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by Evan Shinners
J.S. Bach explained: Music analysis, Baroque history, counterpoint and performance practice. A classical music podcast for listeners who want to understand what they're hearing. Weekly history, Well-Tempered Clavier, Brandenburg Concertos, St. Matthew Passion, The Art of Fugue, Cello Suites, and more. Classical music education for all levels!
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- 1 weeks ago37 min
152: Bach’s Obituary (1754)
One of the most important documents we posses about J.S. Bach— indeed the first biographical writing— is his obituary, written by his son, C.P.E., and his student, Agricola.Also referred to as the ‘Nekrolog,’ the obituary appeared in Mizler’s (yes, the Society of Musical Sciences gentleman) publication, Musikalische Bibliothek, in its very last installment.In this brief portrait of the greatest composer, we are struck by the renown of his family tree, the unanimous admiration of all those who heard Bach, but ultimately by the humility of his spirit despite his towering achievements.Write That Fugue!The obituary is also important because it contains Bach’s ‘first list of works.’ The five cantata cycles and five passions mentioned in the list are addressed in this article on Bach’s missing works:We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at WTFBach.comYou can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachA new Telegram group is slowly forming! Singing through chorales and doing other cool Bachian things. Join here: https://t.me/+86a_lET5XKdmYTk0Spotify Listeners: New AI software has unjustly removed episodes. They are deaf to appeals. Stick it to the robot by listening on the Substack app.Thank you for your support! Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe
- 2 weeks ago6 min
(Rant) ‘More Than Food.’
The music at the end is BWV 600, from a forthcoming ‘electrified’ arrangement of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. The beautiful passage toward the end of my rant— with the koto accompaniment and bird song— comes from one of my absolute favorite books: R.H. Blythe’s writings about Haiku. Blyth considered the three greatest geniuses of time to be Basho, Bach, and Shakespeare— in that order! Wow! What am I missing with Basho!? More than a podcast. This is WTF Bach.I take my groceries from the bag and notice the bag says,This is more than food.More than food? But I want to eat …food. Just food. Maybe they’re referring to the packaging? This is more than food: it’s packaging wrapped around the food. But then I read on:This is impact.Impact? Do I want to eat impact? Does impact have gluten?My chocolate bar, too.This is more than chocolate.Uh-oh.This is freedom.Yikes. Should I …eat the freedom part? Maybe I shouldn’t. Sounds like something a dictator would do.How would you like your freedom Signori Mussolini?Rare. Very rare.My milk says something too. Goddamn! When did food get so talkative?For Family Farm Dairy, milk is more than just a drink.Oh here we go again…Our Cows are family.Family? With, like, beds in the house? I thought dogs in airports was too much, but now: cows… Do not pet. Emotional support heifer.And while I’m in the airport, I need something to eat. I’m still hungry because this all this impact and freedom hasn’t filled me up. I see a sign,Eat beautiful.Eat beauti…ful…? Oh I get it, ‘Subway. Eat Fresh.’ now this. But this is somehow worse. We all want fresh food, even if it is grammatically incorrect fresh food, but beautiful food? I’m not ready for that. Especially since it’s …at an airport.Eat beautiful? What was wrong with eat beautifully? But then again, what is eating beautifully? Picture Sophia Loren eating sushi. But eat beautiful? Sorry, don’t eat adjectives.Eat photogenic. Eat prepossessing. Someone will drop one of these on us soon enough.Sirs, our data reports show that people are consuming 20% more beautiful, but they’re not eating enough of our product! Hence, our new slogan: eat sexy.Oh yes, yes! Eat sexy. Fantastic, brilliant. Maybe we can get some pink ribbons and black and white photos on the edamame. Could we wrap the steaks in lingerie? Who would eat beautiful when they could eat sexy?Spread the Happy.This is a real one. These are all real ones. Honey, can you, uh, pass the happy? I know we’re in a sexless marriage and our children never call, but if we just spread a little more of this Happy…Cadbury told us to Free the joyNow it’s on us to free something? To free an emotion? We wouldn’t have to if they didn’t trap it in there. One chocolate bar is freedom, another is enslaving joy. Poor joy, all trapped in that wrapper. Here let me set you free.It’s all spin-offs on Coca-Cola, anyhow, the greatest grifters of all time. Open happiness. God, it’s brilliant. It preys on people. Open happiness, I even like it.But then they changed it to taste the feeling. The feeling. What feeling? The feeling of… tasting? Taste the feeling of tasting. It’s weird. It’s just shifting around words until they’ve lost all meaning. But that’s old hat by now because these days coca-cola tells us it’s real magic. Magic. We’ve gone from happiness to magic.Ah. I see where this is going Allow me to save coke years of market research, what you’re after is, “Coke: the Carbonated Christ.”Food is out of control— and arrogant! I liked it when food was food. I’m sick of eating beautiful and happy. I want a meal! Would you care for some freshly ground joy on your magic? Oh grow up! Are you living in Never-Never Land?Remember, “the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup?” Nice, simple. Somewhat true. The best part of waking up, after, naturally assuring yourself you haven’t died in your sleep, could well be a cup of coffee.Folgers never said, “we’re more than Folgers, we’re a cultivated set of moral codes, congratulations.” Nowadays our coffee tells us, This is more than coffee. It’s Starbucks.Oh! I see… Well, you should be the first to know that this podcast is more than a podcast. It’s WTF Bach.Don’t you feel lucky.Maybe junk food needs to speak. Your body can’t possibly feel good about washing down your chocolate taco with that coke, so you need a mind-numbing mantra as you do it. This… is happiness… c’mon, c’mon, cram more of that happiness in there…But then— but then!— my rice spoke to me— rice! Rice isn’t supposed to talk. Rice is a quiet food— The zen meal. But
- 3 weeks ago43 min
151: New Album! (& New Sonic Experience?)
Volume 6 in ‘J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works’ is on presale today! Here are the relevant links:* J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works, Vol. 6 - Arrangements of Albinoni and Reincken(https://modernclassicalx.lnk.to/JSBachCompleteKeyboardWorksVol6FromArrangementsofAlbinoniandReincken)I might call this volume a ‘headphones album’ or perhaps one to listen to in the car: The sonic space shifts throughout the course of these pieces. I describe this process in depth in the episode, but essentially each track is two recordings of the piece, playing simultaneously: one recording is the original live performance, while another is that very same performance, played back through the Disklavier with the dynamics flatlined— as if the piano keyboard were incapable of dynamics — like a harpsichord. The two recordings were then ‘live panned’ during the mixing according to my feeling for the music. The result, while perhaps less extreme than this all sounds, is certainly a noticeable phenomenon, especially in headphones or seated between two speakers as in a car. But enough about that, let’s get to the music. Fugue it:Reincken, one of the two composers Bach arranges on this album, is mentioned in Bach’s obituary:During this time, about the year 1722, he made a journey to Hamburg and was heard for more than two hours on the fine organ of St. Catherine’s before the Magistrate and many other distinguished persons of the town, to their general astonishment. The aged Organist of this Church, Johann Adam Reinken, who at that time was nearly a hundred years old, listened to him with particular pleasure. Bach, at the request of those present, performed extempore the chorale ‘An Wasserflüssen Babylon’ at great length (for almost half an hour) and in different ways, just as the better organists of Hamburg in the past had been used to do at the Saturday vespers. Particularly on this, Reinken made Bach the following compliment: “I thought that this art was dead, but I see that in you it still lives.” This verdict of Reinken’s was the more unexpected since he himself had set the same chorale, many years before, in the manner described above; and this fact, as also that otherwise he had always been somewhat inclined to be envious, was not unknown to our Bach. Reinken thereupon pressed him to visit him and showed him much courtesy.Reinken was only in his late seventies— not a hundred— when he and Bach met, but he had already been an important part of Bach’s early development. Around 1714 Bach made arrangements of string chamber music by Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751) and Johann Adam Reinken (1643-1722.) Where Bach’s concerto arrangements BWVs 972-987 for harpsichord, and BWVs 592-597 for organ, maintain the general structures and forms of the originals, Bach’s Reincken and Albinoni music is arranged with much more freedom, especially in the fugues, where Bach often doubles, if not triples, the length of the original models. The full track listing to the forthcoming album, on presale today, available October 23:1: Fugue in A major, BWV 950 (on a theme by Albinoni)2. Sonata in C major, BWV 966 (after Reincken): I. Praeludium 3. Sonata in C major, BWV 966: II. Fuga4. Sonata in C major, BWV 966: III. Adagio – Allegro5. Sonata in C major, BWV 966: IV. Allemande6. Fugue in C major, BWV 946 (on a theme by Albinoni)7. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965 (after Reincken): I. Adagio8. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: II. Fuga9. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: III. Adagio – Presto10. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: IV. Allemande11. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: V. Courante12. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: VI. Sarabande13. Sonata in A minor, BWV 965: VII. Gigue14. Fugue in B minor, BWV 951a (early version of BWV 951)15. Fugue in B minor, BWV 951 (on a theme by Albinoni)16. Fugue in B-flat major, BWV 954 (on a theme by Reincken)Write That Fugue!We’ve covered one of the pieces on the album on the site before. In a post from September 2025, I described in depth the transcriptive changes between Bach’s BWV 965 and Reinken’s Hortus Musicus. In this post, you can see excerpts of the scores of both the Bach and the Reinken. It might be helpful to see this again:We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF
- 4 weeks ago41 min
150: The Early Cantatas, All Summed Up.
We’ve now covered the seven surviving earliest vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach! This episode is a brief tour through the episodes we dedicated to these pieces, refreshing our memories and attempting to identify unifying stylistic features.All the episodes covering the Arnstadt/Mülhausen cantatas can be found at:https://wtfbach.substack.com/t/early-cantatasWanna Cantata?Here’s an image that might help you wrap your head around the earliest cantatas:For the first time I spoke about Bach’s librettists. We will meet them as our study moves into the later cantatas. There are five identifiable poets, and one anonymous. What did you think about my mnemonic?Solomon Franck (a.k.a Solomo)Erdmann NeumeisterGeorg Christian LehmsChristian Friedrich Henrici (a.k.a. Picander)Christiane Mariane von ZieglerS-N-L-P-Z (Saturday Night Live PiZza…Anyone?)And wasn’t it thrilling to hear the similarities of styles between the cantata composed by Bach’s third cousin, Johann Ludwig Bach, JLB 7, and BWV 143? The JLB cantata survives in a copy by JS himself. Have a look at JL. See the relation?Johann Georg Sachs’ organ music, as promised. He was the cantor who gave Spitta the (once misattributed) cantata BWV 223.https://imslp.org/wiki/Charakteristische_Orgelstücke_(Sachs,_Johann_Georg)Write That Fugue!We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at WTFBach.comYou can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachA new Telegram group is slowly forming! Singing through chorales and doing other cool Bachian things. Join here: https://t.me/+86a_lET5XKdmYTk0Spotify Listeners: New AI software has unjustly removed episodes. They are deaf to appeals. Stick it to the robot by listening on the Substack app.Thank you for your support!Summary:Bach’s early cantatas, seven surviving works from his Arnstadt and Mühlhausen years (BWV 4, BWV 71, BWV 106, BWV 131, BWV 143, BWV 150 and BWV 196), are quite special works. Their texts use mainly the Psalms and Lutheran hymns rather than freely composed poetry. Instrumentation in these early cantatas is generally light: five of the seven use five parts or fewer, apart from the singers and continuo. Recitatives, closing chorales and da capo arias are almost entirely absent. The choir runs through the works rather than appearing only at the beginnings and endings. Tempi and meter shift freely, and suddenly, and the text appears to drive the music. We also conclude (or try to conclude) our thoughts on the authenticity of the cantata BWV 143. We also discuss the case of BWV 223, a fugue snippet left by Spitta, thought to be a lost Bach cantata until about 2004, but now attributed to Handel (and still missing? Anyone able to clear that up?) Performers featured were Koopman and Suzuki. Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe
- Sep 24, 20261h 17m
149: The Battle Between Life and Death
“The consummate expressiveness of {BWV 4] has always been marvelled at. Each verse is as if chiselled in music.” -Albert Schweitzer, Vol. 2Bach’s early Easter cantata remains one of the most beloved in the entire canon. Barely 22 years old, he is already in full command of his tone-painting. Here are three measures particularly packed with symbolism:Filling the music with rests at the word nothing, ‘one death eating another’ through the closest possible canon, crosses both in shape and every note ‘sharped’ (gekreuzt,) dripping blood on the Passover doors with short 8th notes, leaping a diminished 12th (!) in the bass aria at the word death, this cantata is a dictionary of text painting.…und singen Halleluja!The chorale cantata was probably composed for Bach’s Easter Sunday audition in 1707 for the organist post at St. Blaise’s Church in Mühlhausen, left vacant by the death of Johann Georg Ahle. Bach’s older cousin, Johann Gottfried Walther, had an audition for the same post, but withdrew— possibly because Bach himself was interested! Later, Bach revived this cantata his first two Easters in Leipzig, 1724 and 1725. Only the Leipzig parts survive, hence the original 1707 version is lost. Any differences between the revised and earliest versions— which may have been substantial— are lost. In any case, the remaining style certainly reflects his early vocal writing par excellence.The cantata is one of only a handful of per omnes versus cantatas, going through all seven verses of Martin Luther’s 1524 hymn text. Theologically, the text goes deeply into Lutheran ideas linking Jewish Passover— the blood-marked doorposts and unleavened bread— to Christian Easter, reading the Passover lamb as a prefiguration of Christ’s crucifixion and the Eucharist. Such deep theological reflection was something Bach understood and made apparent in tone.Spotify listeners! Some new AI is taking down episodes on Spotify without warning. Check the episode numbers to see if an episode has been removed! Be sure to check on wtfbach.com to make sure you’re caught up with all the episodes. Thanks!PS! Shelly conveniently does in fact quote the biblical, ‘O Death, where is thy sting?’ but the poem I was thinking of was Pope’s, The Dying Christian to his Soul:VITAL spark of heav’nly flame!Quit, O quit this mortal frame:Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,O the pain, the bliss of dying!Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,And let me languish into life.Hark! they whisper; angels say,Sister Spirit, come away!What is this absorbs me quite?Steals my senses, shuts my sight,Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?Tell me, my soul, can this be death?The world recedes; it disappears!Heav’n opens on my eyes! my earsWith sounds seraphic ring!Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!O Grave! where is thy victory?O Death! where is thy sting?Write That Fugue!We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at WTFBach.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help! Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe
- Sep 15, 202628 min
148: Ballooning! (Flying in the 18th Century)
Sometimes an article from the EB strikes me as so amusing, I simply have to share it with you. See you next week (or the week after, latest) for the conclusion of our early cantata survey, with Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. Thanks for listening!Well, That’s Fascinating!We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at WTFBach.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help! Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe
- Sep 8, 20261h 0m
147: Is This Cantata Even By Bach?
Q: If, after you attended a Bach concert, someone told you that your favorite piece on the program was not, after all, by Bach… how would you feel?Does this cantata actually fail to move us? Or does it fail to move us when we know its authenticity is up for debate? Can we truly hear some compositional weaknesses? If we are to ascribe this music to Bach, it was probably from the years 1709-1711. No other cantatas from the period from his first years in Weimar (that is, before being promoted to concertmaster) survive. The early cantatas are occasional, sporadic, and very different to one another. Richard D. P. Jones says, on the extant early cantatas: “since at a later date Bach very likely came to regard these early works as outmoded—perhaps representing that ‘former style of music’ which ‘no longer seems to please our ears’—he seems to have made no attempt to preserve them, with the result that the few that survive do so by accident.” Jones himself excludes this cantata from the canon, but, on the subject of authenticity, admits there must be some subjectivity when making such cuts: “No less thorny is the issue of authenticity. … There are inevitably borderline cases, however, and in this area the author has had to make up his own mind as to which compositions merit inclusion and which do not.” Among other scholars— as far as I can tell— this cantata’s authenticity is still up for debate. Oh, Bach’s Art. The Prelude to my Heart.Fun fact! If this indeed is Bach ca. 1709, that would make movement 3 the first recitativo in Bach’s works. It’s only five measures long!I neglected to mention the text in the movements where Du Friedefürst Herr Jesu Christ is the cantus firmus, these are stanzas 1 and 3, sung in movements 2 and 7, respectively:You prince of peace, Lord Jesus Christ, true man and true God, you are a strong helper in distress, in life and death. Therefore we only in your name cry to your Father! Be mindful, Lord, now of your office, that you are a prince of peace, and graciously help us in all ways now at this time. Grant that henceforth your divine word may resound still longer in peace!Well, what do you think? Does this piece sound like early Bach? Do you care? Could you enjoy it even if it were written by... gasp! …Telemann!? Write That Fugue!We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at WTFBach.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help!Concepts covered: The 3 corno da caccia in this cantata, the difference between natural horn and corni da caccia, the authenticity of this cantata, the early cantatas pre-weimar, word painting, text settings from Psalm 146, and hymns, Bach’s earliest recitativo. The performance of Inssbruck, ich muss dich lassen can be heard here (there is one other verse!) Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe
- Sep 1, 20261h 3m
146: Toccata’s Twin! Double Fugue in F
Forever paired with the giant Toccata BWV 540, it’s unlikely the two were conceived together. Still, owing to certain sources and the fact that this fugue is a dignified and stately complement to the capricious toccata, the pairing works delightfully. Now, is this the fugue, BWV 540? Or which piece is this?And is this not the same music?Top: Italian Concerto. Bottom: today’s fugue. Seeing such similar vocabulary is as thrilling as it is remarkably rare in Bach’s works.Wow. That Fugue!Here are the fugue’s two contrasting themes. The first, slow moving, noble:The second, carefree and playful:They combine toward the end of the piece to marvelous effect:A complete version of the MIDI synths in the episode (Headphones are best! I found it quite relaxing.)I said I would attach the MIDI files, but Substack won’t allow it. If you leave a comment or send me a DM, I’ll send them over. Thanks!Spread the Counterpoint. Share WTF Bach.We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at WTFBach.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help! Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe
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About WTF Bach
J.S. Bach explained: Music analysis, Baroque history, counterpoint and performance practice. A classical music podcast for listeners who want to understand what they're hearing. Weekly history, Well-Tempered Clavier, Brandenburg Concertos, St. Matthew Passion, The Art of Fugue, Cello Suites, and more. Classical music education for all levels!
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