#4- Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C Major
Scott, Karl, and Michelle listen to and discuss Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 846-847. It is the first prelude and fugue in the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, a series of 48 preludes and fugues by the composer.
What is a fugue? As Michelle points out, a fugue’s purpose is, “to reveal, or to play, the exact same melody in all of the different predetermined voice parts.” To Karl, Bach’s Fugue is “like a conversation between four people.”
Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is instrumentally indifferent, eliciting a universal appeal.
The shortcomings of the keyboard instruments of his time meant that he looked to instruments like the harpsichord and clavichord as kinds of “universal” instruments. After all, the instrument for the home was, in Germany at the time, the clavichord.
The trio first listens to a version by Friedrick Gulda on the clavichord. Later in the podcast, they listen to another version by Martha Goldstein, also performed on the clavichord.
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I love Music and Ideas even though I am a boomer and must bear the brunt of my generation’s legacy. The disdain of youth comes at us all sooner or later. The hell of it is that a surprising amount of the criticism is valid but we listen on anyway because we grew up with this shit. At 67 my mind travels back instantly to sunny days on the shore of our local public swimming lake. Girls were a delightful mystery and school was done for the summer. the loudspeaker blared the latest top 40 and we vibrated to the strains of three chords and ingested such high toned lyrics as, yummy, yummy, yummy. “I got love in my tummy.” It was way better than what some of my contemporaries were doing in rice paddies.
Here Comes The Sun Like A Rolling Stone
There is a road that calls,
Shimmering with heat,
Out beyond our walls
As it stretches to the sun.
On that long run
There is a driving beat
forged by near immortals
at single points in time
Like amber filled with rhyme
Spun in vinyl that
never melts in open hearts
We heard our dreams
and ate pure colors.
Each moment that seems
a part of it all
still remains in the place inside
where the road goes on
so deep you can not fall
without seeing the songs
which brought us here
riding a needle
in a long black groove
with a vibe meant to move
us into a new way.
But now I can’t say
if we really landed on today
or hit a wall
that we must cross
on our way to the sun.
Great memories. I remember those girls myself.