September 12: Organ Concertos and other Works (Simon Preston, Organ)

A "nanny-goat bassoonist," Bach called him.

We know plenty of facts about Bach’s life — more than enough to create a detailed chronology of his days. But beyond that, who’s to say?

The biographies that plumb his interiority don’t feel credible. There are no extant revealing or confessional letters to friends or family, or memoirs from his friends or enemies, just scraps of a grumpy and insubordinate Bach feeling underpaid and lacking full control of his artistic output. Two other personality clues: he drank a ton of coffee, and he was famously reprimanded for brawling with a musician he called a “Zippel Fagottist” (roughly, a “nanny-goat bassoonist”).

Courtesy Chat-GPT 4o. The glasses and text could use some work, but not bad overall. Where do you blow into this thing? And how do you perform with a pipe in your mouth? Maybe that’s why he’s such a nanny-goat.

Our best clues about Bach’s internality lie in what he left behind: a prodigious output of predominantly religious music, and many offspring. He was a man of extremes: absurd devotion to his musical craft, deep faith, and sexual drive (20 kids!). All day every day, Bach must have been way deep in his music, his ink-stained hands improvising on keyboards, rehearsing his orchestras, and teaching aristocrats and his many children. Outside of work, his days were filled with prayer, career maintenance, and corporeal matters.

It seems impossible to separate this man from his music. The great jazz guitarist Bill Frisell¹ put it perfectly in a recent interview:

I always think the music reflects the person. What you are comes out in the music. When I play, I feel that’s my true voice – it’s me more than when I’m trying to talk now.

Bach’s thousand-plus compositions are serious and pious, but every bar is also full of life, pulsing and vibrant, deep and determined. It’s quiet poppin’, joyfully grave — a potent, strange, and inspiring admixture.

It’s very me, too. When I’m in a certain mood I put these records on and I tell Bach, “Man, I’m joyfully grave, too!”

These are the blessings of art. Bach offers us poignant reminders of the many mysteries of being alive, including contemplating its inevitable end.

Oh, God, teach us to consider that we must die (BWV 106).

We can’t ever know how Bach viewed himself, or if he even could conceptualize his own psychology as we do today. He leaves us with endless questions about his music and his interior life.

It’s a curious turn: Bach’s personal mysteries have allowed his music remain a blank canvas for centuries. He quietly demands every listener in his wake to project their personal and private selves onto the music.

Is there any better legacy than that?

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This week, I listened to many of Bach’s organ works performed by the recently deceased English organist Simon Preston. A warm personality emanates through his performances, as it does in this interview — he’s all sunshine and gratitude.

And you can’t fake Preston’s demeanor. This man found what he was meant to do in the world:

I listened to Preston’s performances of BWV 548-9, 563, 570, 574-5, 583-7, 592-8, 646-650, 672-5, 677, 679, 681, 683, 685, 687, and 689-99 for this week’s post. His complete Bach organ works are on Youtube, Apple Music, Spotify.

Some highlights from these recordings:

BWV 649 is a spritely little tune that shows Preston at his best:

Here’s some casual genius writing to start BWV 687. There’s so much density — themes turned inside and out and stacked and stretched — while never sounding brainy. Ten seconds of deep listening and you’re in another world.

Here’s a nimble and tubular improv from BWV 598:

The Aria in F BWV 587 has a pastoral feel:

This collection included a number of Organ Concertos, which are all excellent. I especially liked the punchy opening of the A Minor Concerto BWV 593, adapted from Vivaldi.

And the pulsing, cascading opening to the D Minor concerto BWV 596, also adapted from Vivaldi.

The D Minor concerto ends with a hypnotic pedal tone and a pivot to a major chord, very cool:

1. I was lucky to have a chance to play some music with Bill earlier this year, and I’ve been riding the vibes ever since. It was one of my favorite ever hours of music-making. Always meet your heroes!