Why Bach Moves Us - NYRB

[ashling]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/feb/20/why-bach-moves-us/



who can tell me why Johan Sebastian had so many children?

[Aristus]

1. Because musicians are horn-dogs.

Always have been; always will be.

[ashling]

3. I always heard

it was because he didn't have any stops on his organ.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

2. This for me is Bach's most moving piece

It's the incredible Chaconne for solo violin, supposedly written by Bach in remembrance of his wife's death. Russian born Nathan Mironovich Milstein (1904-1992), widely considered to be one of the greatest virtuosos of the violin of the 20th century, chose this piece for his final public performance at age 83. Violinist Joshua Bell has called Bach's Chaconne "not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It's a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect." Composer Johannes Brahms, in a letter to Clara Schumann, had trouble putting the extent of his admiration for this piece into words: "...On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind. ..."

[Blue_Tires]

4. Because chicks did musicians...

and the childhood mortality rate was fairly high in that era...

[Art_from_Ark]

5. Because he wanted the future Beethoven to make that famous play on words

"Nicht Bach, sondern Ozean!"

[cemaphonic]

6. How was he supposed to compose a new cantata every week

without an army of kids to hep copy parts?