YES Actus Tragicus is so amazing! He wrote it bafflingly when he was 22 or 23 or something, showing great compositional maturity. The flutes at the start denote the slow dragging towards death (this piece was ordered to be written by the local city ministers for the music to be played during the burial of a local minister but the lyrics go on to talk generally about death the way protestants understood it back then.)
The writing makes clear that he had already studied the Italian's technique (most used by Corelli) to keep a note in the soprano voice continue to the next metre for greater dramatic effect. If you actually take (a necessary a long) time to listen to much sacred works in the 100 years before Bach, starting from Monteverdi, you will realise that Bach kept the most substantial and threw away the boring techniques. And it will also become clear how much he had understood and studied all the greats even from 1550 onwards. Also note Actus Tragicus made such an impact during the first play that it was printed! One of the extremely rare occasions in Germany of that time that choral music was printed and one of the at most 5 (or so) times for the works of Bach during his lifetime.
This is great, thanks for writing - I only know a little Monteverdi. I think I haven't dug in more because the later works are just so much more harmonically rich...
Indeed, that is how I also felt. But after 20 years of listening almost daily Bach, the music ends and you have to trace back and back. And eventually you get to the first modern composer: Monteverdi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYdnUHCpomQ&t=13s Best heard in your headphones while in Venice at night walking through the little alleys away from tourists.
I remember reading an essay by Yuval Harari that said his collleague was creating AI Bach chorales to fool listeners. He said this was proof that algorithms rule the world.
YES Actus Tragicus is so amazing! He wrote it bafflingly when he was 22 or 23 or something, showing great compositional maturity. The flutes at the start denote the slow dragging towards death (this piece was ordered to be written by the local city ministers for the music to be played during the burial of a local minister but the lyrics go on to talk generally about death the way protestants understood it back then.)
The writing makes clear that he had already studied the Italian's technique (most used by Corelli) to keep a note in the soprano voice continue to the next metre for greater dramatic effect. If you actually take (a necessary a long) time to listen to much sacred works in the 100 years before Bach, starting from Monteverdi, you will realise that Bach kept the most substantial and threw away the boring techniques. And it will also become clear how much he had understood and studied all the greats even from 1550 onwards. Also note Actus Tragicus made such an impact during the first play that it was printed! One of the extremely rare occasions in Germany of that time that choral music was printed and one of the at most 5 (or so) times for the works of Bach during his lifetime.
This is great, thanks for writing - I only know a little Monteverdi. I think I haven't dug in more because the later works are just so much more harmonically rich...
Indeed, that is how I also felt. But after 20 years of listening almost daily Bach, the music ends and you have to trace back and back. And eventually you get to the first modern composer: Monteverdi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYdnUHCpomQ&t=13s Best heard in your headphones while in Venice at night walking through the little alleys away from tourists.
Fantastic project I will definitely be following! I recently wrote on Bach as well, please check it out!
https://thepseudointellectual.substack.com/p/bach-the-supercomputer
Great post Theobald! I just subscribed.
I remember reading an essay by Yuval Harari that said his collleague was creating AI Bach chorales to fool listeners. He said this was proof that algorithms rule the world.
He couldn’t have missed the point more.