4 ms·

Bach was considered in his lifetime to be a rather old-fashioned composer, not one that invented new theories. Still a respected composer, of course, and quite

Bach was considered in his lifetime to be a rather old-fashioned composer, not one that invented new theories. Still a respected composer, of course, and quite productive. That was a time when many people wrote about music theory in one way or another: Corelli, Rameau, Telemann, Quantz, Handel, etc. My understanding is that they mostly tried to explain the existing tradition of baroque music, more than invent new theory. After Bach died, musical tastes changed, and music developed into a different direction.

Bud 4y ago
But how different, really? Bach still has a lot of relevance in the present day. Try out Paul Simon's "American Tune". Based on a Bach chorale.
galaxyLogic 4y ago
> they mostly tried to explain the existing tradition of baroque music, more than invent new theory Explaining existing music means creating new theory. Creating music and creating a theory about it are two different things.
klik99 4y ago
This is how I understand it too - though "the rules of counterpoint" as they are taught today were really codified after Bach (who was already ~50 years out of date!). Typically (not always!) the "rules" of a style of music are malleable and flexible and argued over while the music is still relevant and codified into unchangeable standards after they have fallen out of fashion. Blues is a good modern example. Dubstep and the 100 related genres and vaporwave and it's 100 related genres, are counter-examples, instead slightly changing the rules becomes a new subgenre, which I feel is the same effect but manifesting itself differently. Bach himself "breaks" at least one rule in every piece, and I can think of one rule that was really due to technological limitations of the time - not modulating to more than 2 keys away, because they didn't have 12-TET and going more than a few keys away sounded more and more dissonant - keyboard instruments were tuned to a specific key. The story I'm trying to tell is people arguing about the rules of music is no different than how composers/producers/song writers about music today with modern genres, and when some genre dies, the old guard tries to keep it "pure" by zeroing on a set of commonly used stylistic techniques and calling it "the rules" which makes the music more bland and uninteresting by smoothing out the rough edges. I was taught counterpoint by one of Shostakovichs last students, and my opinion on rules is greatly influenced by him - it's good to learn the rules, even though they aren't really rules, and all the greatest music from that time was written decades before the rules were even codified.
motohagiography 4y ago
I'd argue baroque music, and particularly Bach's work wasn't merely a tradition and an affect of taste and fashion, it was discovered, and it is still being discovered though statistical and other analysis techniques used on his work today. Bach's work is all about expressions of implied symmetries and forms, and one of the most interesting aspects of it is that you can essentially extend his pieces by writing consistent theorems in them. It's not just harmony it's iterating the rules within the pieces. Take this example of Alan Mearn's interpretation of BWV 1007, this isn't mere ornamentation, he has filled out an entire exposition of implied counterpoint, where the alberti bass evolves into a completely new voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp98MRKrs2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp98MRKrs2U I'm biased because I think Mearns' new Bach album is the most important interpretation since Gould's Goldberg Variations, and I'm working my way through his sheet music edition, but this idea that Bach's work was an artifact of a time whose importance is diminished by progress is farcical. It's a foundation without which there would be nothing approaching what we know today.
p1esk 4y ago
Bach was considered in his lifetime to be a rather old-fashioned composer I’m curious, which Bach contemporaries were considered less old fashioned?
- spekcular 4y ago
  People like Vivaldi writing homophonic music.
  - Bud 4y ago
    Except Vivaldi did nothing of the sort.
    - spekcular 4y ago
      The Four Seasons is not homophonic music? It varies by season but IIRC there's definitely some homophonic writing in there.
      - p1esk 4y ago
        The question is not so much about polyphonic versus homophonic it’s about whether concert goers 300 years ago listened to Vivaldi after they listened to Bach and said “finally, a breath of fresh air!” Could very well had been so, who knows.
  - heikkilevanto 4y ago
    Bach wrote several transcriptions of Vivaldis music
gerdesj 4y ago
"Bach was considered in his lifetime to be a rather old-fashioned composer" You don't cite anything on this. Why did DH include him in GEB?
- spekcular 4y ago
  I think this is common knowledge and can be found in a lot of music history books. He was essentially the culmination of a contrapuntal tradition, after which people started writing more homophonic music. Some supporting evidence might be: 1) He was basically forgotten after his death until being rediscovered by Mendelssohn (https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200156436/ https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200156436/). Googling this "fact," I also found this somewhat dissenting post: https://notanothermusichistorycliche.blogspot.com/2016/06/how-forgotten-was-bach.html https://notanothermusichistorycliche.blogspot.com/2016/06/ho.... 2) I recall remarks from his sons somewhere about their father being old-fashioned, though I can't find them right now. Re: GEB, I can't speak to hofstadter's psychology, sorry.
- jpb10 4y ago
  https://youtu.be/vXaUlnBxOoI?t=2339 https://youtu.be/vXaUlnBxOoI?t=2339
- fsckboy 4y ago
  n.b. Why did Douglas Hofstadter include him in Goedel Escher Bach (I had to research, thought I'd share)
- klik99 4y ago
  I think people get this slightly wrong - he was more regarded as a performer and improvisor, and the pieces published during his lifetime were mostly keyboard/organ pieces that were considered educational. He was a pretty obscure composer but (mostly) well regarded by those in the know, if a bit too intricate for some. After he died he wasn't immediately very influential, instead he was considered very old fashioned. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_of_Johann_Sebastian_Bach%27s_music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_of_Johann_Sebastian_... After his death, Bach's reputation as a composer at first declined: his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging galant style.[a] Initially, he was remembered more as a virtuoso player of the organ and as a teacher. The bulk of the music that had been printed during the composer's lifetime, at least the part that was remembered, was for the organ and the harpsichord. Thus, his reputation as a composer was initially mostly limited to his keyboard music, and that even fairly limited to its value in music education.

Bud 4y ago

But how different, really? Bach still has a lot of relevance in the present day. Try out Paul Simon's "American Tune". Based on a Bach chorale.

galaxyLogic 4y ago

> they mostly tried to explain the existing tradition of baroque music, more than invent new theory Explaining existing music means creating new theory. Creating music and creating a theory about it are two different things.

klik99 4y ago

This is how I understand it too - though "the rules of counterpoint" as they are taught today were really codified after Bach (who was already ~50 years out of date!). Typically (not always!) the "rules" of a style of music are malleable and flexible and argued over while the music is still relevant and codified into unchangeable standards after they have fallen out of fashion. Blues is a good modern example. Dubstep and the 100 related genres and vaporwave and it's 100 related genres, are counter-examples, instead slightly changing the rules becomes a new subgenre, which I feel is the same effect but manifesting itself differently. Bach himself "breaks" at least one rule in every piece, and I can think of one rule that was really due to technological limitations of the time - not modulating to more than 2 keys away, because they didn't have 12-TET and going more than a few keys away sounded more and more dissonant - keyboard instruments were tuned to a specific key. The story I'm trying to tell is people arguing about the rules of music is no different than how composers/producers/song writers about music today with modern genres, and when some genre dies, the old guard tries to keep it "pure" by zeroing on a set of commonly used stylistic techniques and calling it "the rules" which makes the music more bland and uninteresting by smoothing out the rough edges. I was taught counterpoint by one of Shostakovichs last students, and my opinion on rules is greatly influenced by him - it's good to learn the rules, even though they aren't really rules, and all the greatest music from that time was written decades before the rules were even codified.

motohagiography 4y ago

I'd argue baroque music, and particularly Bach's work wasn't merely a tradition and an affect of taste and fashion, it was discovered, and it is still being discovered though statistical and other analysis techniques used on his work today. Bach's work is all about expressions of implied symmetries and forms, and one of the most interesting aspects of it is that you can essentially extend his pieces by writing consistent theorems in them. It's not just harmony it's iterating the rules within the pieces. Take this example of Alan Mearn's interpretation of BWV 1007, this isn't mere ornamentation, he has filled out an entire exposition of implied counterpoint, where the alberti bass evolves into a completely new voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp98MRKrs2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp98MRKrs2U I'm biased because I think Mearns' new Bach album is the most important interpretation since Gould's Goldberg Variations, and I'm working my way through his sheet music edition, but this idea that Bach's work was an artifact of a time whose importance is diminished by progress is farcical. It's a foundation without which there would be nothing approaching what we know today.

p1esk 4y ago

Bach was considered in his lifetime to be a rather old-fashioned composer I’m curious, which Bach contemporaries were considered less old fashioned?

spekcular 4y ago
People like Vivaldi writing homophonic music.
- Bud 4y ago
  Except Vivaldi did nothing of the sort.
  - spekcular 4y ago
    The Four Seasons is not homophonic music? It varies by season but IIRC there's definitely some homophonic writing in there.
    - p1esk 4y ago
      The question is not so much about polyphonic versus homophonic it’s about whether concert goers 300 years ago listened to Vivaldi after they listened to Bach and said “finally, a breath of fresh air!” Could very well had been so, who knows.
- heikkilevanto 4y ago
  Bach wrote several transcriptions of Vivaldis music

gerdesj 4y ago

"Bach was considered in his lifetime to be a rather old-fashioned composer" You don't cite anything on this. Why did DH include him in GEB?

spekcular 4y ago
I think this is common knowledge and can be found in a lot of music history books. He was essentially the culmination of a contrapuntal tradition, after which people started writing more homophonic music. Some supporting evidence might be: 1) He was basically forgotten after his death until being rediscovered by Mendelssohn (https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200156436/ https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200156436/). Googling this "fact," I also found this somewhat dissenting post: https://notanothermusichistorycliche.blogspot.com/2016/06/how-forgotten-was-bach.html https://notanothermusichistorycliche.blogspot.com/2016/06/ho.... 2) I recall remarks from his sons somewhere about their father being old-fashioned, though I can't find them right now. Re: GEB, I can't speak to hofstadter's psychology, sorry.
jpb10 4y ago
https://youtu.be/vXaUlnBxOoI?t=2339 https://youtu.be/vXaUlnBxOoI?t=2339
fsckboy 4y ago
n.b. Why did Douglas Hofstadter include him in Goedel Escher Bach (I had to research, thought I'd share)
klik99 4y ago
I think people get this slightly wrong - he was more regarded as a performer and improvisor, and the pieces published during his lifetime were mostly keyboard/organ pieces that were considered educational. He was a pretty obscure composer but (mostly) well regarded by those in the know, if a bit too intricate for some. After he died he wasn't immediately very influential, instead he was considered very old fashioned. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_of_Johann_Sebastian_Bach%27s_music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_of_Johann_Sebastian_... After his death, Bach's reputation as a composer at first declined: his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging galant style.[a] Initially, he was remembered more as a virtuoso player of the organ and as a teacher. The bulk of the music that had been printed during the composer's lifetime, at least the part that was remembered, was for the organ and the harpsichord. Thus, his reputation as a composer was initially mostly limited to his keyboard music, and that even fairly limited to its value in music education.