5 ms·

Just before seeing this on HN I was listening to Buxtehude's organ works on my way home. Buxtehude was one of the main inspirations for Bach as a composer¹, and

Just before seeing this on HN I was listening to Buxtehude's organ works on my way home. Buxtehude was one of the main inspirations for Bach as a composer¹, and I always find it interesting to go back and forth. But there's a reason Bach is the one that has come to be a superstar - there's the huge number of surviving works, of course, and in many ways how "the student surpassed the master", not least in contrapunctal complexity and fugal techniques, but also in the incredible fluidity he could achieve with a seemingly arbitrary number of voices. Still one can listen to Buxtehude and get taken in the beauty and playfulness of his works, and we instantly imagine how young Bach was equally mesmerized by the same music, and in a way, how it kindled a passion and Bach continued to dig into the same musical goldmine that Buxtehude had been excavating - sometimes even the same tunnels, to my ears. Some of my faves in the Buxtehude collection, mostly dramatic stuff (no links because I'm on crappy 3G): Toccata In D Minor (Bux 155) Toccata in G Major (Manualiter) (Bux 164) Passacaglia in D minor (Bux 161) Prelude in G minor (Bux 149) [1]: I won't say "the main inspiration" because this is going a bit far into opinion-land, and it doesn't even make sense to single out a single composer as "main influence", but either way, Buxtehude is definitely up there with Bach's mentor Georg Böhm.

jinfiesto 9y ago
I'm surprised you didn't include the story of Bach walking 250 miles to hear Buxtehude play.
- pierrec 9y ago
  I pretty much left that out as bait for someone to reply, though it seems you've nearly identified it as such :)
gumby 9y ago
I used to have a cat named Buxtehude (mainly because I like the word) and was pleased that most of my friends knew the reference. I also drove there once. Not much to see, and actually has no connection to the composer.
- lispm 9y ago
  > has no connection to the composer. The surrounding region of the city Buxtehude, called the 'Altes Land', has a lot of old instruments and one can hear the music of the composer Buxtehude on old organs from his time... The organ in a neighbour town, where I grew up, was completed in 1675. It has been preserved in as much original state as possible. The works of Buxtehude may sound today on that organ like 300+ years ago, when he lived...
graycat 9y ago
People who know me say I'm a super music fan. Yup. I liked it well enough to get a violin and dig in, especially to Bach. For violin I have low talent, started too late, and didn't practice enough, but, still I made it through the Preludio of the E Major Partita and the D Major center section of the Chaconne. From all the possible analyses I've seen of Bach, finally I come down on just one core point: He was one heck of a good musician, that is, in the basic art of the music, that is, "communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion". I listen to Bach for the MUSIC, that is, for the art, the communication. While later composers used style and means Bach didn't use or didn't have, to me as an avid listener Bach is in places as passionate, romantic, dramatic as anything in Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Verdi, Wagner, Tchaikowski, etc. E.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFflFiLlT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFflFiLlT8 Bach Busoni Chaconne D Minor BWV 1004 Valentina Lisitsa Passionate music.
- siegel 9y ago
  Spend any time with the St. Matthew and St. John Passions and I don't see how anyone could deny Bach's music is passionate (no pun intended...really).
  - andrewbinstock 9y ago
    Or the great Chaconne for solo violin.
    - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
      That is one of the great masterpieces of Western music.
      - graycat 9y ago
        That is one of the great masterpieces of Western, uh, civilization. A top, center crown jewel.
- badosu 9y ago
siegel 9y ago
Well, if you're a fan of Buxtehude, have you listened to any music by Franz Tunder (Buxtehude's predecessor in Lubek)? My knowledge is mainly of their choral music, not organ music. So, might not have useful recommendations for you.
jancsika 9y ago
> [...] not least in contrapunctal complexity and fugal techniques, but also in the incredible fluidity he could achieve with a seemingly arbitrary number of voices. Just to give a striking example of one of Bach's novel fugal techniques: Bach's St. Matthew Passion starts out with an instrumental fugue with three voices. The first voice does introduces a little fugue subject, then the second voice imitates a fifth above, and finally the third voices enters above that one. Then there's a short episode where the voices trade licks and end on a half cadence. So far a fairly typical beginning for a three-voice fugue. Then something strange happens-- the baseline moves up a fifth from where it started, and Bach repeats almost everything I just described up a fifth. In other words he takes all three entrances of the fugal subject together, treats them as if they were a single fugal subject, and builds an outer fugue out of that. So we've got a kind of fugue within a fugue. Sure enough, after this second outer entrance finishes the choir enters with the third outer subject. And to the casual listener this all just sounds like a Baroque-era instrumental beginning to a choral piece. But it's important to point out that the complexity of the counterpoint doesn't truly match the structural complexity. There isn't an additional set of instruments playing the outer fugue-- it's just that Bach organized the music in such a way that we can hear these relationships.
- pervycreeper 9y ago
  > In other words he takes all three entrances of the fugal subject together, treats them as if they were a single fugal subject, and builds an outer fugue out of that. This is not in any way an accurate description.
  - jancsika 9y ago
    It's not a fugue-within-a-fugue texture. But it is a fugal exposition within a larger fugal exposition, both in terms of harmony and phrasing. That's important because it is the larger exposition which sets the pacing for the following sections of that opening movement. It's also important from the standpoint of musical drama. Imagine someone tells you a story and gives you the essential setting in the first 17 seconds. Then over the next 10 seconds they begin to describe what sounds like the story's rising drama. Now you have an expectation for the form of this short story, and you start to listen more intently. However, they then begin laying out another, closely related setting followed by its own little internal conflict. Finally this leads to a description of a setting that sounds like an intensified and more detailed version of the original setting. Only then do they finish the actual exposition of their story and move into the rising action. At some point in all of that you're going to get the sense that this is a much more involved story than you had initially anticipated. You're also going to anticipate that the rising action itself is going to last a lot longer than 17 seconds. That's a fitting dramatic arc for introducing the listener to the subject matter of St. Matthew Passion. Also, to better answer the question about listening vs. analyzing notes: I just sang the opening melodies to myself to get the durations for the analogy above. I originally got the idea about the exposition-of-expositions walking somewhere and being struck by the relative brevity of the fugue subject compared to the gravity of that movement. (As well as the fact that the entire inner exposition reappears twice later in the piece, which AFAICT never happens in any of the other music Bach's wrote.) There is of course a long-standing debate over music for the ears vs. music for the eyes. But I don't think this falls into that at all-- everything I'm describing can be heard and weighed with a musician's ear in the same way an experienced coder can make an assessment that some code "smells", etc.
makmanalp 9y ago
I really like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u_027bHRlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u_027bHRlM I'm not really a religious music person, but the vocal harmonies are not quite the Bach fugue levels of mathematical (I think?), but really just stunning. Especially the female vocal together with the organ and cello? after 3:00ish. So minimal, but so many details.
haberman 9y ago
One of the great stories about Bach is when he requested leave from his church position in Arnstadt to see Buxtehude in Lübeck, "to comprehend one thing and another about his art" (Bach's words). He walked 250 miles in 10 days to get there. Then he overstayed the one month of leave he had been given, arriving back home months late. You can see some fun primary source material from this story here: https://books.google.com/books?id=LfII_HSZ0JkC&lpg=PR16&ots=4jXmFYdNz4&dq=bach%20reader%20%20problems%20of%20discipline&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=LfII_HSZ0JkC&lpg=PR16&ots=... It begins: "The organist in the New Church, Bach, is interrogated as to where he has lately been for so long and from whom he obtained leave to go." "He has been to Lübeck in order to comprehend one thing and another about his art, but had asked leave beforehand from the Superintendent. "He had asked for only four weeks, but had stayed about four times as long."

jinfiesto 9y ago

I'm surprised you didn't include the story of Bach walking 250 miles to hear Buxtehude play.

pierrec 9y ago
I pretty much left that out as bait for someone to reply, though it seems you've nearly identified it as such :)

gumby 9y ago

I used to have a cat named Buxtehude (mainly because I like the word) and was pleased that most of my friends knew the reference. I also drove there once. Not much to see, and actually has no connection to the composer.

lispm 9y ago
> has no connection to the composer. The surrounding region of the city Buxtehude, called the 'Altes Land', has a lot of old instruments and one can hear the music of the composer Buxtehude on old organs from his time... The organ in a neighbour town, where I grew up, was completed in 1675. It has been preserved in as much original state as possible. The works of Buxtehude may sound today on that organ like 300+ years ago, when he lived...

graycat 9y ago

People who know me say I'm a super music fan. Yup. I liked it well enough to get a violin and dig in, especially to Bach. For violin I have low talent, started too late, and didn't practice enough, but, still I made it through the Preludio of the E Major Partita and the D Major center section of the Chaconne. From all the possible analyses I've seen of Bach, finally I come down on just one core point: He was one heck of a good musician, that is, in the basic art of the music, that is, "communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion". I listen to Bach for the MUSIC, that is, for the art, the communication. While later composers used style and means Bach didn't use or didn't have, to me as an avid listener Bach is in places as passionate, romantic, dramatic as anything in Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Verdi, Wagner, Tchaikowski, etc. E.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFflFiLlT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFflFiLlT8 Bach Busoni Chaconne D Minor BWV 1004 Valentina Lisitsa Passionate music.

siegel 9y ago
Spend any time with the St. Matthew and St. John Passions and I don't see how anyone could deny Bach's music is passionate (no pun intended...really).
- andrewbinstock 9y ago
  Or the great Chaconne for solo violin.
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    That is one of the great masterpieces of Western music.
    - graycat 9y ago
      That is one of the great masterpieces of Western, uh, civilization. A top, center crown jewel.
badosu 9y ago

siegel 9y ago

Well, if you're a fan of Buxtehude, have you listened to any music by Franz Tunder (Buxtehude's predecessor in Lubek)? My knowledge is mainly of their choral music, not organ music. So, might not have useful recommendations for you.

jancsika 9y ago

> [...] not least in contrapunctal complexity and fugal techniques, but also in the incredible fluidity he could achieve with a seemingly arbitrary number of voices. Just to give a striking example of one of Bach's novel fugal techniques: Bach's St. Matthew Passion starts out with an instrumental fugue with three voices. The first voice does introduces a little fugue subject, then the second voice imitates a fifth above, and finally the third voices enters above that one. Then there's a short episode where the voices trade licks and end on a half cadence. So far a fairly typical beginning for a three-voice fugue. Then something strange happens-- the baseline moves up a fifth from where it started, and Bach repeats almost everything I just described up a fifth. In other words he takes all three entrances of the fugal subject together, treats them as if they were a single fugal subject, and builds an outer fugue out of that. So we've got a kind of fugue within a fugue. Sure enough, after this second outer entrance finishes the choir enters with the third outer subject. And to the casual listener this all just sounds like a Baroque-era instrumental beginning to a choral piece. But it's important to point out that the complexity of the counterpoint doesn't truly match the structural complexity. There isn't an additional set of instruments playing the outer fugue-- it's just that Bach organized the music in such a way that we can hear these relationships.

pervycreeper 9y ago
> In other words he takes all three entrances of the fugal subject together, treats them as if they were a single fugal subject, and builds an outer fugue out of that. This is not in any way an accurate description.
- jancsika 9y ago
  It's not a fugue-within-a-fugue texture. But it is a fugal exposition within a larger fugal exposition, both in terms of harmony and phrasing. That's important because it is the larger exposition which sets the pacing for the following sections of that opening movement. It's also important from the standpoint of musical drama. Imagine someone tells you a story and gives you the essential setting in the first 17 seconds. Then over the next 10 seconds they begin to describe what sounds like the story's rising drama. Now you have an expectation for the form of this short story, and you start to listen more intently. However, they then begin laying out another, closely related setting followed by its own little internal conflict. Finally this leads to a description of a setting that sounds like an intensified and more detailed version of the original setting. Only then do they finish the actual exposition of their story and move into the rising action. At some point in all of that you're going to get the sense that this is a much more involved story than you had initially anticipated. You're also going to anticipate that the rising action itself is going to last a lot longer than 17 seconds. That's a fitting dramatic arc for introducing the listener to the subject matter of St. Matthew Passion. Also, to better answer the question about listening vs. analyzing notes: I just sang the opening melodies to myself to get the durations for the analogy above. I originally got the idea about the exposition-of-expositions walking somewhere and being struck by the relative brevity of the fugue subject compared to the gravity of that movement. (As well as the fact that the entire inner exposition reappears twice later in the piece, which AFAICT never happens in any of the other music Bach's wrote.) There is of course a long-standing debate over music for the ears vs. music for the eyes. But I don't think this falls into that at all-- everything I'm describing can be heard and weighed with a musician's ear in the same way an experienced coder can make an assessment that some code "smells", etc.

makmanalp 9y ago

I really like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u_027bHRlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u_027bHRlM I'm not really a religious music person, but the vocal harmonies are not quite the Bach fugue levels of mathematical (I think?), but really just stunning. Especially the female vocal together with the organ and cello? after 3:00ish. So minimal, but so many details.

haberman 9y ago

One of the great stories about Bach is when he requested leave from his church position in Arnstadt to see Buxtehude in Lübeck, "to comprehend one thing and another about his art" (Bach's words). He walked 250 miles in 10 days to get there. Then he overstayed the one month of leave he had been given, arriving back home months late. You can see some fun primary source material from this story here: https://books.google.com/books?id=LfII_HSZ0JkC&lpg=PR16&ots=4jXmFYdNz4&dq=bach%20reader%20%20problems%20of%20discipline&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=LfII_HSZ0JkC&lpg=PR16&ots=... It begins: "The organist in the New Church, Bach, is interrogated as to where he has lately been for so long and from whom he obtained leave to go." "He has been to Lübeck in order to comprehend one thing and another about his art, but had asked leave beforehand from the Superintendent. "He had asked for only four weeks, but had stayed about four times as long."