05-22-2019, 02:18 AM
The greatest work ever for solo harpsichord:
Some deride the style is excessively mechanical -- Bach being played on a sewing machine, as I have seen it described. But is pure music for JS Bach's conception, completely unsuited for Romantic rumination.
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It can also come off well on a solo piano. Glenn Gould gets harpsichord-like textures out of a piano. Bach seemed to not like the pianofortes to which he was introduced (tuning problems? The temptation to play music in ways that Bach didn't like his works played? OK, Liszt's sonata for piano would not come off well on a harpsichord.
Old JSB would have probably liked Gould's 1955 performance for not adding affections that Bach never intended.
Oh, do I now regret not getting to learn how to play a keyboard instrument as a child!
Some deride the style is excessively mechanical -- Bach being played on a sewing machine, as I have seen it described. But is pure music for JS Bach's conception, completely unsuited for Romantic rumination.
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It can also come off well on a solo piano. Glenn Gould gets harpsichord-like textures out of a piano. Bach seemed to not like the pianofortes to which he was introduced (tuning problems? The temptation to play music in ways that Bach didn't like his works played? OK, Liszt's sonata for piano would not come off well on a harpsichord.
Old JSB would have probably liked Gould's 1955 performance for not adding affections that Bach never intended.
Oh, do I now regret not getting to learn how to play a keyboard instrument as a child!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.