An interlude: Where to start with Bach
A primer for new listeners
People with all sorts of musical backgrounds are reading this Substack, and I’m so grateful. There are lurking expert musicians, passionate amateurs, pedantic connoisseurs, and utter newbies. Draw that Venn diagram and I’m at the nexus — just like you, I know quite a lot and also next to nothing.
Through this project, I’m attempting to write for the masses about a niche topic, which embeds the danger of writing for no one. So today I want to recognize my readers who are in earlier stages of their Bach journeys, and in this post I’ll be recommending some of the grassier pathways into this music.
I was born in 1978. My college friend who is now a superintendent of a large New Jersey school district calls our cohort, ‘dipshit cusp millennials.’ Fair! We were too young for the cool 60’s stuff, too old to be digital natives. To put a pin in it, there was a cultural moment where you could date online but it was embarrassing to do so — that was our early 20s. (This was also the era where you could get accurate driving directions from the internet, but you’d have to print them out for the car ride.)
We were raised on a thick soup of guitar — from the hangovers of 60’s and 70’s classic rock to the metal 80’s and grungy 90’s, electric guitar ruled. My exhaustion with rock music helped me find my way toward classical guitar. This was when I first engaged with Bach.
If your musical home-base is guitar-centered (which I assume is the case if you’re an American between the ages of 30 and 80 in 2024), perhaps it’s easier to connect with Bach that’s been adapted for guitar.
And for that, your touchstone is the imperious Spaniard Andrés Segovia.
Segovia pioneered Bach performance on guitar. He arranged selections from the Cello Suites, Violin Sonatas and Partitas, and Lute Suites, bringing extreme rigor and grandeur to the music. Segovia opened the ears of so many three-chord strumming pikers like myself to try to fingerpick our ways to the mountaintop.
Here’s Segovia’s legendary All Bach Program on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Music. It’s an extraordinary hour of music that you can listen to in the background or with headphones in deep concentration. A million stars.
More into piano?
I’ve highlighted the living legend Martha Argerich before — her musicality is unsurpassed. Here is her Bach program from 1980 (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music).
We haven’t talked much about Glenn Gould on the blog, but we will, we sort of have to. One of the best selling classical albums of all time is his 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations, which was the standard for a generation. It’s bold and blazing, but if you dig it, know that it’s not the only way Bach can be played well. (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music)
Three contemporary masters shedding on Bach in a barn? ‘Heavy Wood’ music, if you will. Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, and Edgar Meyer have fun with this music — no pretense, just brilliance. This Bach is a good time, and Thile’s high-timbre mandolin is the linchpin. (Their 2017 album on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music.)
Are you more dramatically inclined? Do I have any folk-emo bois in my readership? Check out Vikingur Olafsson’s adaptation of Bach’s Fourth Organ Sonata. Vikingur is the hypermature friend you’ve never had, someone who shares the words of urgent importance you didn’t know you needed to hear with empathy and pathos.
Perhaps you are a 21st century jazz-bro. Loving Bach is practically a prerequisite.
The late French pianist Jacques Loussier would ‘swing’ on classical themes in a jazz piano trio. I do not recommend this music, but here are some of his immensely popular adaptations of Bach melodies. Maybe you’ll dig them.
Much better are two albums by contemporary pianists Brad Mehldau and Dan Tepfer.
Brad’s 2018 album “After Bach” is one of my all time favorites. (A sequel comes out in May!) He plays the Bach straight in his unique voice and then improvises on the themes. Mehldau / Bach are two of the best things, combined. It’s like Beach Sunset / Ice Cream. (YouTube, Spotify, Apple)
This is damned perfect, a one track playlist on repeat forever:
Dan Tepfer is an incredibly inventive pianist, and a strong Bach player. He interweaves Bach with his own improvisations, and sometimes along with improvisations generated by live processed computers. Here’s where Dan integrates himself and Bach and his hero Keith Jarrett:
What was your entry into Bach? Everyone’s story is their own. Comments are open.
I’m way less insufferable about my musical opinions than I was in my 20s, which is good for me, my friends and family, and now you, my readers. Whatever works for you, that’s great!
It’s been a pleasure to help people find their way into an art of such richness and depth. This is music that can provide meaning in quiet contemplation, interpersonal play, and communal solidarity. It’s simply one of life’s great consolations.
Evan, I have to say this idea is ingenious. "Do you like this? Then try that." Brilliant.
TL; DR - I went right into Bach, concertos, organ works, and all.
10 years ago, I moved into my first studio apartment and found noise from neighbors incessant and distracting. As I worked on Some Projects Which Shall Not Be Named, I decided to turn on music to block it out. But music with more words distracted me, so I went onto YouTube & the like to seek suitable background classical music. I walked away with so much more. Shortly thereafter, I bought some CDs secondhand at thrift stores, including "Best of the Baroques", which of course also included Bach. I started listening compulsively, even at work. Eventually, Bach's set of Brandenburg Concertos became my standard set of "thinking pieces" as well as a personal favorites in the whole repertoire. (I can't wait for Evan's writeup on these). A video compilation of Bach's solo organ works from 537-565 got me hooked, and I realized almost instantly I just love the organ. (I'll take Saint-Saens symphony 3 any day!).
To this day, I'm still an amateur listener with little to no actual musical knowledge. Everything has been unfolding slowly, from realizing, Wait, there are different movements in a concerto? - to understanding keys and sonata form etc. I don't know most of the time what I'm hearing. I just listen and wait for the emotions to wash over me like a tsunami. Sometimes there's more 'washing' than others: Bach, Mozart, Dvorak, Schubert - Niagra; Chopin, R. Strauss, Debussy - not as much. Still, I've enjoyed works by a variety of composers, from Bach to Bartok, Vivaldi to Verdi, and many others in between. But I always find my way back to Bach.
Bach was always on regular rotation in my house when I was growing up. My parents had very eclectic tastes in music, from flamenco and blues, jazz to middle eastern and more. But classical was always in the mix. When I was about 10, my parents took me and my brother to see what was billed as 'Midnight Bach' at Avery Fisher Hall. The program was all 6 Brandenburg concertos. That made me fall in love with Bach, and I've never stopped. I adhere to the concept of 'no day without Bach'.