"Bach lifts my spirits, even if I'm having a bad day."
Beginning March 21, J.S. Bach's birthday, WQXR is bringing you the complete works of Bach. Bach 360º festival is 10 days of non-stop Bach and we want to hear your Bach stories: your first experience with Bach, great performances you’ve seen, what the music means to you.
Call 347-286-1059 and tell us your Bach stories.
Get ready to Bach around the clock.
WQXR will be presenting over 200 hours of the music of J.S. Bach, from March 21 (the composer's birthday) through March 31 (Easter Sunday).
The festival will last 10 days and will cover every single piece by the composer– from the beloved Brandenburg concertos to the sublimely beautiful passions and the intricate fugues — in a range of styles, including live recordings, classic interpretations, period-instrument performances, modern transcriptions and orchestrations, among others.
The music will be peppered with expert commentary, daily themes (“Bach in Leipzig,” “Bach on Keyboard”), biographical details, and insights by musicians, scholars and writers, such as Paul Elie, author of Reinventing Bach; Christoph Wolff, the leading Bach scholar in the United States; and Oliver Sacks, neuroscientist and author of Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain.
Bach 360 will also feature two live events in The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WQXR:
WQXR.org will be the place for listeners to share their reactions and stories about Bach's music.
A special edition of WQXR’s classical music industry podcast, Conducting Business will convene a roundtable of experts on the longstanding debate around whether Bach should only be played “authentic” using the instruments and style of his day, or whether the work is open to modern interpretations and reworkings.
There will be a "Bach Café," a series of videos of notable performers playing Bach at WQXR’s intimate café. And for those looking to add some movement to their listening experience, WQXR.org will program a special Bach yoga playlist specifically for instructors to use in their classes. The track listing will be published on WQXR.org as well.
Finally, WQXR.org will offer a free download from a new Bach recording each day of the festival. Up first will be a reissue of a classic Pablo Casals version of Cello Suite No. 1.
* Simone Dinnerstein's free concert is made possible by support from The North Highland Company, a global consulting company.
Everyone has a story to tell about Bach. Here’s mine.
Bach brought me back after 9/11. It was Sunday, September 23, 2001, just 12 days after the terrorist attacks brought down the World Trade Center, killed thousands of people and obliterated all sense of reason and order in our city. I was in my kitchen preparing the first “normal” meal my family would eat together since the tragedy hit. I had been working round-the-clock navigating a city in chaos and filled with raw emotion.
WNYC's FM transmitter was destroyed in the attacks and we were forced out of our downtown studios, yet this was the moment when New York needed us most. All of us at WNYC were determined to rise to the occasion and to cover the devastation and the aftermath thoroughly. We went to an all-news, all-talk format operating our newsroom from the streets and remote locations. We carried on like this for days and I didn’t quite know how we’d get through it.
Then that Sunday evening the music returned. David Garland presented the first music WNYC had aired since the 10th. It was a special called "Bach: Solace and Inspiration." It was just what I needed at the time. It was just what our city needed after days of turmoil and unrelenting stress. As the music came flowing through the radio, I was overwhelmed with feelings of relief and comfort. I was transfixed by the power of Bach’s compositions and soothed by their incredible sense of order. I knew then that our city would recover. I called my husband into the kitchen to listen with me and we stood there taking it all in until David's voice came back on the air. It was the first time after the attacks that I felt like I could exhale and that a sense of structure had returned. In that moment, Bach gave me confidence and reassured me that life would eventually get back to normal.
Starting on March 21, WQXR will celebrate the life, the legacy and the incredible music of Johann Sebastian Bach. For ten days, WQXR will suspend regular programming and play the complete (yes, the complete) works of Bach in a festival called Bach 360°. It’s a fitting tribute for a great composer who has touched the lives of so many, so deeply. As part of the festival, WQXR will explore the allure of Bach with historians, musicians, authors and, of course, our listeners. WQXR is inviting listeners to share their stories via a special Bach Voices hotline and online. Call 347-286-1059 to record your story or visit WQXR.org/BACH360, where you can also find a full list of festival programming including live events.
On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, WQXR played highlights from the special "Bach: Solace and Inspiration." Click here for the playlist.
The majestic music of Johann Sebastian Bach has enhanced many film scores. The Disney Studio put their powerful spin on Bach's D-minor Toccata and Fugue by combining it with dramatic cartoon imagery in "Fantasia." For "The Beast with Five Fingers," in which a pianist's severed hand continues to play and cause trouble, composer Max Steiner built his score around that same D-minor Toccata.
In some film scores, Bach's themes or style have been integrated into the original score, to intriguing effect, as in Jerry Goldmith's jazzy, dissonant, Bach-influenced music for "The Brotherhood of the Bell." David Garland presents highlights from these and other scores inspired by Bach.
In advance of WQXR's Bach 360 festival, The Choral Mix features music from the Bach Family. There’s C.P.E., Johann Nicolaus, Johann Christoph, Johan Ludwig and the master himself, Johann Sebastian. Today, a Bach Family Reunion.
Carl Phillip Emanual Bach, better known as C.P.E., was J.S. Bach’s son. C.P.E. followed in his father’s musical footsteps. Like J.S., C.P.E. also set the text of the Magnificat. And another member of the family featured in the playlist is Johann Christoph Bach. On tap is his Fürchte dich nicht with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, led by Timothy Brown. Johann Christoph was a first cousin once removed to J.S. Bach and his musical reputation during the time he lived was surpassed by only J.S. himself so you know he was quite a composer in his own right.
Johann Ludwig Bach, another of J.S.’s many cousins composed a large amount of music and held important musical posts in Germany. We feature a version of his Das ist meine Freude with Richard Marlow leading The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Johann Michael was the brother of Johann Christoph Bach, as well as father-in-law of Johann Sebastian Bach (he was the father of J.S. Bach's first wife Maria Barbara Bach). He hear his Halt, was du hast performed by the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge under the direction of Richard Marlow.
Flanking the show are the Magnificats and we conclude with the joyous opening and closing movements composed by J.S. The Monteverdi Choir, and English Baroque Soloists are led in a performance by John Eliot Gardiner.
Johann Bach/ The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge,Timothy Brown
Unser Leben ist ein Schatten
Johann Christoph Bach/ The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge,Timothy Brown
Fürchte dich nicht
J.S. Bach/Wondrous Love/ Choir of St Ignatius, Kent Tritle
Komm, Jesu, komm
Johann Ludwig Bach /Bach Family Motets/ The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Richard Marlow
Das ist meine Freude
Johann Michael Bach/Bach Family Motets/ The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Richard Marlow
Halt, was du hast
Buxtehude/ Buxtehude: 6 Cantatas/ Orchestra Anima Eterna and Collegium Vocale
Jos van Immerseel
Jesu, meines lebens leben
Bach/Bach: Motets/ The Sixteen, Harry Christophers
Jesu, Meine Freude:
Gute nacht
Weicht, ihr trauergeister
Bach/ Bach: Magnificat/ Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner
Magnificat
Gloria Patri
In Johann Sebastian Bach's day, Zimmermann's Coffee House in Leipzig was the place to hear new music by some of Europe's top composers. Coffee drinking was all the rage and Zimmermann's was an informal venue where on Friday evenings, Bach would stop in to conduct the Collegium Musicum, or Musical Society, founded by his predecessor Telemann.
Zimmermann's also played a part in the history of Bach's Coffee Cantata (BWV 211), a work that amusingly tells of an addiction to coffee.
Sadly, the original Zimmermann Coffee House was destroyed during World War II. But we've created our own informal coffee-and-performance venue at WQXR. Listen below to highlights from the Café Concert series featuring the music of J.S. Bach.
J.S. Bach's masterful fugues, chorales and counterpoint can provide the perfect accompaniment to that next lotus, warrior or upward facing dog pose.
Our programming team has partnered with a licensed yoga instructor to create specially-curated playlists for both restorative and flow-type classes. Don’t just sit and listen—feel and move. Below is a list of participating studios and scheduled times for the WQXR Bach Yoga playlist. We'll update this page as more studios sign on.
May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport
92nd St. Y
1395 Lexington Avenue
May Center, Third Floor
www.92y.org/MAYCENTER
212-415-5701
Wednesday, March 20 at 1:35pm
Bach Yoga Cardio Court Studio
Non-member tickets: 212-415-5701($15)
YogaWorks, Upper West Side Location
37 West 65th Street #4
New York, NY 10023
www.yogaworks.com/Locations/New York/Westside.aspx
212-769-9642
Thursday, March 21, 9am with Paula Liberis
Upper West Side Yoga & Wellness
75B West 85th Street
New York, NY 10024
www.uwsyoga.com
212-595-2221
Thursday, March 21, 9-10:15am Chair Yoga with Ingrid Marcroft
Friday, March 22, 12-1:15pm Open Level with Stephan Kolbert
Saturday, March 23, 12:30-1:45pm Chair Yoga with Stephan Kolbert
Sunday, March 24, 6-7:15pm Urban Zen Restorative with Ingrid Marcroft
Monday, March 25, 10:30-11:45am Urban Zen Restorative with Stephan Kolbert
Tuesday, March 26, 9-10:15am Chair Yoga with Ingrid Marcroft
Wednesday, March 27, 12-1:15pm Urban Zen Restorative with Ingrid Marcroft
Thursday, March 28, 9-10:15am Chair Yoga with Ingrid Marcroft
Thursday, March 28, 7:30-8:45pm Open Level with Stephan Kolbert
Friday, March 29, 5:30-6:45pm Open Level with Stephan Kolbert
Saturday, March 30, 12:30-1:45pm Chair Yoga with Stephan Kolbert
Sunday, March 31, 9:15-10:30am Open Level with Ingrid Marcroft
Moksha Yoga NYC
434 Sixth Ave. 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10011
www.mokshayoganyc.com
212-780-9642
March 21st - 5.30PM
March 25th - 8:30 PM
March 28th - 9PM
March 31st - 2PM
Dig Yoga
204 N. Union Street
Lambertville, NJ
www.digyoga.com
609-460-4222
Tuesday, March 26 6:30-8pm
Bach - Moving Into Stillness – Active restoratives with Sue Elkind
Morris Center YMCA
79 Horsehill Rd.
Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
http://morriscenterymca.org
973-267-0704
Monday, March 25 6:15am – Pilates with Jane Parks
Wednesday, March 27 6:15am – Pilates with Jane Parks
Dig Yoga
410 Monroe Street,
Philadelphia
www.digyoga.com
215-800-1993
Tuesday, March 26 7:30-9pm
Bach Inspired Flow – Mixed Level Flow with Mariel Freeman
The Treehouse
419 S. York Rd.
New Hope, PA
www.cornerstoneclubs.com/the-treehouse
215-862-2200
Friday, March 22, 6:15pm - 7:30pm
Bach Restorative Class at The Treehouse with Sarah Hochburger
Subway commuters, get ready to Bach 'n' roll.
For the third year in a row, the cellist Dale Henderson has organized Bach in the Subways Day as a way to celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach's birthday — and his music, of course. On Thursday, Bach's 328th birthday, musicians — from fellow cellists to accordion players and a 17-member choir —will perform Bach pieces on Subway platforms across Manhattan, as well as one stop in Brooklyn.
The event is conceived and organized by Henderson, who has been performing Bach in the subways of New York since 2010, in an attempt to "sow the seeds for future generations of classical music lovers."
Here's where you can get your Bach on (schedule subject to change):
• Layne McNish, cello: 8:30-9:15 a.m. at Rockefeller Center (B/D/F/M train)
• Timothy Law, violin: 9-11 am at 168th St. (A/C train)
• Katherine Liccardo, violin: 10:30 a.m.-noon at Union Square (near N/Q/R train)
• Terrence Thornhill, cello, and Raul Huaman, cajon: 11 a.m.-noon at Penn Station (A/C/E train entrance)
• Portia Zwicker, viola: 12:30-1 p.m. at 50th St. (A/C/E train upper level)
• Keith Bonner, flute: 1 p.m. at 86th St. (B/C train)
• Helvetica Trio: 1-2 p.m. at 50th St. (C/E train upstairs downtown platform)
• Michael Lunapiena, cello: 1-3 p.m. at Union Square (downtown N/Q/R train)
• Brian Thompson, viola: 1-3 pm at 57th St./7th Ave. (Q train)
• Mohit P. Mansukhani, baroque cello: 2 p.m. at 51st St. (6 downtown train)
• Jeremy Danneman, saxophone: 2-3 p.m. at Lorimer St. (L train, or Metropolitan Ave. G if the L is occupied)
• Peri Mauer, cello: 2-3 p.m. at 42nd St. (A/C/E uptown train)
• Lindsey Horner, bass: 2-4 p.m. at 181st St. (A train)
• Lorenzo Sandi, double bass: 3 p.m. at Union Square (in front of 14 St./4 Ave. southwest exit)
• Yijia Zhang, violin: 3 p.m. at 79th St. (1 train)
• Evan Shinners, keyboard: 4 p.m. at Chambers St. (J train)
• Mayumi Miyaoka and Robert Duncan, accordions: 4-6 p.m. at 14th St. (corridor between L and A trains at 14th St./8th Ave. or L platform)
• Untersingen: The Bach Edition
7 p.m. at Lexington Ave./53rd-51st
7:35 p.m. at Grand Central
8:10 p.m. at Union Square
8:45 p.m. at Times Square
9:20 p.m. at Columbus Circle
• Dale Henderson, cello: 9 p.m. at 96th St. (1/2/3 train)
• Kristin Olson, baroque oboe, and Anthony Albrecht, baroque cello: 10 p.m. at @ 57th St./7th Ave. (N/Q/R train)
View Bach in the Subways Day 2013 in a larger map
WATCH: 2012's Bach in the Subways Day.
In recent months, symphony orchestras have returned to the music of J.S. Bach with a vengeance.
The New York Philharmonic is in the midst of a month-long Bach festival with the expressed goal of reclaiming the master's music for modern instruments. At the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Brandenburg Concertos are on thecalendar this spring. The orchestra also plans to re-record the Bach transcriptions of Leopold Stokowski – those sumptuous, technicolor arrangements that had been considered passé (if enjoyably so).
"There's been a weird phenomenon for a long time that has made it pretty rare to see Bach on symphony orchestra programs," said New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert in a recent video explaining the orchestra's project. He goes on to question the "exclusivity" of suggesting "there was one only one right way to play Bach."
All of this is a far cry from the period-instrument movement's expressed goals to rediscover how Baroque music might have sounded using original instruments and performance practices. For years, if not decades, period-instrument players had gained the upper hand by researching appropriate tempos, ornamentation and instruments. In this podcast, host Naomi Lewin asks three guests about this phenomenon.
"I think [orchestras] are panicking," said Monica Huggett, a leading baroque violinist and conductor. "In London, where I worked most of my career, in the end the big orchestras stopped playing Bach because in the end, there was so much good historical performance that they really didn't need to do it any more and people really didn't want to hear it any more."
James Oestreich the consulting classical music editor at the New York Times, sees things differently. "I wouldn't agree that the large orchestras are panicking," he said. "I think they've lost their balance to some extent. I think they've lost confidence in the repertory to some extent. To hold up the music scene in world capital like London or New York and say this should set standards for who performs what, I don't think is fair."
Oestreich adds that the New York Philharmonic played lots of Bach in the 1990s, and the orchestra is "perhaps overselling" the novelty of its current festival.
Lewin also asks a prominent New York pianist whether she's trying to reclaim Bach for the modern instrument.
"I'm not doing anything unique by playing Bach on the piano," says the pianist Simone Dinnerstein. "I think that I just have more omnivorous tastes and think that Bach sounds very interesting and different when played in many different ways on many different instruments with modern orchestras, on authentic instruments."
Weigh in: Do you enjoy the sound of Bach played on modern or on period instruments?Please leave your comments below.
Guests:
Free Download: Pablo Casals plays the Cello Suite No. 1
Much of Johann Sebastian Bach’s mystique arises from his lack of one.
In a world where composer are often thought to be touched by angels, Bach was more like God’s work horse, turning out sonatas, cantatas, concertos and so much else – 1,100 pieces in all – and probably doing so with the scrowl so often seen in his iconography, reflecting the strain of writing so much music that speaks on so many levels.
In life and art, Bach exuded toughness. As a young man, he was a street brawler. As a church employee, he challenged authority. As a mature composer, he wrote an aria melody that supported an exhaustive series of 30 permutations known as The Goldberg Variations. So solid is his music that it survives most transcriptions. And it needed to amid the frequent re-purposing that was necessary in his high-velocity musical world.
During his 1685-1750 lifetime spent employed by Lutheran churches in the German capitals of Cothen, Weimar and Leipzig, Sunday services lasted four hours. They kept Bach so busy with music – heard but not seen since the congregation was looking away from the choir loft – that he had to take Communion on Thursdays. Instrumental works were written for coffee houses and pleasure gardens. Collections of music once thought to be mere practice exercises are among Bach’s most profound.
From this almost unimaginably different world, Bach speaks clearly over the centuries, though the perception of what he accomplished is constantly morphing. The popular notion that Bach summed up the previous 150 years of music doesn’t entirely hold up upon hearing his musical ancestors and contemporaries. Nobody sounded like him. And though Bach was so immersed in his liturgical world that he literally blended in with the architecture – the web-like ceiling beams at Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church are a visual counterpart to Bach’s musical counterpoint – his religious contemporaries criticized him for too much bombast and intricacy.
How odd – considering the divine simplicity Bach achieves while spinning out of a mere C-major arpeggio in his Well-Tempered Clavier (where the science, mechanics and expression of music are one and the same) or his descriptive vision of a world crying out for redemption in the St. John Passion. Scholars have also discovered a “Da Vinci Code” element: Certain hymns can be superimposed perfectly over instrumental works previously thought to have no religious meaning. So rich and vast is Bach’s music that you can find pretty much anything if you look hard enough.
The 1970s historically-informed performance revolution – that brought Bach closer to the modern ear but away from the modern concert hall – had to happen. Large choruses rendered the music partly cloudy, obscuring its inner workings and dictating slow-motion tempos. While the St. Matthew Passion took 222 minutes in the 1962 Otto Klemperer recording on EMI, more modern performances come in at 160 minutes. Fewer musicians – sometimes 32 singers and 34 instrumentalists for the Matthew passion – yield more Bach.
Now, the big works are played with awareness of what needs to be heard but with modern concert-hall practicality. At the New York Philharmonic’s recent performance of the Mass in B minor, Alan Gilbert used 60 choristers and 47 instrumentalists. Though he once conducted super-slim Bach, Yannick Nezet-Seguin is living large in his forthcoming Philadelphia Orchestra performance of the St. Matthew Passion with 80 choristers and 64 instrumentalists.
"You find ways to convey the same message," he said recently. As has each generation before him.
AUDIO (BELOW): The Many Forms of Bach as heard on WQXR
Free Download: Pablo Casals plays the Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, Prelude*
From "The Sound of Pablo Casals" (EMI Classics)
Throughout the Bach 360° festival, we will offer a daily download from a new Bach recording. First up is a 4-CD set featuring reissues of performances from the 1920s through the '50s. The Bach suite was recorded in Paris in 1938.
Available at Arkivmusic.com
6 am Sleepers awake, BWV 645 (“Wachet auf” chorale from Cantata BWV 140)
8 am Orchestral Suite No. 4, BWV 1069
9 am Solo Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006
10 am Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen (Ascension Oratorio), BWV 11
11 am Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007
12 pm Keyboard Concerto in F Minor, BWV 1056
1 pm Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582
2 pm Italian Concerto in F Major, BWV 971
3 pm Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major, BWV 1046
5 pm Cantata BWV 147 “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” (features the “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” chorale)
8 pm Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043
9 pm Sheep May Safely Graze (“ Schafe konnen sichen wieder”chorale from Cantata BWV 208)
→ View the full day's playlist
*Not into Facebook? The download will be included in this week's WQXR E-Newsletter.
Is it getting Bach in here or is it just me? Yes, we're bringing sexy Bach. Are you ready to Bach around the clock?
From the very first mention of the Bach 360 festival, we haven't been able to help ourselves when it comes to Bach puns. Really, we can't help ourselves. So, we've embraced it and invite you to as well.
Tweet us your favorite visual or verbal Bach puns using the hashtag #Bach360 or leave them in the coments section at the bottom of this page and we'll add them to our Generator of Bach Puns (click on the Compose Another button to see more) or Bach 360 Pinterest board throughout the festival.
Yeah, we got your Bach.
It’s no secret that Johann Sebastian Bach hid a musical cryptogram in many of his works. Spelling out his name in B-flat, A, C, and B-natural (which is an H in German conventions), the composer left his mark in bass lines, fugues and many of his other works.
Since then, hundreds of composers have paid the father of classical music homage by incorporating this motif in their music. We’ve gathered our favorite five.
1. Pärt: Collage über Bach
Arvo Pärt expressed his reverence for Bach in his seminal work Credo, which liberally uses the chord progression from Bach’s Prelude in C. However, Pärt’s Collage über Bach, completed four years before Credo, is more obvious with its references. In this work the composer developed the collage technique he would employ in the Credo, while paying tribute to Johann Sebastian. In addition to the B-A-C-H theme, the three movements, toccata, sarabande, and ricercar are all allusions to baroque conventions.
2. Liszt: Fantasia and Fugue on the Theme of B-A-C-H
Like Bach, Franz Liszt was celebrated for his keyboard-playing skills, and the latter composer paid homage to his Baroque predecessor with virtuosic pieces for both the organ and piano. Liszt’s Fantasia and Fugue on the Theme of B-A-C-H, uses the musical cryptogram as an anchor for his piece, and reins in his usual abundance of flourishes. The work has become a staple of the organ repertoire.
3. Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra
Written from 1926 to 1928, Arnold Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31 melds the composer’s forward-thinking process with his respect for the history of musical composition. Though the composer bristled when The New York Times suggested that the B-A-C-H motif is the theme of the piece, it is nonetheless quite prominent. It’s first carried by the trombones and becomes more present throughout. Wolfgang Rihm points out that Schoenberg also seems to incorporate Bach-like inventions and polyphony as well.
4. Schumann: Six Fugues on the Name of B-A-C-H
In 1845, Schumann, gripped by what he called Fugenpassion, spent much the year completing the cycle Six Fugues on the Name of B-A-C-H. Each of the six pieces is meant to showcase a character of Bach, within Schumann’s own Romantic style. Though, Schumann predicted these pieces would be among his most beloved works, they are in fact among his lesser-known ones.
5. Schnittke: Quasi una sonata
Perhaps no composer quoted Bach within his own compositions as liberally as Alfred Schnittke. The 20th-century Russian composer and proponent of “polystylism” paid homage to Bach, among numerous composers, including Haydn, Mozart, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and others within his works. Quasi una sonata, a work for violin and piano that translates to “like a sonata,” experiments with the B-A-C-H motif as a unifying theme. The composer said, somewhat cryptically that the theme, “stands out clearly as the solution. The solution consists of the fact that nothing is solved.”
On Saturday, March 23 at 7 pm, experience the music of Johann Sebastian Bach reimagined in a two-part evening featuring cross-genre interpretations of the master's work.
This event will be broadcast on WQXR and webcast right here on this page. Bach Lounge is a one-of-a-kind event featuring musicians from across the musical spectrum sharing how Bach that has touched them most through performance. Period instrument performances, jazz interpretations and contemporary visions will mingle, illuminating each other — and the music.
Guests will include pianist Ethan Iverson, jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas, composer/performers Andrew McKenna Lee and Florent Ghys, violinist Jennifer Koh, cellist Jan Vogler, pianist Benjamin Hochman and period instrument ensembles from Julliard415. Hosted by WQXR's Terrance McKnight and David Garland.
Get the entire Bach Lounge experience. Join us for both events!
$45 - BUY NOW
Bach Lounge: Part One
7pm (1 hour and 40 minutes)
$25 - BUY NOW
Alessio Bax, piano
Antonio Campillo Santos, flute, with Ignacio Prego, harpsichord
Andrew McKenna Lee, guitar
Matt Herskowitz, piano
Dave Douglas, trumpet, with Matt Mitchell, piano
Jennifer Koh, violin
Bach Lounge: Part Two
9pm (2 hours)
$25 - BUY NOW
Ethan Iverson, piano
Jan Vogler, cello
Juilliard415, period instrument ensemble
Florent Ghys, double bass
Benjamin Hochman, piano
Luce Trio, saxophone/guitar/bass
Rob Schwimmer, theremin, with Vicky Chow, piano
Free Download: Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue
Johann Sebastian Bach has suffered from the somewhat humorless and dour image presented by some of his portraits. Unlike Mozart or Beethoven, he’s never been the subject of a blockbuster movie biography. And he wrote a lot of religious music, usually for a church or court, earning a comfortable but never lavish salary.
But Bach also led a colorful life, full of professional intrigue, unjust treatment and domestic misfortune. He was married twice, sired 20 children and played keyboards with deftness that won him many public admirers and the derision of religious authorities.
Even Bach connoisseurs may be surprised by some of the lively details in the composer's biography, from his early years as a quasi-orphan to his final decline in health (possibly due to diabetes, though there is plenty of debate about this). Here are a few that caught our attention:
Twinkle Toes: As a virtuoso organist, Bach was especially admired for his footwork. After seeing a recital, a colleague marveled how Bach could, "by the use of his feet alone – while his fingers do either nothing or something else – achieve such an admirable, agitated and rapid concord of sounds on the church organ that others would seem unable to imitate, even with their fingers."
The Organ Whisperer: “As a boy, Bach certainly involved himself with organ builders and probably was constructing organs quite literally,” said Paul Jacobs, the chair of Juilliard’s organ department. “He was always inside them, evaluating these great machines and making them into artistic objects.” Bach was frequently hired as an organ consultant, evaluating the instruments and making sure their air supply was working properly. Some church leaders may have felt a bit nervous when inspector Bach showed up.
Bach behind bars: We think of Bach as a pillar of rectitude, but he sometimes came into conflict with the church authorities for adding too many embellishments to the music. He frequently argued with them and was accused of being absent from his duties – off drinking at a local pub.
Bach’s headstrong nature may have gotten the best of him when he asked the Weimer authorities to be released from his duties in order to assume the Kapellmeister job in Coethen. “He may have used some strong language that offended the ducal or ducal administrator,” said Bach biographer Christoph Wolff. The former employer refused to grant his release and there was a struggle between the noblemen over Bach; for this the prodigy was thrown in jail for about six weeks.
The 4,000-Mark Bribe: In 1722, Bach applied for an organist's position St. Jacobi's Church in Hamburg, but he is not accepted since he refuses to pay his prospective employers a bribe. After Bach withdrew his name from consideration in Hamburg and Johann Joachim Heitmann was given the job, Heitmann promptly paid 4,000 marks in gratitude.
A Path to Blindness: Bach had two unsuccessful eye surgeries– almost unheard of in the mid-18th century – to restore the vision he lost from years of toiling on his craft by candlelight. In 1750, he visited the Chevalier John Taylor, a flamboyant, traveling English eye surgeon who was known to operate before crowds in the town square – and then skipping town when the patients took their bandages off. After the two surgeries, Bach developed a painful infection and was completely blind when he dictated his final work. He died a few months later, some believe due to the infection.
Free Download: Lise de la Salle plays Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (Naïve)*
The young French pianist Lise de la Salle recorded an album of Bach and Liszt in 2005, highlights of which are included in the new release, Lise de la Salle: A Portrait.
Available at Arkivmusic.com
6 am “Schlafe, mein Liebster” (Sleep, my dearest) alto aria from the Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248
7 am Cantata: Herzlich Tut Mich Verlangen BWV 727
8 am Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C Minor, BWV 1060
9 am French Suite No. 6 in E (will be a well-known interpreter)
10 am Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
12 pm Cantata BWV 208, “Was mir behagt” (“Hunt” Cantata)
2 pm Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012
3 pm Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, BWV 1041
5 pm Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047
6 pm Keyboard Concerto No. 2 in E Major, BWV 1053
7 pm Cantata BWV 60, "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort"
8 pm Mass in B Minor, BWV 232
→ View the full day's playlist
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Free Download: Glenn Gould Plays the Prelude No. 1 from the Well-Tempered Clavier I
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In 1953, the Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter was enlisted to play at Joseph Stalin's funeral. For the occasion he chose the longest and most dense prelude and fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Solemn commemorative music it was not. Several times the authorities tried to interrupt him to make way for another pianist, but Richter could not be distracted from the score. Finally, he was removed from the keyboard by armed soldiers; at that moment, he feared he would be shot.
Bach composed the two books of The Well-Tempered Clavier not as a political manifesto but as a kind of treatise to promote the modern system of "tempered" tuning. Both books consist of 24 preludes and fugues going through all the keys, a total of 48 pieces in each volume. Until Bach’s era, it wasn’t possible to write such a work because of the unstandardized tuning of keyboard instruments. Now it was feasible to transpose and modulate into any key, no retuning necessary.
The opening C Major prelude, smooth and serene, doesn't like something that would ruffle a totalitarian regime. But the contrapuntal writing gets increasingly intricate and experimental in the latter book. By the end, many of the fugue subjects – as in the Fugue in F sharp minor – are unwieldy, fragmented and strange. But they are not severe or remote either, and Bach manages to express yearning and frustration, joy and humor over the course of the cycle.
Many later composers studied Bach’s WTC in an effort to improve their own fugue writing. Verdi reportedly used it in Falstaff. Shostakovich modeled his own 24 Preludes and Fugues on it. And Stravinsky apparently began his every composing day by playing something out of the set to get his own ideas going.
Yet it’s impossible to consider the WTC as pure, absolute music. Scholars have identified religious and numeric symbolism in Bach’s score, including quotations from sacred hymns of the day, and references to Bible verses. One passage in the F minor Fugue has been interpreted as representing Christ's crucifixion, owing to its descending chromatic manner and other features.
Most striking was Jean-Paul Sartre’s observation that The Well-Tempered Clavier is a metaphor for freedom in the face of oppressive social orders. His theory would seem to bolster Richter’s provocative gesture in 1953. "Against the closed traditions of little despotic courts," Sartre wrote, "he taught how to find originality within an established discipline; actually, how to live. He demonstrated the play of moral freedom within the confines of a religious and monarchical absolutism.”
Free Download: 
Prelude No. 1 in C Major, BWV 846: from the Well-Tempered Clavier I
One of the 20th century's great Bach interpreters, Glenn Gould recorded the Well-Tempered Clavier in the summer of 1962 at Columbia's 30th Street Studio. The opening prelude and fugue are contained on the new double album "This is Glenn Gould" (Sony)
Available at Arkivmusic.com
Well-Tempered Clavier excerpts from the following artists:
6 am Wanda Landowska, harpsichord
7 am Till Fellner, piano
8 am Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048 (plus a Stravinsky arrangement played by members of International Contemporary Ensemble)
9 am Masaaki Suzuki, harpsichord
10 am Glenn Gould, piano
11 am Andras Schiff, piano
12 pm Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord
5 pm Andras Schiff performs the complete Book I of the WTC in a live performance from October 27, 2012 at the 92nd St. Y
Below: Listen to the complete WTC performed by SviatoslavRichter:
Free Download: Lorraine Hunt Leiberson sings 'Mein Herze Schwimmt im Blut'
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The Bach Cantata series on the Soli Deo Gloria label is a high point of recording history. The performances by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists under John Eliot Gardiner are thrilling, and the sound quality is superb, especially given that the cantatas were recorded in different venues over the course of a liturgical year.
Their cover photos are remarkable: portraits of people from traditional cultures, most or all apparently non-Christian. Gramophone cited them when honoring the series with a special achievement award:
"Each volume is illustrated by a striking Steve McCurry photograph, the message being that Bach’s music transcends race and creed. And listening to any one of these astounding works is to be brought face to face again with Bach’s towering yet deeply human (and humane) genius."
With all due respect, “transcends race and creed” misses the point. Bach’s cantatas transcend nothing, and that is their glory. Bach was a pious Lutheran, and to deny him his particularity is to wrong him and those who share his beliefs—and to wrong others, as well.
In words and music, many of Bach’s cantatas reflect the theological doctrine of “total depravity”: the idea that original sin, according to the Formula of Concord, is “so profound a corruption of human nature as to leave… nothing uncorrupt in the body or soul of man.” The cantata BWV 170, “Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust,” opens with a blissful evocation of heavenly rest, but its music takes a sinister turn when the soloist sings of earthly life as a “house of sin” teeming with creatures who relish “vengeance and hate.” The triumphant chorus of “Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben,” BWV 77, gives way in the cantata’s fifth section to an aria that bemoans humanity’s defective love and inability to fulfill the Bible’s commandments. The aria is a tortured sarabande, a dance whose dragging steps suggest lameness and sloth.
The notion of “total depravity” is specific to Lutheranism and certain other Protestant denominations. Among the Abrahamic faiths, Orthodox Christians and Catholics have substantially different teachings on original sin, and Muslims and mainstream Jews have no such concept at all. Bach’s cantatas, then, do not “transcend” creed; they purposefully affirm it, in music of unsurpassed eloquence and might.
In celebrating Bach, we can consider other ways he differed from us. He would have been bewildered by the idea of people listening to his sacred compositions for aesthetic pleasure alone. He crafted them as functional music, in the same way that paintings, to quote one art historian, were “functional objects… produced for defined sacred or secular purposes” until (roughly) Michelangelo’s time. As for Bach’s “genius,” the Soli Deo Gloria label takes its name from the initials SDG that he inscribed on his manuscripts: “glory to God alone,” at once a profession of humility, a paraphrase of 1 Timothy, and one of the Protestant Reformation’s Five solae.
Regarding Bach as “universal” brings other dangers. Richard Taruskin has noted that Germanic music, including Bach’s, came to be constructed as “unmarked” in the nineteenth century. “That is how one naturally tends to hear the music that surrounds one,” he writes, “until one is made aware of the existence of other musics. Thereafter one’s own music can be heard as unmarked not by default but only by ideology.” The result can be a “patronizing” view of musics construed as other than universal.
All of this said, what to make of the beautiful faces that grace the Soli Deo Gloria recordings? I think that they do not belong there. Bach’s church taught that human beings were “poor sinners” who were “saved alone by faith in Christ.” Why associate that dogma with Rajputs and Afghans? And what might Bach have thought of them, or indeed of us in the WQXR community? The answer might displease us, but we best honor Bach by seeking to understand him on his own terms and not by making him over in our own partial (and nebulous) image.
Weigh in: What do you think of the message in Bach's cantatas? Does it transcend time and religion? Please share your thoughts in the comments box below.
Free Download: Lorraine Hunt Leiberson sings "Mein Herze Schwimmt im Blut"
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died in 2006, was one of the celebrated mezzo-sopranos of the modern era. In 2003, she recorded Bach cantata “Mein Herze Schwimmt im Blut” (My Heart Swims in Blood) with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and conductor Jeffrey Kahane. (Around the same time she starred in a critically praised staging of the cantata by the director Peter Sellars.) Download the final aria from the cantata, as featured on a new recording called “Lorraine” (Yarlung Records).
7 am Cantata BWV 202, "Weichet nur, betruebte Schatten" (The "Wedding" Cantata)
8 am Violin Concerto No. 2 in E Major, BWV 1042
10 am Cantata BWV 147( features "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" chorale)
11 am Cantata BWV 156, "Ich steh mit einem Fuss im Grabe" ("I stand with one foot in the grave" - features the same music as the slow movement of the F Minor Keyboard Concerto BWV 1056)
Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor, BWV 1067
12 pm Cantata BWV 140, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" (features "Sleepers awake" chorale)
1 pm Cantata BWV 211, "Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht" ("Be quiet, stop chattering" - known as the "Coffee" Cantata)
2 pm Cantata BWV 80, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" ("A Mighty Fortress is our God")
3 pm Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, BWV 1050
5 pm Cantata BWV 174, "Ich liebe den Hochsten" ("I love the Almighty")
English Suite No. 3 in G Minor, BWV 808
6 pm Cantata BWV 106, "Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit" ("Of all times God's is the best")
7 pm Cantata BWV 51, "Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen" ("Praise God in every land")
8 pm Cantata BWV 82, "Ich habe genug" ("I have enough")
9 pm Lute Partita in C Minor, BWV 997
Free Download: Jennifer Koh Plays the Sarabande from the Partita No. 2
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In the New York real estate market, buyers and renters worry about space, light and location.
Nearly 300 years ago J.S. Bach faced many of the same preoccupations when he moved from Cothen to Leipzig to take a new job as cantor and music director. He quickly landed a "4-BR, renovated apt. with park VU" but it was also – to borrow from New York real estate parlance – “cozy.”
“Bach’s apartment in the St. Thomas School was cramped,” said Christoph Wolff, the respected Bach scholar and Harvard University music professor. “There’s no question about it."
Floor plans to the apartment show that the Bach family had about 800 square feet spread over four floors, including four bedrooms, several closets and storage areas, a maid’s room and an office suite. Not everyone got a bedroom to him- or herself, said Wolff, “So people were doubling, tripling up.”
Bach scholars have long questioned the rationale behind the composer’s move to Leipzig, as it appears to have been a lateral career step at best. Not only did his wife, Anna Magdalena lose her stipend as a singer, but Bach also took a pay cut while assuming more work as a teacher at the St. Thomas School for boys. He was responsible for directing several choirs which performed in the town’s four churches as well as teaching Latin (he ended up delegating the latter task to others).
But while the pay was modest and rooms were cozy, like a savvy New Yorker, Bach knew a deal when he saw one. He was able to live rent-free while enjoying an envious commute: the apartment’s office suite was connected by a hallway to the school’s classrooms and library, which contained hundreds of his books and scores. “Right next door was the room for Bach’s copyists, the students who would have to prepare the performing parts from Bach’s score, so this was a relatively substantial working area where Bach spent a lot of time,” said Wolff.
Other amenities included ground-floor laundry with a built-in copper wash basin, basement storage with two caches for beer, and a heated second-floor living room with a large table that seated twelve.
But perhaps most coveted to Bach were those familiar twin perks: light and views. “The St. Thomas School was flush with the city wall, according to Wolff. “So Bach looked into an organized landscape because Leipzig was surrounded in that area by parks. He was looking into a French-style park where the landscape was really organized the way we know it from Versailles and other fancy palace parks.
“I think when he looked out of the window, it must have given him at least some ideas about musical architecture that related to what he was seeing.”
The B Minor Mass, Magnificat, passions, Christmas Oratorio, Goldberg Variations and the Art of Fugue all date from the years Bach spent in Leipzig.
Free Download: Jennifer Koh Plays the Sarabande from the Partita No. 2 in D minor (BWV 1004)
This New York violinist recorded the Partita No. 2 for her latest recording, Bach and Beyond, which features the title composer's music alongside unaccompanied violin works by composers who followed in his wake. (Available at Arkivmusic.com)
7a Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G, BWV 1049
8a Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, BWV 1068: Air on the G String
English Suite No. 1 in A Major, BWV 806
9a Keyboard Concerto No. 4 in A Major, BWV 1055
11a/12p Christmas Oratorio Part 1-3
1p Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, BWV 1068
2p Cantata BWV 198, "Lass Furstin, lass noch einen Strahl"
3p Keyboard Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 826
4p Passover Show
5p Cantata BWV 212, "Mer Hahn en neue Oberkeet" (We have a new lord of the manor) Known as the “Peasant” Cantata. Composed for Zimmerman’s Coffee House in Leipzig.
7p Keyboard Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052
8p The Musical Offering
Don't believe us when we say that Bach is still an influential figure? Well, at least he still was in the '80s — the 1980s, that is. WQXR's This is My Music, hosted by Lloyd Moss, featured at least 20 famous folks (from politicians to fashion models) who included a Bach piece in their all time top 4 musical pieces.
(Drum roll, please...) and those enlightened celebrities are:
Free Download: David Fray Plays the Sarabande from the Partita No. 2
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Last Tuesday night, the New York Philharmonic’s principal cellist, Carter Brey, had just finished playing a selection from Bach’s Sixth Cello Suite at the David Rubenstein Atrium when WQXR’s Jeff Spurgeon remarked, “He makes you see God and want to dance.”
Though it’s doubtful that Bach intended his music for dancing, he wrote his fair share of chaconnes, gigues, bourées, gavottes, and sarabandes—all based upon conventional French court dances. Centuries later, these works would inspire choreographers to great pieces of their own. In celebration of Bach 360, we’ve collected five notable examples of Bach’s presence in the worlds of ballet, modern, and contemporary dance.
1. Jerome Robbins: "A Suite of Dances"
When Spurgeon remarked on Bach’s dance ability, perhaps he was thinking of the multitude of works that were set to his Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, which are largely modeled on Baroque dances. Jerome Robbins’s “A Suite of Dances,” created for New York City Ballet in 1994, uses four movements from the six suites. Rudolph Nureyev collaborated with the choreographer Francine Lancelot on the ballet “Bach-Suite,” set to the cello works. More recently, Yo-Yo Ma commissioned Mark Morris to choreograph the third suite for his Inspired by Bach project, for which Morris created “Falling Down Stairs.”
2. Twyla Tharp: "Bach Partita"
The chaconne traces its provenance back to a lively 16th century dance, so it’s no surprise that Bach’s famous rendition of the form in the Partita for Violin No. 2 has served as accompaniment for several dances. Twyla Tharp used the Chaconne as the finale in “Bach Partita,” while William Forsyth used it as the starting point for creating his 1984 masterpiece, “Artifact” (it sets the entire second act). Strangely, George Balanchine’s ballet “Chaconne” seems quite contrarian, as it’s set to Gluck.
3. Boris Eifman: "Musagète"
To celebrate the Balanchine centenary in 2004, New York City Ballet commissioned the choreographer Borif Eifman to create a tribute to Mr. B. The result, “Musagète" (right), which is a reference to the ballet “Apollo,” pays homage to the impresario with works set to Fugue à la Gigue in G major and the Sarabande from Violin Partita No. 1, among other works by Bach and one by Tchaikovsky. Though Bach appears frequently in the New York City Ballet repertoire, it’s usually in ballets by Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins; Balanchine only used Bach’s music once, the Double Violin Concerto in “Concerto Barocco.”
4. John Neumeier "Bach Suite Nos. 2 and 3"
The American director of the Hamburg Ballet, John Neumeier, references two suites for orchestra in his ballets "Bach Suite No. 2" and "Suite No. 3," which both premiered in 1981. Those two musical works later factored into Neumeier’s “Magnificat,” an assemblage of Bach’s music that also includes selections from more somber works, such as Suite No. 3 for Organ, the Mass in B-minor, and, of course, the titular Magnificat. Neumeier has also made full-length ballets to the St. Matthew Passion and the Christmas Oratorio.
5. Paul Taylor: Multiple Works
Our previous four examples cite examples of dances that were specifically set to Bach’s own dances, however, our fifth recognizes a the choreographer Paul Taylor, who has found a endless source of inspiration in Bach, not just his minuets and musettes. Within the repertoire of Taylor’s eponymous company are “Brandenburg,” “A Musical Offering,” “Esplanade” (which is set to the Double Violin Concerto), “Cascade” (a mix of three keyboard concertos), and “Promethean Fire” (Toccata and Fugue in D minor; the Prelude in E-flat minor from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier; and the chorale prelude "Wir glauben all' an einen Gott").
Free Download: David Fray Plays the Sarabande from the Partita No. 2 in C Minor (BWV 826)
The French pianist David Fray has recorded two albums of Bach, the most recent featuring the Partitas Nos. 2 and 6 and the Toccata in C minor. The partitas were originally performed on harpsichord but Fray gives it the modern grand treatment. (Available at Arkivmusic.com)
7a Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C, BWV 1066
8a Italian Concerto in F Major, BWV 971, plus the secular written in honor of Bach’s Cothen boss Prince Leopold: Cantata BWV 173a, "Durchlauchster Leopold"
9a Magnificat in D, BWV 243
10a Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225 (motet – “Sing to the Lord a New Song”)
11a Violin Concerto No. 2 in E Major, BWV 1042
12p Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat, BWV 1051
2p Cantata BWV 206, "Schleicht, spielende Wellen" ("Glide, playful waves")
3p Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008
4p Cantata BWV 57, "Selig ist der Mann" (“Blessed is man)
5p Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043
6p Partita in E major, BWV 1006a (Bach’s transcription for lute of the E Major Partita No. 3 for solo violin)
7p Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, BWV 1010
8p Furchte dich nicht, ich bin bei dir, BWV 228
9p Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G, BWV 1048
VIDEO: Isabelle Faust Plays Bach's Partita No. 3 in C Major
In an age when crossover-slanted, heavily promoted violin babes are a staple of record industry marketing, Isabelle Faust’s career seems cut from a different cloth. Though the German violinist has made nearly 20 albums since the late 90s, her photo appears on the cover of just a few. A casual Internet search turns up a Wikipedia page that is only in German and some profile articles in industry trade magazines.
In Europe, Faust has appeared as a soloist with many premier orchestras and chamber music series. In 1993, she became the first German to win the Paganini Competition of Genoa. Four years later she received UK-based Gramophone magazine’s “Young Artist of the Year” award.
Faust came to Philadelphia in the early 1990s to study at the Curtis Institute of Music and made her American debut with the Utah Symphony in 1995. But she only made her first appearance with a top U.S. orchestra in 2008, with the Boston Symphony. Her debut with the New York Philharmonic came last week, as part of the orchestra’s “Bach Variations” festival.
Why the slow burn? While pretty and intelligent, Faust is also notably self-effacing and unpretentious. She waxes enthusiastic about learning Beethoven from the manuscript scores and on discovering neglected composers.
“I am convinced that there’s lots of music that nobody really knows or nobody really cares to play and which is still either very, very interesting music or very high quality music,” she told Jeff Spurgeon at a recent public talk at the David Rubinstein Atrium. “It doesn’t happen that often that there’s something that’s worth it. But sometimes it happens and then I think one should defend this music and also educate the public.” She pauses and laughs. “That sounds very severe.”
Faust’s early recordings were not of splashy violin showpieces but works by Bela Bartok, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Andre Jolivet and Morton Feldman. Last year she recorded the sonatas and partitas of J.S. Bach, the third of which she played in the WQXR Café. Faust admits they present a particular challenge. “I do play those sonatas and partitas in one evening, which is a challenge for everybody, for the violinist and also for the public,” she said. “I do find the public needs to come closer to me and it’s difficult to come to the public with this music. It’s such an inner music.”
Faust’s violin is a 1704 Stradivarius nicknamed the "Sleeping Beauty." "It's called the Sleeping Beauty because it was forgotten about for 150 years,” she told the South China Morning Post. “Then around 1900, it was found again."
Video: Amy Pearl; Sound: Chase Culpon; Text & Production: Brian Wise
