The Ultimate Bach Thread

Sebastian Bach. Sounds like the name you'd give a pet chicken right? Well no. Bach was one of the greatest classical composers. What are your favorite songs of his?

My favorite is Partia No. 1 in B flat.

He made the Baroque period. Always has and always will be my absolute favourite composer.

I'll forever be in love with the Brandenburg Concertos. I used to play them all the time on the flute, and just the other day I went back to them and it was like discovering them for the first time again. They're so amazingly gorgeous.

Also, the Well-Tempered Clavier is pure genius. My dad decided he'd sight-read through one of them every day, and now he's gotten really good at them all, so I wake up every morning to a different piece. I'm getting very tempted to do the same thing, but learn them by heart.

Lol, okay, I have to share this really horrible joke my orchestra teacher told us a while ago. "Bach was an amazing composer. Now, however, he's great at decomposing." ... *headdesk*

I won't say that I am a huge fan, though I wouldn't say that I'm not a fan, I just felt that I had to post in this thread because my best friend is obsessed with Bach. It is a bit random, actually. He loves Irish music and Bach. Anyway, I thought anyone in here would appreciate a few gifts I have gotten for my affore mentioned friend. One was a bumper sticker that said "Get off my Bach" and another is t-shirt that has a pic of Bach in sun glasses that says "I'll be Bach." Gotta love it.

Ohh, I love Bach! He wrote such amazing music. I agree, he pretty much defines the Baroque style for me. I don't really have a single favorite piece, but some of my favorites are:
Tocatta and Fugue in D--the classic organ music of movie villians, and the opening piece in Walt Disney's Fantasia (not as fond of the orchestral version as I am of the organ solo, but they're both good)
Well-Tempered Clavier--as mentioned above, this is just fantastic to play, and the music theory behind it was so original. Bach really had an understanding of the potential of the keyboard instruments.
Sheep May Safely Graze cantata--so lyrical and soothing, and absolutely lovely
Air in G--another beautiful, peaceful piece
Minuet in G--the most famous one from the Anna Magdalena notebook, it was reworked into a pop song for a 1960s girl group (unfortunately, I can't recall the name of the pop song right now--I think it's "So Wonderful" or something like that, but I'm not sure). He wrote several Minuets in G, and I've liked every one I've heard, but this one is my favorite
Violin Sonatas and Partitas--just gorgeous, intricate, fantastic music
Cello suites--same description, just for cello instead of violin--I have a Rostropovich recording of these that's flat-out awesome!

Incidentally, JSBach passed those music genes on--several of his sons also wrote pretty good music.

I have an intense love-hate relationship with Bach... It's improved, lately, because I don't have to play it any more unless I want (translation: I'm not studying music any more, so now I play what I like, not what my teachers tell me to play).

I had some bad experience with the Well-Tempered Clavier for some years... till I went to college and began to study Maths seriously. Don't ask me how, but it was in that moment that I began to understand him. Now I consider him a genius... which I am too clumsy to interprete properly. However, I still sit at the piano sometimes and try to dissect a fugue.

My favourite works:

The Well-Tempered Clavier, of course. The counterpoint in its maximum expression. What fascinate me most is that it's built with a perfect logic. You don't miss a note, neither see one that is not needed. As I've said, you understand it better when you think in a mathematical way.

The cello suites. It happens with them almost the same that with the Well-Tempered Clavier, only that with a cello, what makes more difficult to make polyphony... and still, Bach manages to make it have harmony,and structure.

Posted by Anhelda:
I have a Rostropovich recording of these that's flat-out awesome!

I have the Rostropovich version, too. My brother plays cello and says he doesn't like it, but it's my favourite (better, now I don't have to give the CDs back to him...). I love the way he makes the notes flow. The Saraband of the suite No 5 is so beautiful that I always forget breathing... And the Prelude of No 6? It's Bach, but it sounds almost contemporary; there's a moment that if you tell me it's Penderecki, I would belive it.

St. Matthew Passion. Have you ever heard it live in a concert? It's beautiful! So vivd, and so dramatic, even if, as me, you don't understand German (though if you go frequently to church, especially during the Holy Week, you surely will be able to follow it without a translation). I can't help it, I always cry in the last movement (a friend of mine calls it the syndrome of Stendhal: you cry because you can't bear so much beauty).

I'm sorry,all the bach enthusiasts, but i don't like Bach much. But we really do need a baroque thread, or at least update the name of this forum area. And anyways, if you play an instrument who loves Bach, may i suggest the Suzuki books? they have so much Bach stuff.

Voldemorts8thHorcrux: Don't apologize for not liking Bach. You're very young! I hated him till I was 18, and now I love it.

The Suzuki books... Hmmm... I'm not a fan. They're fine when you're beginning, but what they bring are adaptations and so (or so I remember). There's a moment in which you need to play the original pieces.

I have this huge book of Bach songs that my piano teacher forced me to buy and play. My favorite song used to be by Bach, until my piano teacher made me play it for about 2 months straight.

Teachers sometimes make a greater evil than they realize at forcing people to play some things on and on. I had one myself that would have made me hate music, had I not changed on time. But Bach doesn't have any fault on your teacher's manias! Don't worry, seriously. Let it rest for some months if you can, and then you'll take it with more pleasure.

Completely agree. my piano teacher made me practice the same stuff for months and months. but i quit :D. and i havent played piano for about 3 months. if i had quit a few years before, maybe i would still occasionally play.

One was a bumper sticker that said "Get off my Bach"

I have a shirt that it says that on the back, it also has a piano keyboard. It was the piano festival 20th anniversary shirt.

Completely agree. my piano teacher made me practice the same stuff for months and months. but i quit :D. and i havent played piano for about 3 months. if i had quit a few years before, maybe i would still occasionally play.

wow that really puts my teach into perspective. The longest I've ever worked on a peice is 2 months, I guess that actually practicing (gasp!) might have made it go faster.

I have a shirt that it says that on the back, it also has a piano keyboard. It was the piano festival 20th anniversary shirt.



wow that really puts my teach into perspective. The longest I've ever worked on a peice is 2 months, I guess that actually practicing (gasp!) might have made it go faster.

well, when it comes to normal pieces, it takes me a few weeks, but when it comes to this thing called nyssma (a music exam kind of thing), ive done up to three, since it has to be perfect

If I'm really interested in a song, it won't take me long to learn it, 'cause that's all I'll do. I remember hearing my dad play Bach's Invention no.8 in F major a few years ago, and it sounded like so much fun to play, so I decided to learn it. I think it took me a couple of weeks to learn it by heart. It's still one of my favourite piano pieces. :)

...but if I don't like the song, it takes me forever. I once had to learn this incredibly dissonant song for my grade 7 piano exam, and I couldn't stand it, and so after four weeks of getting nowhere with it, my teacher just said "...yeah, I hate it, too, lets pick something else."

...but if I don't like the song, it takes me forever. I once had to learn this incredibly dissonant song for my grade 7 piano exam, and I couldn't stand it, and so after four weeks of getting nowhere with it, my teacher just said "...yeah, I hate it, too, lets pick something else."
I'm the same way! If I love a song, that's all I'll be doing until I can play through it smoothly (I play piano too), but if I don't like it, or am just not that interested in it, it's difficult for me to start practising. I was never a really big fan of baroque, but it's needed for the Royal Conservatory Music exams, so I have no choice.

Prelude and Fugue in C- I liked (from the well-tempered clavier I believe). I started learning it, but ended up playing another baroque piece for my exam. I really like the prelude especially.

I am a Lutheran Church organist and Bach was a Lutheran. Boy, am I lucky! J.S. Bach is just the greatest high to play on a big pipe organ. I could sit there all day and play his toccatas and fugues.

What is funny is that although there is no call for such grand pieces in a normal liturgical setting, I had a request for the D minor at a funeral as a postlude. So, to honor the request of the deceased, I dutifully swung into it at the close of the service. The comments I later heard were comical. "Is she really going to play that? "Wow, no way!" "Whoa! I didn't know she could play like that!" etc., etc. Anyway, my stock went sky high with the congregation after that. They thought I could do anything even though they had already heard me lead a huge joint service backed by a full orchestra and choir. Even the least musical of us can recognize the D minor Toccata and Fuge even if he doesn't remember where he last heard it.

I admit that the D minor Toccata and Fuge is a queer request for a funeral... You must be a great organist!

And, well, yes, Bach was a Lutheran, but many Catholics (me among them) think that his St Mattew's Passion almost makes him deserve becoming Blessed JS Bach. I don't know whether someone's made a request at the Vatican...