Most well known bach compositions10/30/2023 I am also partial to the Gloria, which I first sang when I was in high school. The Trumpet Concerto, with its electrifying third movement, is one of my favorites. For better or worse, however, it is his ideas and not his expression of them that are under scrutiny here.Īlso, my defense of Bach does not amount to an attack on Vivaldi. In most cases his meaning is clear even if his syntax is not, and at times he states his case rather eloquently. Fernandez's first language (the original was apparently written in French). Is there anything to Fernandez' arguments? Have we truly been idolizing the wrong composer all along? After hundreds of years, is it really time for a paradigm shift? We will see, by examining two questions: First, is Fernandez' premise supported by his arguments? Second, if not, are there any arguments that would support his premise?īefore we continue, I would like to stress that the version of the article that I read was in English, which is clearly not Mr. Bach's music was old-fashioned, not innovative. The name "Bach" becomes symbolic his music is enjoyed because his name is associated with it.ĩ. The most important musicology work in the nineteenth century was done in Germany, not Italy.Ĩ. Influential circles of intellectuals idolized him, exaggerating his worth.ħ. Bach's music does not have emotional depth.Ħ. Bach borrowed music from other composers, Vivaldi did not.ĥ. ![]() Bach based his music on numerology, Vivaldi did not.Ĥ. He was not as published as Vivaldi in his lifetime, and not well known outside his province.ģ. Vivaldi sells more records, indicating support among the general public, while Bach is discussed more in books, pointing to support from intellectuals.Ģ. To support his claims, he discusses nine major points (shown here, in no particular order):ġ. Knowing that this is the prevailing attitude, Fernandez attempts to attack the pro-Bach attitude in a rational manner. Great music is, as the saying goes, like pornography: You can't define it, but you know it when you see it. Right? When pressed to come up with a reason why one is better than the other, though, we may become tongue-tied. ![]() Everyone knows that Bach was a far better composer than Vivaldi was. When hearing such an audacious argument, the first reaction is to dismiss it without a thought. His music, Fernandez says, benefits from a sort of inertia in that so much effort has been expended to portray Bach as a great composer that it becomes difficult to argue otherwise. He returns again and again to the argument that "intellectuals" have essentially forced Bach down our throats. Fernandez argues that Bach's notoriety is due to "extra-musical" factors such as ideology, nationalism, and technical expertise, rather than true musical genius. Bach is overrated as a composer, particularly in comparison to his contemporary, Antonio Vivaldi. In his article, Is Johann Sebastian Bach a Great Composer? Claude Fernandez attempts to make a case that J. Unfortunately, this does not stop them from trying. Somewhere in between trained musicians and "hip-hop" fans are those who understand music just enough to sound educated, but not enough to make grand, paradigm-shifting assumptions about the cultural and historical contributions of the great composers. Although almost everyone enjoys music in one form or another, there are huge gaps in the comprehension of musical forms. If the so-called "hard" sciences are open to debate, then it is easy to imagine an even greater capacity for dissent in the arts, particularly in music. These claims rarely hold up to any serious, or even casual, scrutiny. Hundreds of people, for instance, believe they have found errors in Einstein's theories of relativity. Judging from these resources, there are a lot of people out there who are rigorously opposed to the accepted views of history, cosmology, physics, and even mathematics. ![]() ![]() The Internet is filled with lengthy treatises by little-known scholars who enthusiastically question "conventional" wisdom.
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