I physically can't listen to the whole mass in B minor. The orchestration is very lush and I'm very autistic, so it's physically painful to listen to. However, I love the melodies and I would love to be able to listen to it all. Do you know of a version with reduced orchestration, whether it be a piano reduction or an arrangement for a chamber ensemble ? There's plenty of piano only covers, however I'm searching for a version that keeps all (or at least even one !) of the vocal lines from the original. Thanks in advance.

Hey everyone,

I know it's already a very discussed topic.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to a sentiment I often hear from casual classical listeners or people trying to get into Baroque music: "It all sounds like a continuous, mechanical stream of notes" or "It feels cold, repetitive, and lacks emotional depth."

Even Master widely regarded as one of the greatest creative minds in history, can leave first-time listeners feeling completely unengaged or overwhelmed.

I wanted to break down why I think so many modern listeners struggle to connect with or understand Baroque music

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As you all are more experienced and knowing people about this.

been working on BWV 826 for a month now and the sarabande is driving me crazy. every time i try to bring out the counterpoint in the bass without making it sound choppy, my fourth and fifth fingers lock up on those wide leaps. my reacher says to let the wrist float more and stop trying to hold every note for its full value with fingers alone, which helps a bit, but still feels like a rubik's cube under my hands compared to the sinfonia. anyone have a preferred fingering edition that doesn't require giant hands?

So I've started a cycle of preludes and fugues. My dream for this cycle is to have it played by a great pianist (Víkingur Ólafsson would be nice), for it to be something for fans of the WTC to add to their playlists, and to give fugue-loving pianists something new to play.

This community is clearly the place to reach people who might most enjoy my fugues, because many people here love Baroque music so much and are so knowledgeable. The problem is, they are SOOOO knowledgeable. How do I convince skeptics that there's room for fugues other than those by Bach, by someone hardly anyone has heard of?

I think the answer starts with the objection I have heard: "What can you possibly do that is new? Bach has already done everything there is to do with the fugue."

Where some see a finished form, I see territory he never had the chance to explore. This fugue is a case in point. Modern fugues are often thought of as academic exercises, but what if we fuse a fugue with a pop chord progression, pepper it with little hooks like a pop production, and give it a sonata-form-like recapitulation and coda?

The accompanying video demonstrates many of the ideas realized in this fugue. The subject was built around I-IV-V with the idea that it could be repeated like a pop song; the song uses it to build into the climax by taking it away. Pop producers are masters at filling every moment with little hooks like ear candy, and I've attempted to do that here, increasing their frequency throughout, until towards the end where every voice seems to be nonstop hooks. In the "recap" (1:44 in the video), the subject re-enters in the same voices and tones as in the exposition, but with a new arrangement, leading into a coda (2:14 in the video) with new material, 3-voice stretto, and development of a figure from the answer. There are plenty more details for you to discover.

Some of you will hear a lesser Bach, and that’s a comparison I can’t win. I’d ask you to try hearing it as something else: a fugue with a melody that has subtle, modern influences, an approach that is both reminiscent of Bach yet something novel. I hope you will find ideas that maybe challenge the premise that there is nothing new left to do with the fugue and that it's possible to write a new fugue that's more than an academic exercise, something with a great melody and fun to listen to.

I think this community deserves to have new music in the forms perfected by Bach to analyze and debate over.

So what do you think of injecting pop and sonata-form into the fugue? And what are some other ways we might be able to evolve the fugue as a genre and potentially grow its audience?

https://reddit.com/link/1x8e7w6/video/l4r38rjgy1wh1/player

My vote goes to Schiff.

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Hi, I’m working on the Sarabande from Partita No. 2. I’m still learning and growing, so any feedback, thoughts or suggestions are truly appreciated. Thank you!

https://youtu.be/f6uustIH-oU?is=N4iMWi-_wfW6Zfj0

Bach G Minor - Orquesta Filarmonica de Croacia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPOIS1XBTX0

https://youtu.be/613YZDLmNdQ?is=GzQuFRTQ8DACl6BX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELSeKiCrmNw

I am having trouble finding factual evidence supporting the Breitkopf switch from Goldberg(1761) to Bach(1764). So far the only thing I've come across was from a performance program from Williams by Jennifer Bloxom. Could anyone help me with another source? If I understand correctly, this is how it obtained a BWV catalog, at the time (late 1940's into 1950) attributed to Bach by Breitkopf?

I'm not really great at reading sheet music, but I love this suite, and I always wanted to really understand what's going on harmonically. So I made a tool that shows every voice as a scrolling piano roll and lets me pause anywhere to hear the chord. https://jikol1906.github.io/bach-visualizer/#badinerie

It's a scrolling piano roll for all 7 movements (you can also load your own midi if you want to). Every part has its own colour and sound, you can spotlight one voice, and there's a "hold chord" mode that names the chord under the line as you drag through the score. You can also load your own MIDI.

Full disclosure: it's 100% created with Claude Code. I didn't write any of it myself.

Right now it's still pretty basic, so I'd love to hear your ideas. What could be added to "visualize" the music better? If you want to build something yourself, anyone is welcome to fork it and send a PR (with or without AI): https://github.com/jikol1906/bach-visualizer

MIDIs are John Hamm's sequences from jsbach.net, all credit to him.

We know, Bach's the Greatest. Among those Brilliant, mind-blowing, technical Masterpieces. Which one you think or actually is the peak or Apex of his music??

in my opinion, it's the Musical Offering, especially the Prussian fugue: Ricercar A 6. And we all know why I'm saying this.

Drop your thoughts, and also tell do you people like these kind of posts (I am wondering just)

Anyone who knows anything about Bach knows that he was GOAT of counterpoint, master of many styles, incredibly prolific, writing with an emotional depth virtually unsurpassed by any other composer.

The WTC is obviously incredibly popular and is canon for any serious pianist. So it raises the question: why aren't there more cycles like it?

I think there are two reasons.

Reason one: Originality

Among composers, I think there is strong disincentive to follow in this particular set of Bach's footsteps. If you were to mention it to people (and I have), questions like "it's been done before" and "Why would anyone listen to yours? They have Bach" come up, and they are hard to rebut. Composers naturally seek originality, and when writing a fugue, it is very difficult to write one that does not sound like Bach, but worse. The more logical route to originality and finding an audience, then, would be to do something OTHER than writing a prelude and fugue cycle.

While nearly every composer since Bach has probably written a fugue in their training, I think very few tried a whole cycle.

Reason two: Melody

Of those that did, most notably Shostakovich and Kapustin, none achieved the WTC's level of popularity despite some degree of critical acclaim. I argue that the reason is melody.

For all of Bach's technical genius, he was also a great melodist. You can pick virtually any piece in the WTC, and the fundamental idea in the piece is likely a rhythmic and memorable melody, like a 1700s pop song. While the cycles by Shostakovich and Kapustin had their merits, imo few would call them "melodic" or "catchy".

So I'm putting this to the test. I'm a classically trained pianist and former pop songwriter. I'd been writing fugues to keep my composer brain warm when it was busy with non-music projects, and then I thought, why not write a whole cycle? I think there are plenty of people out there who would like to hear a new cycle that is grounded in counterpoint but with new, memorable melodic ideas. The first piece, "Amaze x1" aka Prelude in C, is in the video below.

What do you think? What else beyond melody makes the WTC stand up against every attempt that came after? Why else were there so few attempts in the first place?

And most relevant to me, will anyone be interested in a melodic new cycle of preludes and fugues for piano? That's the experiment after all.

https://reddit.com/link/1x2imig/video/uui68az3vnuh1/player