tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23953344899524639102024-03-20T14:30:08.485-07:00Archie's Archives on WXPI RadioThe companion website for the radio program that formerly aired Saturdays 8-10 PM! The program no longer airs, but these posts are a nearly complete record.Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-65360990072393607682024-03-20T11:53:00.000-07:002024-03-20T14:29:37.162-07:00'Bist du bei mir'<p><b>Anna Magdalena's Notebook</b></p><p> Johann Sebastian Bach's second wife—to whom he was married at the time he died—was Anna Magdalena, a woman much loved by many generations of music-lovers, and certainly Bach-lovers. Anna Magdalena maintained an album, in which she copied many short pieces by her husband, and many other pieces that took her fancy.</p><p>Among these is a remarkable aria: <i>Bist du bei Mir</i>, which was, identified last century, to have been written by Heinrich Gottfried Stölzel, a talented contemporary of Bach's. (In fact, a biographer of Stölzel is said to have declared that Bach and Stölzel were equally talented. However, Stölzel did not have nearly as great an impact on music as did Bach.)</p><p>I've joined the New Horizons band for seniors in our hometown, and this spring, we're performing Bist du bei mir, arranged for band. When I was 17 or so, a friend of my parents was anxious to teach me violin. So I was given the loan of a violin, and asked to practice this very piece. At that time, I had never heard it before, and thought it a fussy little tune; I had been told it was by Bach himself, and I told myself that it couldn't possibly be by Bach, whom I revered. Soon my violin teacher gave up on me, saying that my intonation was too 'piano-like', by which she meant that my ear wasn't good enough to tune my fifths according to the <i>just intonation</i> that string players use, but that I was playing 'piano fifths', that were just a tiny bit out of tune to the ears of violinists. (Hardly anyone today can tell the difference, unless they're temperament experts, which I certainly am not.)</p><p>The Stölzel aria, I have come to recognize for half a century, is just a gem. Early in the aria, there is a chord that I described in the post about Harmonica Harmony, the dominant ninth but without the root. There are numerous features in the song that provide 'hooks' for anyone wanting to hear it, but no hooks are necessary; it is a brilliant tune, evidently recognized by Anna Magdalena Bach, who was an extremely musical person. </p><p>Bear in mind that the tune is, basically, an aria, that is, a song. Most of the recordings of it on YouTube emphasize the soprano line. But to me, the counterpoint is wonderful. Without being obtrusive, the parts caress the melody, giving the accompaniment a lot of character. In orchestral arrangements, the counterpoint is usually smothered, but <a href="https://youtu.be/YcG40RK1ipQ?si=qh5APveW2BAfMSm2">here is one, FWIW</a>.<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-67615544671890913402024-03-16T16:55:00.000-07:002024-03-17T07:46:06.653-07:00General Education<p>I just read, today, that the great Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould, did not complete high school. This is only the last in a series of stories about various—quite intelligent—historical figures who, for one reason or another, either struggled with, or gave up on, education. Einstein is said to have struggled with simple mathematics. Many important artists and musicians gave up school. Actors have abandoned school, but have in some cases, gone back to school to try and complete their education. </p><p>What are we to make of this? Education is the imparting of certain skills from a knowledgeable person, to a (usually) younger person. In modern times, the recipients are usually a group (a class), who are all taught together. </p><p>I worry that this failure of the educational process could encourage young people in their belief that the education process is seriously flawed. Well, we've all known that the educational process is flawed to some degree. It does not take into account the great variation in the mental equipment of the members of a class; their different degrees of predisposition to learn; their psychological resistance to being taught; their emotional incompatibility with the instructor. It's quite easy for a student to reject his or her teacher; "It's just not working out."</p><p>In case anyone thinks that all those future celebrities who bailed on school were incapable of completing school, I'd say that many of them had a firm grasp of most subjects in the curriculum; certainly Glenn Gould did, and probably Einstein.</p><p>What prevents modern schools from customizing the curriculum yet more than it is now, to match the preferences of the students (and parents) perfectly, is the cost. In many ways, College accommodates this desire to have a more varied curriculum. <br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-46116397067153458232024-03-14T09:39:00.000-07:002024-03-20T11:40:11.027-07:00Pi Day Once Again<p> [Apologies, readers; this post belongs in the—mostly—nonmusical blog <i>I could be Totally Wrong, but.</i>]<br /></p><p>Well, it's π day in the USA, and though we wish it's an international feast, it really isn't!</p><p>I, and I'm sure many other mathematicians, sneer at this celebration, but I'm thinking: who am I to spoil the fun of so many mathematician wannabes? Let them eat π, to paraphrase Marie Antoinette!</p><p>A few bits of trivia about the fabled mathematical constant:</p><p>1. Though it's commonly thought of as 3.14, one of the cardinal properties of the number is that it could not possibly be represented by a decimal number that stops. Cannot be done. However, you can represent it as accurately as you want, but it will never be exact. It can't be written as any fraction, either.</p><p>2. HOWEVER: Archimedes had discovered an excellent approximation to the number Pi, namely 22/7. If you've got a circle of radius 10 inches, and if you want to know what its circumference is, we know that, <i>in the abstract, </i>it will be 10 inches × Pi × 2. This will be perfectly accurate. But since we cannot represent Pi exactly, we can only find this circumference approximately. (This means <i>not exactly, </i>but closely—in fact as closely as desired.) If you want an estimate to as close as 1/1000th of an inch, we need to use about 6 decimal places of the value of Pi. (It's been 10 years since I've done this sort of thing, so I might be off by a couple of decimal places!) So basically, what approximate value of Pi you must use depends on how close you want your calculation to be. You can easily Google Pi, and compare it with 22/7, and you'll find that they agree to more than 5 decimal places. </p><p>3. But guess what. It was known by Eastern mathematicians (Indians, Persians, Egyptians, Chinese, etcetera) that 355/113 was even a <i>better </i>approximation to Pi! The miracle of these two approximations to Pi is how close they come <i>using such small numbers!</i> The next fraction that comes even closer, is a fraction of two enormous integers. Google sends us to a website that gives 100798/32085 ~ 3.14159264,correct to 8 decimal places. But see how huge the numbers in the fraction are?</p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-88833397423025036912024-02-27T16:11:00.000-08:002024-03-02T11:01:39.922-08:00Cadenzas<p>The word <i>cadenza</i> denotes a complicated thing. At the end of a movement in a concerto—which is, as you know, an extended piece for a featured soloist and orchestra, usually in three movements—there often is a big chord, after which the orchestra players lay down their instruments, and the soloist plays an entire virtuoso passage, usually touching on the themes of the preceding movement. This is a cadenza. The exciting part, for me anyway, is how they smoothly flow into the last few chords of the movement, and end it.</p><p>In the old days of Vivaldi and guys, the cadenzas were improvised by the soloist. More recently, the composer wrote out a cadenza for the soloist. Modern soloists are eager to go back to the improvised cadenza!</p><p>Just the other day, I was listening to Joshua Bell playing the Mendelssohn violin concerto, (his only one). But, JB played his own cadenza! Oh, I missed Mendelssohn's own cadenza so much!! It's a fun cadenza, but I guess musicians are bored with it; same old, same old, they think. I first heard this piece when I was just about 14 or 15 years old, and got to know and love Mendelssohn's cadenza... oh man; that's really too bad. I'll just go off and cry by myself, now...</p><p>Arch<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-83885555231253383832024-02-14T17:53:00.000-08:002024-02-14T17:53:08.145-08:00Saint-Saens's 'Organ' Symphony<p>The local Symphony Orchestra gave a Valentine's Day concert (a day early), and the main program item was Camille Saint-Saens's so-called Organ Symphony.</p><p>We attended it with great expectation—mostly because the theater—unlike many music-halls does not have an Organ, and we were wondering how they would manage the organ part, and also because this piece was one of my wife's favorites. </p><p>Well, it was fabulous. There are so many 'earworms', bits of music in the work that keep nagging at you for days! This is a wonderful piece for anyone to get into: very tuneful indeed! The composer is not widely considered one of the 'greats', because the music is not very 'learned'; it is very accessible; more accessible even than Tchaikovsky, though—as I recently said about composers—you just can't rank them on any criterion. </p><p>Arch<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-30109158304594184002024-01-18T14:23:00.000-08:002024-01-18T14:23:21.725-08:00Peter Schickele<p>I was just trying to explain to my cat—well, it's Katie's cat really—that Peter Schickele had died. But she did not seem that concerned. 'But <i>you're</i> here,' she seemed to say, 'Pet me!'</p><p>Of course, Schickele has little to do with cats, but I report the facts as they take place. My father knew Schickele's parents (who were also called Schickele) and the gentleman—Dr. Schickele—was a Ford Foundation exchange professor. They valiantly tried to explain to us what it was that their son did, but they didn't have the background. </p><p>Well, what he did was <i>invent</i> a fictitious son of the (real) composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, called P. D. Q. Bach, and proceeded to 'discover' numerous works by this gentleman. All the works were parodies of existing tunes by well-known composers, that were written by Schickele himself (the parodies, not the originals) and released a number of albums throughout the eighties and the nineties, that were extremely well received. </p><p>In the nineties, and later, Schickele had a regular hour on NPR called Schickele Mix, in which he introduced his audience to a number of pieces, both classical and other, that fitted some theme that he was following. </p><p>Schickele composed at least one wonderful opera (ascribed, as always, to PDQ Bach) called The Abduction of Figaro. </p><p>Peter Schickele had provided those in the know with simply hours of hilarity. His sense of humor was deliberately clumsy, as befitted an amanuensis of a non existent last child of a German composer of the 1700s. What an amazing gift to us he was!</p><p><br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-18783756320041734982024-01-05T06:21:00.000-08:002024-01-05T08:49:46.188-08:00Do-Re-Mi<p>Back in 1965, we kids didn't know much about The Sound of Music, until a big fuss was made about the movie in the Sri Lsnkan newspapers. We didn’t even know about Julie Andrews at that time. A wide screen was needed for Sound of Music, and we had to wait until theaters—cinemas, as we called them—were convinced of the necessity of the expanded screen, and refitted them. </p><p>Then, of course, everyone saw the movie, which was a big hit, and the songs were being sung by kids everywhere. Edelweiss was the big hit, and the Lonely Goatherd. The Do-re-mi song trailed in popularity, and it did not strike me at that time why that was so. In retrospect, at least one reason is clear: it is difficult to play by ear!</p><p>To my mind, that song is almost brilliantly well constructed; there are several sequences, as they're called; the fragments that start with 'Doh, a deer ...', then 'Re, a drop of golden sun ...' and 'Mi, a name ...' and 'Fa, ...' all have the same pattern; that's a sequence. At 'Soh ...' a new pattern begins, that continues with 'La, a note to follow Soh,' and 'Ti, a drink with jam and bread...'<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ-L4qJ7eW7ptQM-YtQJr97Ht5kq4s33n6wgxpNI4GjTfErfci__fkEXABbyQrdy_DBjcF9IRIyGGI5LCb-heVdJQHLyunECPVBd3opOVb1l4Zc_bLLwU9HRzwdAr-49eyPSGyzzpLMOYnI6gIC2zwEUZwU0NfCqnDkc6xXk0hHuC5S1IIlP6BrzwGL90/s866/Doremi.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="866" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ-L4qJ7eW7ptQM-YtQJr97Ht5kq4s33n6wgxpNI4GjTfErfci__fkEXABbyQrdy_DBjcF9IRIyGGI5LCb-heVdJQHLyunECPVBd3opOVb1l4Zc_bLLwU9HRzwdAr-49eyPSGyzzpLMOYnI6gIC2zwEUZwU0NfCqnDkc6xXk0hHuC5S1IIlP6BrzwGL90/s320/Doremi.png" width="320" /></a></p><p>The song was so embedded in my consciousness that I didn't quite notice that some of those runs introduced accidentals (sharps and flats) that popped the song—which had started out in C major—first into the neighboring key of G major, and then into A minor! The last line rather nonchalantly introduced a B Flat, not for harmonic reasons but just as a chromatic passing note. You haven't lived until you've tried to play it on a baritone horn.</p><p>The little example I have shown is in the key of B Flat, which means that the accidentals that were introduced in the song are now an E Natural (which moves the tune into the key of F, temporarily,) followed by an F Sharp, which moves the tune into G Minor; and then an A Flat to get us out of G minor, and back home to B Flat. A flat is not a note in the harmony, really; it is a chromatic note, just for fun.<br /></p><p>Archie<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-58035816224730575692023-12-27T19:11:00.000-08:002023-12-27T19:17:58.521-08:00Mozart's Piano Concerto in C minor, K 491<p>I think I have blogged about this piece before, but it needs to be done again!</p><p>The piece opens with the first theme played in unison (actually in octaves) by the whole orchestra, and then it bursts into an explosive flowering of a sort of bouquet of music. (Alas, a few years ago I would have done justice to this description, but ...)</p><p>The first movement maintains this sense of seriousness throughout; the urgent statements of the piano and the orchestra are often underscored by the kettledrums. (These are a set of tuned drums that can play melodies, but are actually sparingly used to emphasize the occasional bass note.)</p><p>The second movement starts with a very simple tune, almost like a nursery rhyme. As the movement proceeds, we are treated to a sequence of lovely variations on that tune, that will probably stick in the memory of a first-time listener. </p><p>The Finale (the last movement) is again a set of variations, on a much more studiedly serious theme, that has a characteristic pathetic cadence-like modulation (to D Flat, in this case) just before the end of the theme. </p><p>It's easy to fall in love with this piece; we're told that this concerto was one of Beethoven's favorites, and in my humble opinion, Beethoven had excellent taste, most of the time. </p><p>Earlier today, I was unexpectedly shown (the late) Claudio Arrau playing Mozart's Sonata in A minor, K. 310. Well, it's been a Mozartian day, for sure.</p><p>Archie<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-17902944767083565842023-12-11T07:05:00.000-08:002023-12-11T07:05:19.870-08:00Bach with Trumpets and Drums!<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPu_M04TdA4U24Oy5Iac6Ur-0qed7YXxEU1Txs3yG-rYoIA_tXaxgPchdRf8AY77DGI3l56jhx2l5TVIJapjhUDfvY6lRFVXE_-J76aRm75zm3GuQbMcJBlvG1MfoxHrM0V_zdxtjp2Kd-LHN66dHaVnd0b7H-rcparuFn6fLa6HHQgnK-6i313WK5yfQ/s378/PiccoloTrpt2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="133" data-original-width="378" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPu_M04TdA4U24Oy5Iac6Ur-0qed7YXxEU1Txs3yG-rYoIA_tXaxgPchdRf8AY77DGI3l56jhx2l5TVIJapjhUDfvY6lRFVXE_-J76aRm75zm3GuQbMcJBlvG1MfoxHrM0V_zdxtjp2Kd-LHN66dHaVnd0b7H-rcparuFn6fLa6HHQgnK-6i313WK5yfQ/s320/PiccoloTrpt2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Piccolo Trumpet</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc0Bupi4yCyl8Sen5OuObERx2cj18wAPJttCvHHWKZRyNTZ6v2mM0OLD_qrmcDpezdIkjXNJ94xpL3mVbPlRHXgxDbeVFDxb8i2VkagQjOLeUrVPflMyZ7ZhDHkN6L-b41pjFimYZquWxlAZp-tyIcCSYDQ-IEx1mqe3PzJhh8e7gtjU5W1d5Fhme_GSY/s315/BaroqueTrpt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="315" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc0Bupi4yCyl8Sen5OuObERx2cj18wAPJttCvHHWKZRyNTZ6v2mM0OLD_qrmcDpezdIkjXNJ94xpL3mVbPlRHXgxDbeVFDxb8i2VkagQjOLeUrVPflMyZ7ZhDHkN6L-b41pjFimYZquWxlAZp-tyIcCSYDQ-IEx1mqe3PzJhh8e7gtjU5W1d5Fhme_GSY/s1600/BaroqueTrpt.jpg" width="315" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Valveless (Natural) Trumpet</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwbu_6a0DwuUVURggP_aTaqJyOzE9wRb9rF1AiB2PdcU3iQ6z_IEXR9fvJ4s69JN8hjQiglnaapwImTtl49Yvif-jwqz3eULPe-vkbgabOvJhXGygDlDYoGbiLctj1twwgOySnOpc5XV_ZE_vm15TYSfgYWkR7D9aJKgnriyDFAsq9Fob96OH9n7E1PVI/s292/PiccoloTrpt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="173" data-original-width="292" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwbu_6a0DwuUVURggP_aTaqJyOzE9wRb9rF1AiB2PdcU3iQ6z_IEXR9fvJ4s69JN8hjQiglnaapwImTtl49Yvif-jwqz3eULPe-vkbgabOvJhXGygDlDYoGbiLctj1twwgOySnOpc5XV_ZE_vm15TYSfgYWkR7D9aJKgnriyDFAsq9Fob96OH9n7E1PVI/s1600/PiccoloTrpt.jpg" width="292" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Piccolo Trumpet</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>On Saturday the 9<sup>th</sup>, Katie and I headed out to hear the Bach Choir. (There's a Bach Choir in Britain, as well, but this is the local one, established in Bethlehem, PA, a million years ago.) We had already got tickets, and I had dreamed of hearing this choir for close to 50 years, so Katie---always ready for an adventure---set out. Knowing we were leaving Wilpo for a Big City, Bethlehem, the chances of finding Chinese food a little more authentic than at home was good, so we left home early.</p><p>Katie decided to take the <i>road less traveled,</i> and the GPS took us all over the place, sometimes instructing us to take sudden turns, to avoid congestion. Finally, we were in Bethlehem! But the Chinese restaurant we had wanted to go to had closed down, :( but we soon found another one, and had a wonderful lunch.</p><p>Presently we were at the First Presbyterian Church---why do they <i>number</i> these churches? My aunt attended the First Methodist Church in Phoenix, and I had always wanted to get to the the other Methodist churches: the second, and the third, and so on. For many of the Third Shall be First, and vice versa, and verse visa.</p><p>Both the Bach Magnificat and Cantata 63 (<i>Christen, ätzet diesen Tag</i>, BWV 63) feature high Bach trumpets, as well as interesting combinations of soloists. Perhaps they had found two specialists in high trumpet (not something a typical trumpeter can be confident about) and decided to perform these two, which are appropriate for the season.</p><p>First of all, I just loved the contralto soloist (a mezzo-soprano, really) called Luthien Brackett, who despite having a quiet voice, did a fabulous job, and lent a lot of charm to the set of 5 soloists on the dais! She alone would have been worth the price of admission---almost.</p><p>The orchestra---a small one---was beyond excellent. The strings were lovely, but being about a 150 feet away, we couldn't hear well enough to give a critical appraisal. But the tympani, the flutes, oboes, trumpet(s?) and bassoon, and the portative organ, were just fabulous. This is the first time I have been in the same room as a portative organ, but I did not go up close, for fear that they'd think I wanted to smuggle it out of the church.</p><p>Another surprise was the Bach Trumpet. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote amazingly florid but tasteful, lovely parts for high trumpet. At the time of the first Bach revival of around the middle 1800's, the trumpeters available were baffled as to how to play these parts; they were so high, and so florid. The first line of attack was to invent a new sort of trumpet, called a (high) Bach trumpet, that enabled some trumpeters to play these lines. There are wonderful trumpet parts in the Brandenburg Concertos, a couple of the Orchestral Suites ('<i>Ouvertures</i>'), and some of the celebratory cantatas and choruses, such as those in the B minor Mass, and in the Christmas Oratorio. Now, with the new Bach Trumpet, these trumpet parts could be played.</p><p>The Bach Trumpet unfortunately does not have the traditional appearance of a trumpet, but rather looks like something that MI5 dreamed up to crack enemy coded transmissions. I wouldn't have known what it was, if I had been shown one, if not for the fact that Flip Herfort, my friend and teacher, had demonstrated one to me a week before. In the 1970's straight trumpets that looked like heraldric trumpets began to be used---some of them with little holes on the side, instead of the valves on modern trumpets, (To see one, find a video of the Christmas Oratorio, or the <i>Weihnachtsoratorium,</i> on YouTube; the video of John Elliot Gardiner and the English Bach Soloists will have three gentlemen playing straight trumpets), which makes them close to chromatic in the higher registers.</p><p>The first chorus of the Cantata had an interesting feature. At the third line (or somewhere in the middle, anyway,) the harmony takes an abrupt left turn, and modulates to the relative minor. In Bach's time, the congregations were probably accustomed to these harmonic jinks, but today, I'm sure Federal Safety Standards require a more sedate harmonic rhythm! Bach has done this in other places; the opening chorus of BWV 147, for instance. I don't think conductor Chris J. could have done much to ameliorate the violence of this modulation, but the congregation seemed to take it with great equanimity. <br /></p><p>Well, to conclude, writing about music is always a bit of an iffy proposition; you have to <i>hear</i> what you're talking about. It's a relatively easy operation to hunt down the two pieces on YouTube, and numerous video clips of Luthien Tinuviel singing. Give yourself a treat!</p><p>Arch<br /></p><p><br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-43019252386360110302023-11-30T15:27:00.000-08:002023-12-06T13:16:59.231-08:00A Bach Triple Concerto<p>I'm trying not to talk about musical things my readers are not familiar with, so: what's a <b>Concerto</b>, again? It is a piece of orchestra music, featuring a solo instrument; in other words, that instrument is given a very prominent part in the piece. (These days, piano concertos are some of the most common, but in the time of Bach, for instance, concertos were written for all sorts of solo instruments. The one I'm going to write about is a <i>triple concerto.</i> The instruments are flute, violin, and oboe.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjXNxODlEw-uSStgKDr0Vh2nnGq21bK1qxDj0Dy18WzSermP4L-WFf5CcXvdpTnMCiR1niwYo3wi2eAzglvdWgaC-FQy2q58tBIAVx750Cq8Wwk9WH8c9Wpzl3CMLAd3DjFvJbeEw-69Ln5_22WV-ddISy7dFZAUgOIFJkv_ze3JhJruQOmt-aalMgEg/s1079/Screenshot_20231130_173100_YouTube~2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1079" data-original-width="1051" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjXNxODlEw-uSStgKDr0Vh2nnGq21bK1qxDj0Dy18WzSermP4L-WFf5CcXvdpTnMCiR1niwYo3wi2eAzglvdWgaC-FQy2q58tBIAVx750Cq8Wwk9WH8c9Wpzl3CMLAd3DjFvJbeEw-69Ln5_22WV-ddISy7dFZAUgOIFJkv_ze3JhJruQOmt-aalMgEg/s320/Screenshot_20231130_173100_YouTube~2.jpg" width="312" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Now remember, Bach died in 1750, which is centuries ago, so a lot of what we know about him has to be painstakingly dug up, and we only know about this flute / violin / oboe concerto from indirect evidence, but the evidence is very strong.<p></p><p>Around about 1735, Bach applied to work at St. Thomas's School in Leipzig. The job involved teaching, and training the choir, and providing music for church services. Being an energetic guy, he also undertook to provide live music at a certain Zimmermann's Coffee Housein Leipzig. Now, at his earlier job, Bach had written numerous orchestral pieces to be performed by the modest orchestra of the Duke he had worked for. About half the music from that time never came down to us, but we have catalogs, which tell us what sorts of pieces he had written. In Leipzig, Bach's three oldest boys were around 20, and he (and they, probably) wanted to display what they could do, and they being skilled harpsichord players, Bach rewrote some of his older multi- instrument concertos for various numbers of harpsichords.</p><p>There is also a concerto for three violins, which is well known. It was evidently the work that was the origin of the three harpsichord concerto! In fact, Bach was well known for borrowing his own music, and cannibalizing it to write more music for different instruments. Most interestingly, musicologists (sort of musical detectives) studied the triple harpsichord concerto, and the triple violin concerto side by side, and, as you can imagine, learned a ton about how Bach went about converting one type of concerto into the other! If modern-day composers were to go about doing this, they would possibly do it differently, but musicians have been insanely fascinated with Bach's methodology for a long time, so this process of comparing concertos was fascinating. </p><p>But, listen to this. They studied the violin triple concerto, and decided that that was also a conversion from an as-yet-unknown earlier concerto, for different instruments. So, working backwards, they reconstructed this triple concerto for flute, violin and oboe. <br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-57260595147809952152023-11-28T12:37:00.000-08:002024-01-17T10:50:42.607-08:00Approximating with Polynomials<p>I recently saw a title of a video about how to find the square root of 2000. Having taught the math background for solving problems like this for our computer, and actuarial students, I was happy to try this problem, without watching the video. The easiest thing in the world is to type in 2000 into a calculator, and then press the Square Root key, and we would get the square root in one shot. But that would be no fun to us math people; we would prefer to have some more meaty mathematics to sink our teeth into!</p><p>Finding square roots directly is a skill that is slowly vanishing. It isn't something that we teach youngsters in school, to do with paper and pencil; over the years, math teachers have never been coached with this method in their school years either, so they don't even know that there is a direct method. Everyone relies on calculators to do it for them; in fact there's hardly any reason to actually find square roots anymore in this brave new world. Approximations, though, could still be useful, especially polynomial approximations.</p><p>[I don't really know why I put this post in <i>this</i> blog! The topic of 'Approximation with sines and cosines' might have made a little sense, because of the harmonic series, and so on ... Some of my best buddies are dead; they might be messing with my head ... Anyway, it's probably time to move it 'next door', into <i>I Could Be Wrong, But ...</i>]<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-21483944133953404812023-11-28T12:17:00.000-08:002024-01-17T10:52:56.363-08:00My Band Debut!<p>I thought I had told you (my readers) this, but I mayn't have: I have taken up a new instrument!</p><p>My wife saw an announcement that the local New Horizons affiliate was ready to sign up new members, and urged me to go and see. What is New Horizons? It's a countrywide (and maybe international, to some extent) organization that has brass bands in many localities, that encourage retirees to take up playing a band instrument. In our area, it's sort of associated with a large music store, which provides space for rehearsals, rental instruments, administrative support, and so on.</p><p>So, I attended one of their rehearsals, and when it was over, I talked to the band director, and I said I wanted to join. </p><p>"What would you be interested in playing?" they wanted to know, and I said, 'Anything; but I would really like to play a bass instrument!'</p><p>They said: well, we have found that it works better if the new member chooses their own instrument. In spite of all that, I was strongly encouraged to learn to play a <i>baritone horn</i>. These things are also called just <i>baritone</i>. It is a brass band instrument (not an orchestral instrument), and is pitched roughly an octave higher than a Tuba.</p><p> </p><p>They meet for rehearsals every Tuesday and Thursday; and I would get a half-hour lesson each Thursday, after which I'd sit in with the band rehearsal, though all I could do at first was play the B Flat in the bass stave. So I gazed intently at the scores they were playing from, and pounced on any upcoming B Flats, and played them. (New members who couldn't read music would have to be taught that skill too.)</p><p>That was in early October. We were rehearsing some standard marches, some carols, some Christmassy songs (Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, Jingle Bells, etc.) and a few items that the locals liked, e.g. some Penn State marches, etc.</p><p>Finally, today, we got all dressed up, and went out to play at a state hospital! (In Pennsylvania, state hospitals are mental institutions, but they're not called that, to save the feelings of the inmates.)</p><p>It went off OK. I couldn't play everything I should have played, but I figured it was better to skip the notes I couldn't get than play wrong notes. Every rehearsal I seem to be playing more notes than before; there are some chromatic sequences, like F, E, E Flat, which I can play now, as long as it's not too fast. </p><p>The Baritone is keyed like a trumpet. There are three pistons; the first one drops the note by a whole tone. The second one drops the note by a semitone. The third one drops the note by three semitones—a minor third. So the B Flat scale goes like this:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>B Flat: just blow. </li><li>C: pistons 1 and 3 (and blow).</li><li>D: pistons 1 and 2 (and blow).</li><li>E Flat: piston 1 (and blow).</li><li>F: just blow, a little harder. </li><li>G: pistons 1 and 2, blow harder. </li><li>A: piston 2, blow very hard.</li><li>B Flat just below middle C: just blow, quite hard. </li></ul><p></p><p>You must have guessed that, when I wrote 'blow harder,' there must be more to it than that! There is; you have to tighten your lips, and blow harder. But, as with almost all wind instruments, blowing a little harder does give you a new note. </p><p>Without any pistons, you get a B Flat, then an F, then octave B Flat, then you get the entire so-called harmonic series of B Flat.</p><p>Using pistons 1 and 3, you actually get the harmonic series of F, which happens to contain C.</p><p>Using piston 2, you get the harmonic series of A (which happens also to contain E).<br /></p><p>Using piston 1, you get the harmonic series of A Flat, which contains E Flat.</p><p>Knowing all this is well and good, but since the fingering of consecutive notes isn't simple—as it would have been on a recorder, for instance—you just have to memorize the way each note is played. But when a note sounds perfectly, it sounds like it's being played on a horn; in other words: beautiful. </p><p>Archie<br /> </p><p><br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-83539914156082758262023-09-09T16:54:00.004-07:002024-03-02T08:22:19.959-08:00Antonin Dvořák<p>It's Dvořák's birthday! (There's altogether too many punctuation and accents in that word, there.)</p><p>It's convenient, when studying the history of music (that is, examining the sequence, or the panoply, of composers in chronological order), to group them into lots of composers that write music that was broadly (<i>very</i> broadly) similar.</p><p><b>Renaissance Music</b>. The Renaissance composers I know are Gabrielli, Dowland, Gibbons, Palestrina, and several fellows I want to mention, but whose names I forget. They use beautiful harmony, very fluently, and I find the music very soothing (though it may not have been intended to be soothing). Next comes:</p><p><b>Baroque Music</b>. The characteristic of this style of music is <i>ornamentation</i>. The melodies are ornamented, and the harmony is complex, but only from the point of view of a century or so later! When it was being written, though, everyone thought it was perfectly normal. My favorite composer, J. S. Bach falls into this group, as do some of the people in the Renaissance list, e.g. Byrd; Telemann, Handel, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Purcell, and many others. Counterpoint, the art of combining melodies, which had been developed by Palestrina, was raised to new heights by Bach. But counterpoint was considered too fussy by those who came after. They considered it insanely busy, and the next generation wanted music that was sane. It was called the Age of Reason. The music of this era is called...</p><p><b>Classical Music</b>. Many people take the term classical music to mean 'not popular music', and that's not wrong. But even within classical music, there is classical music, exemplified by Haydn, Mozart, Salieri, Boccherini, Clementi, Gluck and others. Compared to music of Bach's time, it is simple, minimalistic music. That description is not the final word; Mozart's music is often very complex indeed; it is simple only to the eyes of those of that time. </p><p><b>Romantic Music</b>. Then came Beethoven, who can be regarded as the pioneer of Romantic music. Unlike the previous eras, which could be characterized by a single aspect of musical style, romantic music has several facets. (1) It is highly expressive, and individualistic. (2) It is closely related to literary themes. (3) It is inspired by nationalistic and folk music, and feelings of national identity. (4) It rejects constraints, and resists rules and structure, and convention. Beethoven's music achieved all of these ideals, and those who came after him tried very hard to write music that had some of the qualities of Beethoven's music, while trying very hard not to sound like Beethoven's music! This kept them quite busy. </p><p>It's into this era that Dvořák arrived. He had the gift of writing music that sounded amazingly melodious, very rhythmic and engaging, very unique, very colorful, modern, but at the same time traditional. It was simple and intimate, but also grand and exciting!</p><p>He was Czech by birth... born in the vicinity of Moravia and Bohemia, melodic motifs from these parts frequently appear in his music. <br /></p><p><br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-6344076909599443262023-08-26T13:11:00.001-07:002024-01-17T08:20:50.452-08:00Depraved Statistics Lovers Look At Pipe Organs<p>A lot of parodies of US culture was based on the fanaticism of baseball fans. We all know about RBI's, and the sorts of averages that the expert announcer spouts during play-by-play commentating. That sort of treatment of the sport has now spread to every other sport as well in the US, and across the world in US-friendly foreign countries. It wasn't always thus, you know; this sort of approach to hyping up excitement is post-1960's.</p><p>Now, a certain entertainment group has acquired what they call 'The Largest Pipe Organ In The World,' based on the number of pipes ("tubes" as they term it) of the instrument:</p><p><a href="https://www.boardwalkhall.com/arena-info/pipe-organs">https://www.boardwalkhall.com/arena-info/pipe-organs</a></p><p>which link you can follow up yourself, and find out how many football fields it would fill if the air in the pipes were spread out one inch high. The photos I saw had stops positioned so high that the organist could not turn them on (or off) in the middle of a piece. </p><p>Big organs became popular in the 19th century, when composers began writing pieces that could compete in volume with a symphony orchestra. One composer who wrote quite a wonderful piece for organ, piano and orchestra is <a href="https://youtu.be/ZWCZq33BrOo?si=NsCcoeIoXAprerKk" target="_blank">Camille Saint-Saens: Symphony no. 3</a>.</p><p>That's probably the exception; there's a part for organ in the Richard Strauss fanfare associated with "2001: A Space Odyssey", but as an amateur, I know no other works that feature organ and orchestra other than religious works. </p><p>At the end of a decade, or a century, TV stations and networks often compile a list of the 100 most wonderful movies, or songs, or books, or actors. Well, just compiling a set of things is harmless, and it's an exciting activity that gains the network some viewership. Poor fellows, they probably need the cash. But, organs? Why? This <i>ranking</i> thing is in very poor taste. </p><p>Also, the beauty of the sound of an organ is not proportional to the number of pipes it has. Organists--- the people who play the organs--- are, I think, secretly impressed by the size of organs, and can't resist an opportunity to play a really big organ. But those of us who listen to the darn things are often quite uninterested in the volume of the sound it makes. </p><p>Archie<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-35009965594066317132023-08-19T07:44:00.010-07:002023-08-19T07:50:17.627-07:00An Earbug: A Brahms Sextet<p>For some reason, I listened one day to a Sextet by Brahms.</p><p>Sextets are strange animals. A <i>quartet</i> is a well-defined, well-established musical form, written for the instrument ensemble called a string quartet: 2 violins, a viola, a cello. Both the genius and the failing of a string quartet is the fact that the four instruments sound so similar. It's tonally homogenious. The string quartet is the godfather of all small ensembles, but I suspect the genre is dying from its own popularity. </p><p>Someone got the idea of writing for a string <i>quintet</i>; they just added a viola. The two violins were called first violin and second violin, and the violas were first viola and second viola. There are a very few great string quintets, including Boccherini's famous quintet, of whose minuet is famous. </p><p>Brahms decided to write a set of string sextets; these had, in addition to the two violins and two violas, two cellos (or celli). The one I like the most, and probably the first one I listened to, is the one in B Flat. Here is a link to one on YouTube:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://youtu.be/Yig9hDelRsE">https://youtu.be/Yig9hDelRsE</a></li></ul><p>This recording is, I think, the very one I first listened to. I had been a member of a 'mailing list', a sort of music discussion group, and one of the guys said he was trying to get rid of his vinyl records in favor of CDs, and offered his discs for free. Of course I jumped at the chance, and one of the items I got was a boxed set of the Brahms sextets. </p><p>The lovely thing about this piece was how it sounds like a discussion among friends. This is a characteristic of most of the best string ensemble pieces.</p><p>OK, I don't have much more to say about this piece. You might want to listen to a different recording of the same piece, and see if you like it better. <br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-26044326779748311512023-08-18T05:09:00.010-07:002024-03-17T07:53:33.611-07:00Aims and Objectives<p>When I first started this blog, I had some fairly clear objectives; they were to support the weekly radio program I used to deliver on WXPI. The radio station has now become a Web-only station, because we---or they, really, since I don't contribute to them any more--- found it impossible to maintain the transmitter. Now, I can put anything I want here, since there isn't a radio show to drive it along. But the problem, for me, at least, with <i>complete creative freedom,</i> is that I can't think of what to create!</p><p>The problem I'm facing is common. If you ask someone to write a tune, any sort of tune they like, or to write a story, with complete freedom, that often leads to a sort of paralysis. Instead, if you set out certain rules that have to be satisfied, such as that the piece has to be in the key of D minor, and be about 32 bars long with no repeats, or that the story must feature a cat, who gets left behind when the family goes on vacation, it is so much easier to get started on the project. </p><p>At the moment, this blog is completely rudderless, and as a result, you don't see very frequent posts. I decided that I'm going to establish a theme for a few months; when I run out of posts that follow that theme, I'll set up another theme. The theme for the next several posts will be: pieces and tunes that are stuck in my head! After all, the implicit objective that underlies this blog is to make classical music accessible to those who vaguely like music, but don't know enough about it for them to get into it on their own. If I describe these 'ear-bugs' that keep popping into my head, maybe they'll pop into yours, too!</p><p>Okay, the first installment will be tomorrow!</p><p>Archie</p><p>P.S. : By the way, if you didn't already know this: the image of a goofy- looking guy in period get up on the blog banner is me. I took a well- known portrait of J. S. Bach, and 'photoshopped' my own face in there. The photo was from about 15 years ago, so I don't look that good anymore. </p><p>Archie<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-35005070353500336662023-08-13T06:04:00.007-07:002023-11-29T10:20:56.404-08:00Musical Talent<p>I have begun writing to a friend of my childhood, who is now a professor of medicine in Wales! I told him--- after having waited a decent interval--- about my string quartet, and he readily agreed to listen to the piece, and remarked that I was talented. </p><p>I have to admit that I have a bit of talent, which means I really can't take full credit for anything I create; those who labor to perfect a piece of music, like Beethoven did, deserve far, far more praise than someone who tosses off a piece offhand-ly, like Mozart. But that doesn't sound right; Mozart has written some of my very favorite pieces. </p><p>Here is a complete list of the pieces I have written:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Chorale-prelude on 'Jesu Meine Freude'.</li><li>Fantasia on 'Starlight Serenade'</li><li>Mystery Waltz</li><li>A Polka. (Not really, but that's what I called it!)</li><li>String Quartet in C major. </li></ol><p></p><p>All of these are <i>derivative</i>, by which I mean that they're based on an existing piece, except 4, and 5. It is hard for me to write something completely original; something that's worth listening to, anyway! So much for talent. Bach, for instance: imagine creating a piece of music, like a fugue, that's not only wonderful to listen to, but has all the inner structure that fugues are expected to have!!</p><p>So, I really don't have much to say on the topic of talent, except that we have to measure how much praise we give someone for creating something by first discounting what can be attributed to pure talent. This recalls the parable of the talents, and the summary of that parable: From those to whom much is given, much is expected. </p><p>Archie<br /> </p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-40508666979369825292023-06-30T17:26:00.004-07:002024-01-01T10:30:27.907-08:00Noticing Things<p>This is what I wanted to say when I was talking about Kim's Game! But I got sidetracked. (Happens every few hours.)</p><p>Thinking back to my teaching days (i.e, before 2017), I realize that I missed a lot of good opportunities. One of the basic tricks (it's not really a trick, but kids pay attention if you call it a trick) is: to <i>notice things</i>. </p><p>One of the major things I taught was <i>techniques of integration</i>. If you don't know what integration is, it's a little like being a doctor. You have an integration problem (which is a math problem that has to be solved), which is your patient. You first have to assess what kind of integration it is, because what you do next depends on that assessment. It's like a diagnosis, get it? You need to find out which way to go. In math (unlike in medicine) if you go the wrong way, nobody gets sick or dies; you just have to back up, and start again in a different direction. </p><p>Classifying your problem--- the diagnosis--- depends on noticing various little things, just as in medical diagnostics. Once the doctor notices one thing, there are other related things he or she could look for. It's exactly the same in mathematics! Is there a radical of a certain sort? Is there a logarithm? An exponential? A fraction? A simple substitution you could do?</p><p>The good students are already hot on the trail of these critters. At the time I was teaching, I was so annoyed with the typical students, that I thought: oh let them go screw themselves; they should have picked up a lot of this in Grade 10.</p><p>But a lot of things could have gone wrong in Grade 10: athletics---even if the kid was hopeless at it; hormones; a marginal high school teacher; a home environment where there was nobody to help with studying; all sorts of problems. If I had gone just a tiny bit outside my lane, and helped my students with the FOIL rule, for instance, which is something they learn in 6th or 7th Grade, they might have kissed the ground I walked on! Well, that's going too far; I walked on some pretty dirty ground.</p><p>When I was thinking about this post, I wondered whether the whole concept of <i>noticing things</i> might be a pretty universal performance aid. Does critical reading require noticing certain things? Does debugging faulty code in a program involve noticing certain things? It seem to me that even getting the benefit of a video clip a teacher shows a class requires noticing things. This is huge. </p><p>Notice things, young people. No pressure. </p><p>Arch<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-37822648550208611212023-06-25T12:20:00.011-07:002024-01-01T10:38:29.133-08:00Harmonica Harmony<p>When I was a kid, I was given a so- called "mouth organ", which was the term, where I grew up, for the gadgets known in these parts as a <i>harmonica.</i> These things were everywhere, at one time, but they're getting to be a curiosity. Bob Dylan played one, so did John Lennon. </p><p>When I learned to play one, it was considered a great achievement---briefly. After a while, the constant racket of the thing got on my family's nerves, until I went off to boarding school---a humble school, not at all the same thing as the luxury institutions we find around here---and it became the responsibility of the school authorities to moderate my explorations with the harmonica. Then, along came <i>A Hard Day's Night, </i>that miraculous introduction to the Beatles and their music. </p><p>I lost no time learning to play <i>I should have known better,</i> a lovely<i> </i>soft rock song that featured the harmonica, and my friends and I sang it all the time, for a year.</p><p>It's time to get into the meat of this post. </p><p>You can either Blow into a harmonica, or Suck. <i>Blowing</i> produces a nice chord, in the key of the harmonica; mine was in C, and you'd get a bold, brassy C chord:</p><p style="text-align: center;">C E G C E G ...</p><p>and so on, depending on how many octaves your harmonica had. A typical kid harmonica had three. </p><p>If you <i>sucked</i> in, you also got a chord, but not one of the common (major or minor) chords, but a more sophisticated chord. Rather than give you its name, I'll give you the notes:</p><p style="text-align: center;">B D F A B D F A ...</p><p>When I first learned music theory, I learned a whole lot of major chords, which I and my fellow-students played on a piano. Then I learned a whole lot of minor chords. Then, on certain (root) notes, I learned seventh chords. The most heavily-used one was the <i>dominant seventh,</i> GBDF. In a pop song in the key of C major, you could do quite well if you just knew C major, F major, G major, and G major dominant seventh. In the quest for brevity, pop musicians called that last chord G<sup>7th</sup>, but there are many seventh chords on the root of G. Pop musicians don't need to know those, so they don't; it is The Way, as the Mandaloreans would say. But if you were Elton John, you'd know <i>all</i> the chords on the root of G. </p><p>The peculiar chord you get by sucking in on a harmonica is also a seventh, but not one of the common ones. Since you can only either blow into the harmonica, or suck on the thing, there are only two chords, and this sucking chord is actually quite a clever choice, and in fact the <i>only</i> possible choice. You could play a huge number of tunes with those two chords, and of course that's what we did.</p><p>In smaller harmonicas, all the way at the left end, if you blew, you would actually get a low G. Oddly enough, if you sucked, guess what? You would also get a G! So, for complete disclosure, the chord you get if you blew is actually</p><p style="text-align: center;">G C E G C E G C E G C,</p><p>and if you sucked, instead, you'd get</p><p style="text-align: center;">G B D F A B D F A B D F A.</p><p>You would think that this would give you a horrible discord! In fact, though, you get one of the most glorious chords of all, called a chord of the ninth. This chord of the ninth on G, GBDFA, is an important chord in 19th- century music; in fact you hear it all the time in Strauss waltzes! In The Beautiful Blue Danube, in the introduction, it is the third chord you hear. (Not on G, but the key of the piece. The introduction is in A, if I remember right.)</p><p>Now, once that low G is added, we can call this chord of which I speak, the ninth on G, or the dominant ninth of C major. But even without the G, the chord is the seventh on the chord BDF, which is a diminished chord. We do <i>not</i> call it a diminished seventh, which is the name of a significantly different chord (OK, I'll tell you what it is, since you might not be able to sleep if I didn't: it's B D F FlatA. The extra Flat makes it a note not strictly in the key of C major.) Honestly, I don't know the common name for that chord---BDFA---in popular music.</p><p>OK, I need to take a nap now. <br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-47439061170929248092023-04-05T19:24:00.004-07:002023-04-05T20:14:33.591-07:00The Passion according to Matthew, by J. S. Bach<p>This work is one of Bach's greatest creations; and tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, when according to the New Testament record, the Last Supper took place.</p><p>Those who are familiar with the story know that a lot was going on that night. When Bach wrote the great opening chorus of the Passion, this was one thing that he managed to put into it: the sense that <i>a lot is going on.</i> This was for good reason; by the end of Friday, Jesus was dead, the disciples had gone into hiding, Jesus' mother and the other Mary had fled the city, and few of them knew what was going on.</p><p>Musically, a huge amount of planning had taken place. As I've written before, there are two entire orchestras---modest-sized---spatially separated, two organs, and two choirs; and a third choir consisting only of trebles. That's what Bach wanted; whether it was performed this way in his lifetime, we don't know. (We do know that Mendelssohn staged a festival version of the Passion in 1832, which kicked off a Bach revival.)</p><p>If you're new to this work, and you get an uncomfortable sense of restlessness and foreboding, that's intentional.</p><p>In addition, the text does not present any part of the story; it only invites 'The Daughters of Zion' to come and mourn. I only know that this group of women---or this woman---is a symbolic representation of the Hebrew Nation.</p><p>While the daughters are mourning, the third choir, the Ripieno Trebles, are quietly intoning a chorale: Oh lamb of god unsullied. Altogether an incredible achievement, that batters the listener for some 8 minutes. I recommend the performance conducted by Wolfgang Gonnenwein, of around the 1980s.<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-4057882757755466682023-03-22T17:02:00.001-07:002024-03-17T06:41:29.165-07:00Bach's Birthday!!<p>Due to an inconvenient accident of history, we're not sure of Bach's actual birth date; I illegally use this fact as license to celebrate his birthday on the Spring Equinox, or rather, the 21st of March! The actual Equinox is (very slightly) variable from one year to the next, for reasons that sound highly dubious to me, so I stubbornly and unilaterally decide that it shall be on March the 21st. (This is one of the few instances where scientists---particularly astronomers---are more a nuisance than a help.)</p><p>In some ways, it's rather a blessing that Bach is no longer with us. When it came to music, he got tunnel vision; this led to many, many serious arguments during his life, so that we could not pretend that he was a nice guy while he was alive. He also had, like, a million kids (well, about 19 or twenty that survived their childhood, anyway), which would give the sweetest man a poor temper. (I get this from hearsay, because I have only one kid.)</p><p>He was one of the most important---probably the most influential, in my opinion---musicians in Western music. He wrote some really fantastic pieces, but much of Bach is an acquired taste. Still, few pieces by Bach would sound truly strange to modern listeners.</p><p>I'm going to take this opportunity to point readers toward some of my Bach favorites that I haven't highlighted on this blog; or at least don't remember highlighting on this blog!!</p><p><b>Italian Concerto, movement 2</b>. This is not an earth-shattering piece; it is charming, and calm and tuneful, characteristics that I appreciate greatly as I sample the waters of septuagenaria.</p><p><b>Brandenburg Concerto 6 in B Flat</b>. This set of 6 concertos are Bach's crowning contributions to the genre of the <i>concerto grosso.</i> This post isn't intended to be educational, so I'll explain what concerti grossi (?) are another time, but the 6th Brandenburg is in a class by itself.</p><p><b>Ouverture (or Orchestral Suite) no. 4 in D: Gigue</b>. Everyone knows Handel's Watermusic Suites; or at least everybody used to, back when I was a kid. Well, the last two of Bach's orchestral suites give Handel a run for his money. They're grand, and brassy, and amazingly jolly---you wouldn't expect Bach to have written stuff like this. (Actually Bach did; it's just not common knowledge.). If you like this piece, and you're not familiar with Handel's Royal Fireworks Music, you ought to try those next.</p><p>If you're a choral singer, you just have to listen to 'Cum Santo spirito' from the <b>Mass in B minor,</b> which will knock your socks off. (Of course, if you don't like loud brassy music, maybe you should stay away from it. It is the last line of the Creed, and the tradition was to shout it out at top volume.)</p><p>I'm filled with gratitude that I know enough about Bach to evangelize like this! Well, that's Bach for you; he makes us all spread the word about his music!</p><p>Arch <br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-28277587582676078642022-09-27T11:05:00.003-07:002022-09-27T11:22:06.063-07:00Mozart and Beethoven<p>Two composers who are frequently compared are: Mozart and Beethoven. These two are sort of a natural pair to select for the exercise because they were both in Austria, about the same time, wrote works that were similar in spirit, and both had strong connections to Haydn, not that makes much of a difference.</p><p>Mozart's music manuscripts are nearly set out, a if he conceived his works in his head, and didn't set them down until they were perfect. With Beethoven, we can almost see the process of creation. We only know anything about these two men from second and third hand, so it would be arrogant in the extreme to present a detailed psychological profile of them for comparison. But it does sound convincing that Mozart was very much aware of how he was perceived, whereas we get the impression that Beethoven wouldn't give a damn. (That's only true to some degree; there seem to be anecdotes that suggest that Beethoven could be easily embarrassed.)</p><p>What does the perfection of Mozart's manuscripts mean, really? Someone, a contemporary, has said: always Mozart, always the same! Does this mean that there was something predictable about Mozart's music? I don't think it means exactly that; but he had such complete control over his idiom, that he didn't need to fill with details, but rather larger chunks of music; and he could do that in his head.</p><p>Beethoven was more concerned with actually building his idiom anew each time; the stateliness, the majesty of what he wanted needed tinkering at the finest level; he probably adjusted the notes of each chord to get what he wanted.</p><p>As I said, I don't want to presume to have an insight into the compositional proceed of anyone, even myself; I had to rework a movement a dozen times before it sounded halfway decent! Most of all, it is impossible for us to imagine what is going on in Beethoven's head, simply because we've heard the final completed piece. We've also heard a lot of Beethoven, which he had not heard at the time he was writing.</p><p>I would imagine it's the same with writing text. Some writers would tinker with their dialog until the arrive at the precise tone of a sentence they want. Others can hear the entire conversation already, and can't write it down fast enough!</p><p>I would like to continue with some musical examples, not to make any conclusions, but for the contrasts they may show. But I can't do that on my phone ...<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-30131448057681241072021-04-19T10:25:00.005-07:002021-04-20T06:38:53.457-07:00My Mother<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK2ZsdXKYBSiulUmIP0ppj7yHCflcramqCaYI4pA5-Lr-ccRT9GEQVvMdeMUyFJb0LFFsow7pQuVStvGEVUuTCnyM-X6vJanlGAglYXhkE3gySMAzieVw9hrFksMYJYlCl2AqLU7Kr_xI/s883/Kamala_RichmondHill.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="638" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK2ZsdXKYBSiulUmIP0ppj7yHCflcramqCaYI4pA5-Lr-ccRT9GEQVvMdeMUyFJb0LFFsow7pQuVStvGEVUuTCnyM-X6vJanlGAglYXhkE3gySMAzieVw9hrFksMYJYlCl2AqLU7Kr_xI/s320/Kamala_RichmondHill.jpg" /></a></div><br />Today is the birthday of my mother!<p></p><p>It may not seem appropriate that this description of my mother should be put here, on the musical blog, rather than over on the all-purpose "I Could Be Wrong" blog, but bear with me!</p><p>My mom was the second of four siblings: one boy, the eldest, followed by three girls. I was told a lot about my mother in her girlhood days, which I quickly forgot. She didn't seem such an exciting subject back then. But I do get the impression that she <i>listened.</i> She absorbed everything she was taught in school. She absorbed everything she was taught in numerous clubs, in school. She absorbed and retained everything she was taught by her father, who was a physician and a surgeon.</p><p>She was also very much into sports, and was the sports captain of her school. (They had one sports captain for the entire school, as well as individual captains for each team sport. Don't ask me why.)</p><p>She was accepted by the YWCA for training as an administrative secretary. (Back then, the YWCA was the conduit of a vast amount of support for working women, as well as abandoned women and families, and so the administrative secretary---who essentially ran the YWCA office---needed to have training, unlike the president of each YWCA, who was elected, and often changed from year to year.) The YWCA decided to send my mom to college, at a time when most women went straight into the workforce (or got married) without bothering with college.</p><p>After working for the 'Y' for several years, my mother took up teaching, and then met my dad, and they got married. My mom continued to teach while I was still on the way, took a brief leave of absence (while she delivered me,) and then resumed teaching. She taught English, history, geography and civics. For various reasons, she decided to teach singing as well. (Most of her students were learning English as a second language, and the singing helped these kids to lose their discomfort in pronouncing English words.)<br /></p><p>She continued to teach for twenty years, until she retired. Even then, she did not stop teaching. When I was about 13, I started taking music and piano lessons, whereas many kids took piano when they were a lot younger. Anyway, I was in boarding school, which meant that when I went home for the holidays and reported what was going on with me to my mom, it was more interesting to her, than if I had reported it daily. When she learned that I was learning simple harmony, she revealed that she too had been taking lessons in advanced harmony from a friend. Pretty soon she was teaching me advanced harmony, which fact I had to carefully conceal from my music teacher, who would have otherwise gotten mad. (The last thing a teacher wants to hear is that she's getting upstaged by a competing teacher somewhere else!)</p><p>My mom's musical friend, meanwhile, taught music theory at three schools. When she and her husband decided to take a year-long vacation to Australia, she arranged for Mom to substitute for her as music teacher at those schools, which supplemented our family income nicely!</p><p>My mother was very much into music and drama. My father's job involved being transferred from one location to the other all through our lives. At every place where we were posted, my mom got involved in the local musical and dramatic scene. She sang at weddings, and she trained choirs, and directed plays. My most treasured memories were of my mom practicing choruses from <i>Messiah</i>, or <i>The Creation,</i> or the <i>St. Matthew Passion</i>, and other major choral works. So my mother was responsible for about a third of my knowledge of music theory, while three other ladies were responsible for all the rest of what I know about music, and a couple of gentlemen as well.</p><p>Despite the very public role my mother played in most places where we lived, including as a teacher, she was a very soft-spoken woman. I realized only recently just <i>how</i> soft-spoken she was. Even my father was moderately soft-spoken. (I, in contrast, tend to yell.)</p><p>After my father also retired, they both retrained as psychologists and counselors, a move that is difficult for me to understand. By all accounts, my mother was considered a very capable counselor, though my father gave it up rather quickly.</p><p>My parents died several years ago. We miss them greatly; it is difficult to describe what it is like when your parents are gone, even if the parents concerned are in ill-health, and advanced in years. You do get accustomed to it after a while, but every once in a while there is <i>something</i> you want to run by them, but of course, they aren't there. Of course, there are your siblings, who are a good substitute, in a limited way.</p><p>Happy birthday, Mom!</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>[Added later] Some readers may not know this:</p><p>Our grandfather (Kamala's dad) was an MOH (Medical Officer of Health), which meant that the family was posted at hospitals at various regional centers, often far from civilization. At first, the senior Philips was a determined teatotaller, but began to drink somewhere along the line, since sometimes the only entertainment the family had was to entertain the other medics at dinner, which required providing alcohol.</p><p>In his years in Britain, grandpa Philips had become acquainted with the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and had learned to sing a vast number of patter songs from them. (The family thought he had a good voice; I myself wasn't yet born when he was alive, and have no opinion of his talent.) Kamala--in her late teens--heard them, and liked them, and learned them. Much to her mother's frustration, Kamala was hauled before the dinner guests, to sing these songs with her father. (Some of the songs were duets.) Years later, Kamala sang these songs to us kids--or at least, to me--but they lacked the currency that would have got me interested in them. It was only 30 years or so later that I got interested in them!</p><p>My brother provides the following anecdote about our mother. It shows how much facility she had with languages:</p><div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;">Ray writes (prompted by the brief bio I put in the Archie's Archives blog):</div></div><br />
<span class="im">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204,204,204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div style="color: black; font-family: Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
Just a year before she died, Kamala told me a startling story about how she was<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"></span><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>working for the British government during World War II, together with some<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"></span><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>other girls from the YWCA.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
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She said that they were volunteers involved in distributing Red Cross and USO<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>packages to the troops in India, and she was based in Bangalore. The volunteers<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>all had to wear this blue saree with a special badge, and they were supervising<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"></span><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>Indian laborers and liaising with government officials. Kamala says she was<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>pretty good in Tamil and Hindi, and had some Malayalam and a smattering of<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>Punjabi, which suddenly got a lot better after a particular incident.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
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</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
There was a slight emergency one day and Kamala was the only available person<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>when a shipment had to be sent to the Punjab, nearly 2000 miles away. Kamala<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"></span><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>was sent in the truck with the Sikh driver, because the British were very aware<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>that if they sent the truck without a supervisor, [the truck, together with its contents] would<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>simply vanish from civilization. From the very first, she was feeling a little uneasy<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>at the way the driver, a huge big guy, was staring sideways at her.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
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</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
Her solution - keeping up a non-stop storm of conversation, which got more and<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>more fluent through the three days and nights of the journey. I never found out<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>whether she came back in the same truck or transferred to the train for the<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>journey back.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
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</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
This interesting conversation unfortunately did not continue, because Kamala<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia,serif;"> </span>got sick a little while later and stopped being so chatty.</div></blockquote></span><p>Archie<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-19628001711838734422021-04-12T14:30:00.003-07:002021-04-12T14:56:08.622-07:00Uma's Podcast!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHpRYIbcb7TJqFwCDeDV7M2-3VWd1Xbe3Rj361fWNeI73tCm8gqigNulwwfhceSPFcHQBeppEZ2hyphenhyphenVrw2tnd-Tj2X7hzgFJsQiQt0z9M-R2Kc6x7L2uU7UScrKyJTCIimaVdUf-kTomUo/s2048/2018-09-04+13.12.59.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1077" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHpRYIbcb7TJqFwCDeDV7M2-3VWd1Xbe3Rj361fWNeI73tCm8gqigNulwwfhceSPFcHQBeppEZ2hyphenhyphenVrw2tnd-Tj2X7hzgFJsQiQt0z9M-R2Kc6x7L2uU7UScrKyJTCIimaVdUf-kTomUo/s320/2018-09-04+13.12.59.jpg" /></a></div><br />Well, guess what.<p></p><p>My daughter, who lives in Tucson, AZ, has decided to have a <i><a href="http://archieswxpiarchives.blogspot.com/2021/04/umas-podcast.html">Podcast</a>.</i>
The easiest way to do this is to set it up in our Archie's Archives
Blog, and provide links to the mp3 files which contain her blog.</p><p>Uma's
genius is telling stories. So she's going to tell her stories over the
phone, and the first few podcasts will be joint exercises with me,
after which she will probably get into her groove, and run with it.</p><p>I have no idea what the topic is going to be, so I'll have to fill that in later!</p><p> </p><p>Here's a brief introduction to Uma.</p><p>Uma is---theoretically---a graphic designer by trade; that means that she can design a <i>web-page,</i> or a <i>poster,</i> or a <i>book,</i> or a piece of <i>mail advertising</i>, or a custom <i>business card</i>; that sort of thing. In actual fact, she has been doing all sorts of computer-related things for years and years.</p><p>She also used to play tennis pretty well, and all sorts of games, including touch football, where the guys loved her so much, they would affectionately slam her into the furniture. One time, she had a tennis match right after a touch football game, and she was slammed so hard that she bruised a rib, and lost her tennis match, and was in tears. (Maybe I was not supposed to let that particular cat out of the bag.)</p><p>Mostly, Uma is a vocalist and a keyboardist of an alternate rock band, which has gone on hiatus since Covid. (If she insists, I will come back and put that in ALL CAPS, but I think it's time we put the disease in its place, and relegated it into a more appropriate non-caps position.)</p><p>The occupation <i>Graphic Designer</i> suggests that all her activities have to do with computer-generated images. In fact, though, she loves to draw and paint, and given the chance, she would much rather drop everything and take up drawing and painting. The only thing she likes better than drawing and painting is telling stories, so look out; these podcasts are likely to bend your ear, and fill it with lots of stories.<br /></p>ArchArchimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2395334489952463910.post-63249471200739044592021-03-22T11:25:00.003-07:002021-04-19T10:56:29.841-07:00Johann Sebastian Bach<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2017/12/johann-sebastian-bach-stamp-100743899-large.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2017/12/johann-sebastian-bach-stamp-100743899-large.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />March 21st of each year is the date on which I celebrate the birthday of J. S. Bach. For those who are interested, a curious set of circumstances arranged that for many years, while the Vatican decreed that the Catholic world must adopt the Gregorian Calendar, Bach was born in a region where the dates were different, and so there is some disagreement about exactly when we should celebrate Bach's birthday. In the past, I have tried to describe in greater detail the calendric details of the problem, but this year I will focus on the composer himself.<p></p><p>Johann Sebastian Bach's family contained a large number of musicians. It also contained a large number of individuals named <i>Johann</i>, in fact almost every eldest boy in the family bore that as his first name. In family conversations, our favorite composer was known as <i>Sebastian</i>, for that reason.</p><p>After the death of Bach in 1750--a date that is used also as the date of the death of Baroque Music--it became necessary to catalog Bach's enormous output, and this huge job was taken up by one Wolfgang Schmeider. Rather than number Bach's works chronologically (so that his first composition was numbered Opus 1), Schmeider <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis">numbered Bach's work structurally</a> (according to genre); that is, all the <i>cantatas</i> were numbered 1 through 200 or so, after which came the <i>motets,</i> then the <i>masses,</i> then the <i>passions,</i> and so on.</p><p>Most of Bach's most popular works--at least his best known works--have the property that they sound very ordinary, but skillfully composed. This is probably because Bach was such a consistent and logical composer (don't ask me what I mean by <i>logical</i>) that it became reasonable to create a system whereby anyone who wanted to write harmony that <i>sounded correct</i> could do so, following certain rules and principles. In a sense, modern harmony is harmony according to Bach. Even Beethoven, Brahms, and many of the romantic composers write Bachian harmony, except when they needed to stretch those principles in order to be more expressive, according to romantic musical needs. Many great composers referred to Bach as the father of them all, sometimes with adoration, and often with frustration.</p><p><b>Musical Journalism<br /></b>In the time of Bach, composers were expected--<i>required</i>--to compose new music for every occasion: birthdays, funerals, marriages, and even for each Sunday. So composers were not expressing their deepest feelings in each composition, but rather delivering music for a deadline. (In spite of this situation, many or most of Bach's pieces stand up well against the most inspired compositions of other composers, though Bach tended to wish that he had the leisure to write music that was truly his personal expression.)</p><p>Bach very often recycled his non-church music into music for church (but seldom or never the other way). The amazing B minor Mass, which contains movement after amazing movement of gorgeous music, contains a great deal of material borrowed from other Bach cantatas or concertos. This procedure is called <b><i>parody composition.</i></b><i> </i> </p><p>The <i>Gloria</i> of the B minor mass is a particularly grand movement. Bach was an extremely religious person, almost to the extent that he was defined by his beliefs. In another man, this could have been seen as a failing, but the teachings of Jesus expressed his world-view so well simply because he explored them in such detail. More than half the volume of Bach's musical composition was in his 200+ cantatas, and the ideas in them--even if formulaic to us in the 21st century--covered a wide gamut of religious thought for his times. Furthermore, these cantatas are only the ones that have survived; when I surmise that Schmeider began his cataloging process in 1942, possible 2/3rds of Bach's Cantatas were already lost.</p><p><b>Secular Compositions<br /></b>Bach had several sons, almost all of whom were musicians. (We know little about his daughters; which is not unexpected from a time when the achievements of women were considered insignificant. We do know that one of his daughters was married to a man named Agricola, who served as an assistant to Bach in his later years.) One of the reasons that Bach's sons were important is that when Bach moved to Leipzig--a city of great significance to music, since Telemann, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Wagner all lived and worked there--he found himself in charge of the musical activities of the famous Zimmerman's Cafe. The musical evenings of this venue had become famous, and Bach was happy to take up the directorship of the music, because it afforded an opportunity to display the talents of his musical sons, who were capable keyboardists. Bach wrote many concertos to be performed in this place, including rewrites of existing concertos for violin and oboe and so on. We are fortunate indeed for this set of circumstances, because the music of many of those concertos for oboe, etc. are now lost, but the music for the keyboard versions remain. The history of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Zimmermann">Zimmermann Kaffeehaus</a> is interesting. These concertos, as well as the concertos Bach wrote as calling-cards for various German nobles, are the closest things to Symphonies that Bach wrote, except perhaps for his set of four <i>Ouvertures,</i> which are dance suites after the model of music composed for the French kings in Versailles.</p><p><b>Academic Compositions<br /></b>Bach had his theoretical side, which led him to compose sets of pieces in the most common keys; for instance his two-part inventions. There are 15 of these, in the keys of C major, C minor, D major and minor, E Flat major, E major and minor, F major and minor, G major and minor, A major and minor, B Flat major, and B minor.</p><p>You might wonder whether the keys that are omited have to do with the difficulty of the key-signatures. You would not be exactly right; these keys were the conventional ones in which sets were written (yes, other composers also wrote sets of works), but the problem was with <i>tuning.</i> In Bach's past, instruments were tuned in such a way that two notes a perfect fifth apart, for instance, had frequencies in the ratio of 2:3, and which therefore sounded smooth when played together. But by Bach's time, the ears of people had become accustomed to a little roughness in the sounds of chords, and it was possible to play music in quite distant keys; in fact all these 15 keys. Bach, in later years, devised a tuning system, or developed an existing system, using which it was possible to write pieces in all twelve keys. Some writers believe that Bach's tuning was that of Equal Temperament, which is the tuning we have to day, in which none of the fifths are perfect. Others believe it was a very creative compromise in which some fifths, and some thirds were in integer ratios, and did sound smooth. The set is the famous 48 preludes and fugues for keyboard, called <i>The Well-Tempered Clavier</i>. They are by no means merely academic works; almost every one is a masterpiece. Many experts agree that they were intended to be played on a <i>clavichord,</i> an interesting type of keyboard instrument that is very rare today, and was probably not common in Bach's day either. But the compositions are titled as for the keyboard.</p><p>There are also a set of 15 Three Part Inventions, or Sinfonias; 6 Trio Sonatas for Organ, a set of 21 organ preludes and fugues (or sometimes fantasia and fugue), a set of 6 concertos for ensembles ranging from large to small--the Brandenburg Concertos, and a set of fugues, The Art of Fugue. The last is emerging as a compilation of fugues Bach wrote throughout his lifetime, based upon a particular subject, and not a final project he undertook in his declining years. These sets were intended to be instructional, to give examples of the possibilities within a particular form.</p><p>While the large-scale pieces of Bach are beautiful, the small-scale pieces are beautifully intimate as well, and display Bach's counterpoint well. Counterpoint is the art of combining different melodies concurrently together. Listeners new to this device find it confusing at first to hear every part seemingly going its own way. Eventually, though, the different melodies seem logical and right, and it is possible to hear the melodies in the lower voices as adding texture, so that it is possible to ignore them as melodies, and to know that they are present, and to feel that their presence is welcome. A particular instance of counterpoint is <i>Imitation,</i> where a lower voice imitates a melodic fragment from a higher voice. Contrapuntal imitation is practiced by composers even today.<br /></p>Archimedeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17643550926475181886noreply@blogger.com0