Classical Principal Weekly
July 18, 2023
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is one of the most recognized names in Classical music. But he is anything but what his rather stoggy portrait of a wigged old man suggests. Orphaned at age 10, he sired 20 children, lost 11 of them in infancy or childbirth, lost his beloved first wife of 13 years suddenly in 1720; lived through a period of intense grief, slept with groupies in the organ loft; engaged in fistfights and duels, had many children with his beloved second wife; and in his 65 years on earth, left us 1128 glorious compositions, that 300 years later, still stuns and inspires us.
Yet, when Bach died in 1750, the world put aside his music as old-fashioned. They had to be rediscovered in stages—in 1781 by the then 26-year-old Mozart at the Viennese salon of Baron von Sweten, especially of Bach’s fugues, and from that discovery, made a huge musical leap in composition that are exemplified in his “Fantasie in C minor” K475, or his late string quartets, Mass in C major and so on; then again in 1829 by the then 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn who put together the first performance of Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” in 100 years on his own front lawn; then again in 1890 by a teenage Pablo Casals (acknowledged as the best cellist of the 20th century) who discovered a tattered copy of Bach’s complete Cello Suites in a secondhand sheet music store and spent 13 years practicing these little-known suites before publicly performing them for the first time in their entirety, and ultimately, recording them.
Pablo Casals once said in his biography:
“For the past 80 years, I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine, but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house.
"But that is not its only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being. The music is never the same for me, never. Each day it is something new, fantastic, and unbelievable. That is Bach, like nature, a miracle."
Today, we want to share with you another of Bach’s miracles—his “Goldberg Variations”, composed in 1741 when he was already 56 years old. The lecturer is the incomparable Andras Schiff, who will both play and speak from the piano. It is 2 hours long. But don’t worry, it is still not as long as Wagner’s operas and worth every minute.
Here it is: https://youtu.be/Hz4jLkfmIhc
Please enjoy!