HIT THE DECK! Keilholtz is

HIT THE DECK!

Keilholtz is posting a music geek post. Run before it is too late!

The long post that Blogger ate last week (grrrr, again), was a music geek post, and in due time it will appear again. This is not its replacement, just an observation, a speculation, and an invitation for comments. It is about one of my favorite composers, Johann Sebastian Bach.

Please allow that last line to sink in a bit, especially the phrase, "one of my favorite composers."

Good. That should spare the noble, but misguided comments and emails accusing me of shortchanging Bach.

I will go deeper into my love of Bach, just to make it clear: I am a harpsichordist. One of the greatest moments of my life was in college, in the music building long after it had closed (there are advantages to having connections), opening the window (technically a no-no in the early keyboard room, but it was a dry evening), and playing the more moody Bach pieces for about three hours straight. I never could understand how the suburbanite hippie teenagers ever thought that Pink Floyd was mind altering, compared to this.

I have also analyzed more Bach chorales, cantatas, inventions, preludes, fugues, partitas, toccatas, and suites than a sane man ought to have. On a stormy night nothing beats Bach's Art of the Fugue, and a stiff cup of sake (hey, I'm in California). Bach is exciting. Bach is fun. In short, I like Bach.

BUT...

Something perplexes me. Last week's Friday Five ended with the question of which musical figure, living or dead would you want to meet and why. A good question. The funny thing was that Bach kept popping up, both in St. Blog's parish, and in the blogosphere in general, even when all of the other answers to the questions were as far from Baroque related as possible.

I am curous, why Bach? His music is great, but I am not sure what we would talk about. OK, maybe if I had a month to prepare some good quesions, but I would really have to think. These would probably be incredibly technical questions involving performance practice, but I have a specific interest (for those fellow music geeks: I am particularly curious about over-dotting and notes inegales, as well as historically informed practice of certain ornaments as they appear in several of the fugues - I told you this was geeky). Now, Bach liked his coffee, beer and tobacco, so he would probably have been a swell guy to hang out in the pub with, but more than, say Franz Liszt or Louis Armstrong or Robert Schumann?

Of course there is the question of why anyone without a specific interest in music would clamor to meet any musical figure, unless said musical figure had a reputation for good conversation: an evening with Thelonious Monk sounds great (depending on which pole he was hovering around). An evening with Chet Baker sounds awful, yet I love the music of both. I think an evening with Don Ho sounds rather pleasant, but I would rather not listen to Tiny Bubbles ever again. Which brings us back to Bach. There is something else going on, I think.

Bach is more to people than simply the music (although that music is amazing). Bach represents something else, something that is perhaps lost. I am specifically thinking of the couple of 20/30 somethings who seemed very interested in all sorts of pop and schlock, yet wanted to meet Bach. My first impulse is to think, "oh that is just pretention. These kids are just trying to look smart." But I don't think so. I think that deep down, even fans of Rage Against the Smashing Nirvana Garden want something beautiful, something true, something great. There is something seriously lacking in our culture, and the urge to meet Bach is a hopeful sign that there are people who are yearning for what is lacking.

Is Bach the answer? Ultimately, no. As great as his music is, the yearning is for something even deeper, even more beautiful, even truer. Let's capitalize those: even Deeper, even more Beautiful, even Truer. But the music of Bach is a good road sign. Mozart was better, by the way, but Bach is good. Art is not a sacrament, but surely there is something in its very nature that acts on us in a way that is at least close to the way a sacramental works.

But, look at what you have made me do! I am getting back to the serious topics that I had in mind when I created this Blog. Next thing you know I'll be writing serious essays on the aesthetic, moral, and cultural aspects of bullfighting!

Posted by erik at April 14, 2003 4:24 PM | TrackBack