Friday, October 19, 2007

Bach

I am very tenderly getting back into classical music. So I have just bought The Very Best Of Back on iTunes. I used to listen to Bach and Mozart when I was a kid, but I changed.

iTunes Sterling prices are 80% of iTunes US$ prices, despite the dollar now being only half of the Pound Sterling. Typical.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Canon in D comes to mind for me by Pacobel. (I know I probably misspelled his name, but it's an extremely moving piece. It was played during my brides wedding march to the alter.)
The marriage crashed and burned but the score lives on in my heart.

Anonymous said...

If you are interested in Bach, you should be listening to Glenn Gould. Begin at the beginning, with his 1955 Goldberg Variations.

Alex said...

If you are interested in Bach, you may want a side step into Wendy Carlo's "Switched On Bach" and the later "Switched On Bach 2000" along with "The Well Tempered Synthesizer" and "Switched on Brandenburg".

Sure, three of these may sound a little dated now, but they are interesting diversions.

One thing that I find fascinating are the liner notes to "Switched on Bach 2000", which give an wonderful insight to DDD CD's.

Oh, we did Pachebel's Canon for our wedding March.

If you want a classical jump start, there was a UK Tunes from TV Ad's double disc set "The Classical Experience", has a picture of a Victorian cyclist and a Union Flag on the front. A compilation put together in the late 80's.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

How can classical music get dated?

Alex said...

The interpretation was on state of the art instrumentation. Walter Carlos and Robert Moog co built the Moog synthesizer in the late 60's. It has a wonderful sound, but compared with modern synthesizers it has a crude feeling. Carlos is a perfectionist and hence the 2000 re-recording on then state of the art equipment then.

Anonymous said...

The most contemplative of Bach's work has to be a collection called "The Art of the Fugue". My favorite performance of it is by Gustav Leonhardt on the harpsichord, recorded in the 1960s. The compositions have intertwined ascending and decending melody lines...it's like a musical interpretation of the DNA helix and the shape of the cosmos.

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

"it's like a musical interpretation of the DNA helix and the shape of the cosmos."

Yep, sounds like music fron the sixties allright! ;-)

Don't mind me, I'm just jealous I was born after the hippie days.
Peace and love, dudes and dudettes.