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| JS Bach - the painting that hangs above my desk |
But why now?
As I mentioned in my previous blog (Where are all those beautiful moments...) for the past three and a
half months I have been suffering from a very painful bout of back, hip and leg
pain – and my response, has all too often been to turn to Bach. Most nights I
lie in bed and play his B Minor Mass
on my I-pod before I get some sleep. Whenever the pain becomes too much and I
need to give myself a bit of “space” and put my feet up, lie down or close my
eyes it is a quiet piece of Bach that I listen to. Increasingly I find that
whenever I put the stereo on for a little music it is Bach that drifts through
the speakers – usually Glenn Gould playing the 48 Preludes and Fugues or Gould playing the wonderful Goldberg Variations (Video below of Glenn Gould playing the opening Aria from the variation). Bach’s music has
not just been something to enjoy but is, at the moment, an important support
for me – it speaks of calmness, serenity, certainty, peace, quiet pleasure and
in doing so it quietly uplifts my spirits.
As I sit here in my office writing this his face gazes down
on me from the large print that hangs over my desk – a memento of a trip to the
Thomaskirche in Leipzig where he worked and for many years produced some of his
greatest work until his death in 1750. Bach’s life and work is well documented,
a click of the mouse on Wikipedia will give all the information required, so
apart from any necessary facts I will omit his life story and stick to my love
affair with his works. When I say my love affair I do not use the phrase
lightly, like anyone or anything that we love he has been my main stay and
reference point for much of my life. He is more often than not who I turn to in
times of stress or upset – as I am doing now - and indeed of great joy or
celebration. When my father died, when I was lying “wired up” in the cardiac
unit at the local hospital, when Pat and I had spent many weekends travelling
up and down motorways to visit her ailing mother it was always Bach that was the
calming influence and who restored my balance. I love other great composers –
Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Vivaldi, Purcell.......they all have their place,
but in the end it is JSB to whom I always return.
- “What I have to say to Bach's work of life: Listen, play, love, adore it - and just shut up.” (Albert Einstein: Scientist)
- “When the angels play for God they play Bach, but for one another they play Mozart. (Isaiah Berlin: Philosopher)
- “His name shouldn't be Bach but Ocean.” [“Bach” means brook in German] (Beethoven: Composer)
- “We are all dilettantes compared to him!” (Schumann: Composer)
- “Now there is music from which a man can learn something”. (Mozart: Composer)
- “And if we look at the works of JS Bach on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered. And in his works we will search in vain for anything the least lacking in good taste.” (Debussy: Composer)
- “Bach is a terminal point.....Everything leads to him.”(Albert Schweitzer:Musician and Theologian)
- “...the most stupendous miracle in all music!” (Wagner:Composer)
- “Study Bach. There you will find everything: life, love and God”. (Brahms: Composer)
- “Bach is the supreme genius of music... This man, who knows everything and feels everything, cannot write one note, however unimportant it may appear, which is anything but transcendent. He has reached the heart of every noble thought, and has done it in the most perfect way”. (Pablo Casals:Musician)
- When eminent biologist and author Lewis Thomas was asked what message he would choose to send from Earth into outer space in the Voyager spacecraft, he answered, "I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach." After a pause, he added, "But that would be boasting." In fact, the comment made by Thomas became real: on the Voyager spacecraft there was included a recording of Glenn Gould playing the 48 Preludes and Fugues – if any alien civilisation finds the spacecraft and plays the music they will be listening to what has been chosen to represent one of mankind’s greatest achievements. The 48, as they are known to Bach lovers, are still hurtling through space and are, I understand, now the furthest man made thing from earth.
- “Mozart died too late rather than too soon. Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there also a dropped hammer........but if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would be Bach. I can’t think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply and so consistently, and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all of its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that — its humanity”. (Glenn Gould: Musician and arguably the greatest ever exponent of Bach’s keyboard music - see video below of Gould playing one of "The 48" - the music that above all others has shaped western music until today)
I don’t know how I came to Bach. My family were not
especially musical and although I learned the piano as a child I never reached
the standard where the complexities of Bach were part of my repertoire. As I
have mentioned in blogs before (e.g. “A
Night in With Klever Kaff”: May 2011) I had a passing interest in classical
music simply because of unplanned events and coincidences in my childhood and
youth but nothing specific that drew me to Bach rather than to other composers.
Two things do, however, do stand out. When I went to secondary school there was
a school choir which I was a member of for a few months (a girl that I was keen
on was a member of the choir and I was seeking to impress her!). Sadly, after a
few months the teacher heard my voice so my choral singing career and my amorous intentions towards Anne ended sharply but during that brief excursion into choral singing I can remember that one of
the pieces that we sang for a concert was Bach’s magnificent Jesu Joy of man’s Desiring from his
cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, (video below). And at about the same time I can remember hearing on the radio the great
pianist Myra Hess playing the same piece. There is no doubt that these two
imprinted on my mind and although I didn’t understand the music or have any
great affection at that time for classical music I somehow knew that this was
something special – it immediately became part of me. I can remember visiting a
second hand sheet music stall on the town’s market and flicking though the
cardboard boxes of music – until I at last came up with the piano music for the
piece. Over the next few years whenever I sat at the piano it was Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring that I practised
- or rather murdered! Poor Bach, if he sat listening in heaven, he must have
wept at what I did to his wonderful work. But after a fashion I mastered it. I
soon gave up playing the piano as rock and roll became important in my teenage
life – but years later – and still, I think, today – if I sit at a piano that
is the piece that I will stumble though. My fingers automatically finding the
keys. I can literally play it blindfold and I still get a buzz from it!
But Bach’s music is not only for the solemn or the quiet
times. Although my current mood is, to say the least, depressed and Bach’s
music is giving quiet comfort and solace to me it also brings glorious joy and
uplift. Many years ago I stood at the front of our school hall leading assembly
– although “leading” is the wrong word since we were all listening to the
weekly school assembly broadcast by the BBC to all schools. The assembly always
started each week with a different piece of music and on that particular week
as soon as the music began I recognised it immediately and my fingers began to
keep time with the tune. It was the third movement from Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 5 – my favourite
out of the six Brandenburgs (video below). This glorious piece is music of joy and
celebration, uplifting in the extreme, and at the end of the piece the radio
presenter, Geoffrey Wheeler, a man who for very many years was the voice and
face of BBC religious broadcasts said to the children “Could you imagine, children, anything more happy full of praise than
that – what a joyful piece of music to
start the day”.
Wheeler was right – I defy anyone not to listen to
Brandenburg 5 and not feel better, be uplifted and just a little joyful for the
remainder of the day. It’s the same with a number of the great cello concertos
– listen to the Bourree from Cello Suite Number 4 and no-one could not be amused and have a
little smile on their face at the musical picture that it paints. Or listen to Credo and the following Patrem omnipotentem from the B Minor Mass – a Mass is supposed to be
a solemn work but when JSB composed them those two light, vibrant bursts of
choral music must have had the angels in heaven jiving in the aisles! In the
1960s French composer and jazz enthusiast Jacques Loussier set a lot of Bach’s
music to the jazz repertoire. His Jacques Loussier Trio were famous for
bringing Bach into the modern world and I have absolutely no doubt that Bach would
have approved. I have often reflected when listening to something like the Art of the Fugue or some of Bach’s partitas and 2 and 3 part inventions that
his music in many ways pre-dated modern jazz. If Bach were alive today I have
no doubt that jazz would be very much part of his composing
Bach’s music takes me to the extremes of human emotions.
From hearing it as a child to this day it never ceases to move me and I know
now what I knew then almost sixty years ago that it is something very special.
It can make me smile and feel so much better, it makes me believe that there
must be a God and a heaven. It is the nearest that I can come to what has been
called the “music of the spheres” – the universe and all its workings. It can
overpower and overawe me when for example I listen to the open chorus (Come ye daughters, help me lament) of
the St Matthew Passion the hairs on
my neck bristle. And at the end of the Passion
the final chorus We sit down in tears
never fails to drain the emotions completely. Bach’s music makes me feel very
small in this great universe but it also has the power to make me feel that I
could conquer the world should I so wish; the aria from the Goldberg Variations, surely, one of the most beautiful and serene pieces
of music ever written can make me feel incredibly humble and a tiny speck in
the cosmos. But listen to (for example) the third movement of the Keyboard Concerto number 2 (especially
when played by Glenn Gould) and anything and everything seems possible! Bach’s
music speaks at many different levels and in many different ways: all the
world’s great composers are capable of writing a good tune – who could
undervalue the glory of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no 5, his Late Quartets or the majesty of the Ninth Symphony; who could question the claims of Mozart’s exquisite
melodies for example in the Piano
Concerto number 23 or the beautiful arias from the Mozart operas or the
sheer raw power and conviction of the Requiem. But Bach adds another dimension.
His work has all that of the very greatest composers of the world but it has much,
much more. The detail, the technical brilliance, the interweaving of threads,
the counterpoint, the mathematical precision – it makes Bach difficult to
perform but above all other works rewarding to hear (and I’m sure to play).
It has often been suggested that listening to music can aid learning and brain development and indeed there is some evidence to support this belief. I have read, for example, that listening to Mozart is a helpful way of developing the creative aspects of the brain. As a teacher I can understand that - I certainly find that listening to a piece of Mozart can conjure up mental pictures and dream like scenes. Bach is different – listen to Bach and the complexities of the music the carefully woven, almost mathematical patterns make the experience one which, I believe, aids the development of pattern, mathematics and making connections. Try following the various “tunes” in one of Bach’s pieces – for example his preludes and fugues – and it forces you to concentrate upon sequence and pattern which are the very bed rock of mathematics. If you don't believe this try following the rhythms, sequences and patterns in the video below of Gould playing one of the fugues in Bach's "The Art of the Fugue" - some of the most complex and detailed music ever written. Such is its complexity that it bridges the gap between pure maths and art, it gets to the root of what we are as humans creative, spiritual and at the same time scientific and mathematical. It is the reason why Bach's music is so wonderful, it is not simply a good tune. There is considerable research to suggest that listening to Bach increases one’s ability to recognise pattern and form – the subliminal patterns and rhythms wiring into your brain. When I was in the classroom it was not unusual for the children to listen to Mozart while they wrote a story or painted a picture – but in maths and science it was Bach that they enjoyed as it played quietly in the background I make no excuses for that – and anyway, I enjoyed it!
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| The Jacques Loussier Trio |
It has often been suggested that listening to music can aid learning and brain development and indeed there is some evidence to support this belief. I have read, for example, that listening to Mozart is a helpful way of developing the creative aspects of the brain. As a teacher I can understand that - I certainly find that listening to a piece of Mozart can conjure up mental pictures and dream like scenes. Bach is different – listen to Bach and the complexities of the music the carefully woven, almost mathematical patterns make the experience one which, I believe, aids the development of pattern, mathematics and making connections. Try following the various “tunes” in one of Bach’s pieces – for example his preludes and fugues – and it forces you to concentrate upon sequence and pattern which are the very bed rock of mathematics. If you don't believe this try following the rhythms, sequences and patterns in the video below of Gould playing one of the fugues in Bach's "The Art of the Fugue" - some of the most complex and detailed music ever written. Such is its complexity that it bridges the gap between pure maths and art, it gets to the root of what we are as humans creative, spiritual and at the same time scientific and mathematical. It is the reason why Bach's music is so wonderful, it is not simply a good tune. There is considerable research to suggest that listening to Bach increases one’s ability to recognise pattern and form – the subliminal patterns and rhythms wiring into your brain. When I was in the classroom it was not unusual for the children to listen to Mozart while they wrote a story or painted a picture – but in maths and science it was Bach that they enjoyed as it played quietly in the background I make no excuses for that – and anyway, I enjoyed it!
It is, as I said above, the music of the spheres. It is the very soul of man
and the creation and yet it came from such a humble man. Bach was no celebrity
– he achieved little fame in his time and was little more than a lowly paid
servant for most of his life. When he took the post as choir master at the
Thomaskirche in Leipzig he wasn’t even first choice for the job. He had
frequent arguments with the church and town council because of his salary and
poor terms of employment. But all the time he was quietly, on an everyday basis
producing the music of eternity. He humbly and famously said “It's easy to play any musical instrument:
all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument
will play itself”. This from probably the greatest exponent of keyboard
instruments – organ, harpsichord and claviar (piano) that the world has ever
known. Bach’s Well Tempered Claviar (or as it is also called The 48 Preludes and Fugues) is the very
basis of all western music to this day. French
composer Gounod posited 'If all the music
written since Bach's time should be lost, it could be reconstructed on the
foundations which Bach laid'. He was right such is Bach’s influence. Until Bach’s time,
keyboard instruments were tuned in such a way that they sounded perfect in one
key but awful in any other key. Over the
years a new system, in which all 12 keys are feasible, but are off by a slight
margin (but which most listeners could not detect) was developed and called the
"well-tempered" system. Bach perfected this. He tuned his
own harpsichords and clavichords and this allowed him to
play in all keys and to modulate into distant keys almost without the listeners
noticing it. To celebrate this he wrote “The
48” or “The well tempered claviar” as they are called – two books of preludes and fugues based upon every possible key. Each
set contains twenty-four pairs of preludes and fugues encompassing every
possible variation in the chromatic scale. The first pair is in C major,
the second in C minor, the third in C-sharp major, the fourth in C-sharp
minor, and so on. The rising chromatic pattern continues until every
key has been represented, finishing with a B-minor fugue. These two
books contain the essence of all western music since – hence Gounod’s comments.
Arguably they are the most significant works ever written since not only do
they provide glorious music but have influenced what we accept as the “sound”
of western music of all kinds – classical, pop, jazz, rock and roll etc. -
since Bach’s time. They define western music. And finally, Bach also said “I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will
succeed equally well” – that was
measure of the man – hard work and industry. His output was phenomenal
both in quantity and quality. As a Lutheran in Saxony hard work and industry
would have been second nature to his very being but added to this was a third thing
– the glory of God. And Bach also said “The
aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and
the refreshment of the soul”. Well, he certainly did that - watch and listen to the video below of the glorious Patrem Omnipotentem from the B Minor Mass, if that doesn't glorify God and refresh the soul then nothing can help you - you are a lost cause!
And so when I lie in bed feeling low with my aching back and
listen to Dona Nobis Pacem or the Credo or the Patrem Omnipotentum from
the B Minor Mass or any other
of his great and mighty works he is certainly refreshing my soul – reaching
parts of my being that no other music ever could. I can’t but not agree with
author Douglas Adams who commented that 'I don't think a greater genius has walked the earth.
Of the 3 great composers Mozart tells us what it's like to be human, Beethoven
tells us what it's like to be Beethoven and Bach tells us what it's like to be
the universe.' So very true.
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