of their high-quality performances as our audio examples. https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en

Thanks again to Dr. William Heide for joining us today!

Special thanks again to our artist, Sydney LaCom, for designing our cover artwork.

A short, simple piece for a solo instrument -- only 35 seconds long.  Yet it has captured the imaginations of so many people: musicians, philosophers, artists, mathematicians, and more.  It's all because of the unique cleverness of Bach -- showing us here that he can construct a piece that can be played forwards OR backwards... OR both at the same time!  Yes, this piece is actually for two instruments -- one playing it normally and the other playing it backwards in time.

Alex recounts the story of Bach composing this piece (and the rest of The Musical Offering), and our discussion turns to the monumental book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (1979) as well as the recent Christopher Nolan film Tenet (2020).   All these works are the result of authors striving to understand profound mysteries of the universe -- all by asking one simple question: what would happen if you turned time backwards?

Video of Shunske Sato performing "Canon 1 a 2" as a duet with himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29YwFjE2b1A

Overview of Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, the book we discussed in this episode: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/hofstadter-grodel.html

J. S. Bach's "Crab Canon" visualized on a Möbius strip (video by Jos Leys): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUHQ2ybTejU

Examples of M. C. Escher's art: https://mcescher.com/gallery/

Article about the philosophy of Tenet, the film we mentioned in the episode: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/plato-pop/202009/is-tenet-s-fatalism-excuse-do-nothing

More examples from The Musical Offering performed by the Netherlands Bach Society, all of which were played in the background of this episode:

Ricercar a 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv5A1gy2oys

Ricercar a 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjxKy3pP41w

Canon a 4 "Quaerendo invenietis" ("Seek and ye shall find"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRqoP-NdkDg

The organ is an instrument built into a building. Selecting a variety of sounds for an organ composition which requires more than two is a new task on each different organ, and the varieties and combinations are essentially endless. In this chorale prelude in "trio" texture, three distinct organ sounds make up the musical texture, each with a distinct job.

Bach's mastery of organ composition was demonstrated not just by long showy fugues and toccatas. The Orgelbüchlein is a collection of short chorale preludes in artful style and with the theological purpose of spanning the themes of the liturgical church year. 

"Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" is unique in texture for the Orgelbüchlein and distinctly known as a passionate and desperate call in time of need. It proves that an instrument as old and architecturally fixed as the church organ has the emotional power to convey this human condition. 

Leo van Doeselaar plays: https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-639/

Piano transcription, Tatiana Nikolayeva: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0zw7CaplFY 

Alex spends one more episode excitedly leading us through some of his favorite music, this time from the "Et in terra pax" movement.  Picking up from where last episode left off, we talk about the beauty and simplicity of the main melody of "Et in terra pax", which Bach cleverly reuses as a fugue subject a bit later.  This is classic Bach -- elegant and sophisticated, joyful and heartfelt, deeply complex and yet effortlessly clear and beautiful.

"Et in terra pax" from Mass in B minor, as performed by the Netherlands Bach Society: https://youtu.be/3FLbiDrn8IE?t=1285

"Glory to God in the highest!"  The orchestra and choir burst with excitement and joy.  Alex and Christian talk about the beauty of the Latin language, the huge orchestra (which seems actually pretty small by today's standards), the Protestant Reformation, and somehow Christian even gets a tuba joke in there.  Alex talks us through his favorite moment -- the end of the instrumental introduction, where Bach uses a rhythmic trick to ramp up the excitement leading into the choral entrance.

"Gloria" from Mass in B minor, as performed by the Netherlands Bach Society: https://youtu.be/3FLbiDrn8IE?t=1183