More music from J S Bach, this time for piano. This small selection illustrates, I hope, how his music can be interpreted in so many ways. All of his music reminds me of waves lapping or crashing on the shore one after the other endlessly in perpetual motion.
As before, relax and lose yourself in the music with your glass of Riesling or Schnapps or perhaps a Stein of Bier or even, perish the thought, Liebfraumilch if you feel like it!
Bach Adagio BWV 974
David Fray - Bach (F-Moll)
Bach - Prelude in C Major
Johann Sebastian BACH/MARCELLO: Adagio, BWV 974
Bach Concerto for 4 Pianos. Multipiano/Tel-Aviv Soloists/Barak Tal
Yes, four maestros for the price of none - Johann Sebastian Bach, Karl Richter and 'Vater und Sohn' David and Igor Oistrakh!
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One of the most recognisable tunes in the whole of the 'classical' music canon is Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue (BWV 565) I think most people will be familiar with it but without being able to put a name to it. Such is the power of Bach's music.
It must be more than fifty years since I bought my copy of the Deutsche Grammophon recording by the organist Karl Richter. I cannot find the actual recording on YouTube, it may be hidden somewhere but I did find this version by Richter which has the added advantage of allowing us to see him playing with both hands and both feet and all from memory too; no sign of any sheet music!
Karl Richter - Toccata & Fugue In D Minor - BWV 565
After that rousing hurricane force music, something a little quieter and more refined with another from Herr Bach which I also bought more than 50 years ago:
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043
00:00 - I. Vivace
04:14 - II. Largo ma non tanto
11:45 - III. Allegro
David Fyodorovich Oistrakh (1908-1974), Violin I
Igor Davidovich Oistrakh (1931-2021), Violin II
George Malcolm (1917-1997), Harpsichord
Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens (1893-1962), Conductor
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Recorded 19th February 1961, in Brent Town Hall, Wembley, London, Great Britain.
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Relax with your glass of Riesling and enjoy the music!
I recently came across some videos which used numerical constants to create music. They were created by Michael Blake who decribes himself as a musician and filmmaker. Apart from that tiny piece of information I know nothing about him but his four musical creations are fascinating. His website is here - https://www.youtube.com/@MBlakemusic/about
I have added two further videos which also illustrate the Phi ratio otherwise known as the Golden Section or Golden Mean.
What Pi sounds like.
What Tau Sounds Like
What Phi (the golden ratio) Sounds Like
"The number e is a mathematical constant, approximately equal to 2.71828, which appears in many different settings throughout mathematics. It was discovered by the Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli while studying compound interest, where e arises as the limit of (1 + 1/n)n as n approaches infinity.
"The number e is of eminent importance in mathematics, alongside 0, 1, π and i. All five of these numbers play important and recurring roles across mathematics, and are the five constants appearing in one formulation of Euler's identity. Like the constant π, e is irrational: it is not a ratio of integers. Also like π, e is transcendental: it is not a root of any non-zero polynomial with rational coefficients"
What e Sounds Like
Fibonacci sequence in music
1.618 Phi, The Golden Ratio, God Creator of Heaven and Earth
The Rutles were one of the biggest bands of the 'beat boom' of the 1960s but for some reason the Prefab Four have been written out of the history books. So here is a selection of their groundbreaking and inventive music before it too is buried and lost forever.
And a special bonus from Rutland Weekend Television with one of the Fab Four singing with the remnants of the Prefab Four -
The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) were an avant-pop band led by English guitarist Simon Jeffes. Co-founded with cellist Helen Liebmann, it toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s. The band's sound is not easily categorized, having elements of exuberant folk music and a minimalist aesthetic occasionally reminiscent of composers such as Philip Glass.
Simon Jeffes died in 1997 and here his son explains the origin of the 'orchestra' and its music -
“My father, Simon Jeffes, was in the south of France in 1972-73, where he got terrible food poisoning from some bad shellfish and spent 3 or 4 days with a terrible fever. During this, he had very vivid waking dream – a nightmare vision of the near future – where everyone lived in big concrete blocks and spent their lives looking into screens. There was a big camera in the corner of everyone’s room, an eye looking down at them. In one room there was a couple making love lovelessly, while in another there was a musician sat at a vast array of equipment but with headphones on so there was no actual music in the room. This was a very disconnected de-humanising world that people had made for themselves…
"However you could reject that and look further afield, and if you went down this dusty road you would eventually find a ramshackle old building with noise and light pouring out into the dark. It’s a place you just fundamentally want to go into, and this is the Penguin Cafe. There are long tables and everyone sits together, and it’s very cheerfully chaotic. In the back there is always a band playing music that you are sure you’ve heard somewhere but you have no idea where – and that is the Penguin Cafe Orchestra – they play this music." - Arthur Jeffes
Here is a 'multi media' presentation of the Northern Lights; a video, a painting and a song!
Unfortunately the National Gallery of Canada will not allow me to copy the painting and I can't find it elsewhere. There are others but they do not have the same effect.
Aurora Borealis - The Northern Lights
Here is one of Tom Thomson's paintings of the aurora; one of several he did. It is in the National Gallery of Canada, Thomson being Canadian. This from Wiki:
"Thomas John Thomson (August 5, 1877 – July 8, 1917) was a Canadian artist active in the early 20th century. During his short career, he produced roughly 400 oil sketches on small wood panels and approximately 50 larger works on canvas. His works consist almost entirely of landscapes, depicting trees, skies, lakes, and rivers. He used broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the beauty and colour of the Ontario landscape. Thomson's accidental death by drowning at 39 shortly before the founding of the Group of Seven is seen as a tragedy for Canadian art."
The aurora is an effect of the sun's activity, waves of electro-magnetic radiation emitted by solar storms. The intensity of the 'storm' affects the brightness of the aurora.
But what happens if the solar storm is so intense that the pulse of radiation affects electrical supply on earth as happened in 1859?
The Carrington Event affected the new telegraph system of communication but, that apart, life carried on much as before. But what will happen when the next one comes? And it will come, there is no doubt that it will happen. Well, some communities will be unaffected-
The theme song to the TV programme "Whatever happened to the likely lads" included the line "..is the only thing to look forward to, the past?" In the world of popular music the answer is a most emphatic yes!
So here are a few more from the past and they were all the seeds from which the 1960s 'beat boom' grew.
Bring It On Home To Me - Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke - What A Wonderful World (Official Lyric Video)
Del Shannon - Runaway (HQ STUDIO/1961)
Chuck Berry - Roll Over Beethoven (Belgium TV, 1965) - HD
Maybe Baby - Buddy Holly
Fats Domino and His Orchestra jambalaya
Spanish Harlem - Ben E King
Ben E King - Stand By Me - Prince's Trust All Stars Band - Live - 1987
