
Bach, the Master Recycler - hoffmannesque
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/20/bach-master-recycler/
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nabla9
The concept that artist should come up with new ideas and create something new
is narrow. Seeking perfection in somee restricted style and going deeper
instead of different is also creativity.

The way I see Bach is that he mastered, refined and perfected the style.
People who came afterwards had no choice but do something different. Others
are climbing different peaks because Bach stands at the top of Mt. Baroque.

Mozart and Beethoven are geniuses. They started something that has been never
perfected. Bach's music does not feel like a work of genius, it feels goodlike
and nonhuman.

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gjm11
> _Bach 's music does not feel like a work of genius_

Speak for yourself.

> Mozart and Beethoven

Both geniuses, for sure. But they didn't create the styles they composed in
any more than Bach did.

There was _classical_ music (in the sense in which Mozart is "classical" and
Bach and Brahms aren't) before Mozart. Some of it was written by Bach's sons,
in fact.

There was quite Beethoven-like music written before Beethoven -- most notably
by Haydn, who to my ears is much more Beethoven-like than Mozart is.

None of that detracts from the greatness of Mozart and Beethoven -- or of
Bach. Artists don't exist in isolation, even if they're geniuses.

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radicality
I think when the parent said 'does not feel like a work of a genius', he was
saying that it's 'non-human, god-like (typo?)'. The parent likely meant it's
above genius which can only be human.

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becga
It is documented that Bach was a great improviser, much like his contemporary
Handel, and others who came after him (Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann).
Improvisation has since been lost in the Classical World but is alive and well
in the Jazz world. In Jazz, the term 'vocabulary' is often used to describe
styles or influences within the genre. With Bach, he literally built and
refined the language from which all other vocabularies stemmed from.

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Doctor_Fegg
Bach was a church organist, and improvisation absolutely hasn’t been lost in
the church organ world. Basic improvisation is a skill expected of every
organist: this morning I needed to “cover the action” when the offertory hymn
didn’t last as long as the offertory itself. But in the hands of a master - an
English cathedral organist, or a French titulaire, particularly Saint-Sulpice
or Notre Dame - it’s high art in its own right.

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organsnyder
The improvisation concerts at American Guild of Organists conventions are
mind-blowing. Performers are given a tune and improvise a work (toccata, theme
and variations, etc.) on the spot. Even knowing the tricks they're using—such
as having a general outline mapped out ahead of time that can be used with any
tune—I'm still in awe.

I got pretty good at improvising (and sightreading) when I was the primary
organist at my church. Not having much time to practice (young kids, a
different full time job), I did what I had to to get by.

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code_duck
This makes sense to me as a musician, and also as an artist or craftsperson. I
feel like I’ve done so many prior works, they deserve to be revisited and
reworked and at some point, you might as well. I may feel like there’s certain
elements of past work that could benefit from attention with my current,
improved skill set, or that something that felt finished previously seems
incomplete now. Another motivator could be that an older work feels
underexposed. At other times I might pull out an old work because it contains
elements of a current trend, or I think the style is ripe to come back into
fashion. You see this with modern musicians, too - artists often remake songs
from their early demos or first albums later on with better production, a
different style or a new perspective.

I would imagine that many people reading about Bach’s way of reusing rhythms
and notes would think of coding. Parody as described in the article sounds
like he was using his old rhythms like a template, or macro. This metaphor
works great since it’s hardly even a metaphor. Musical notation, with its
rigid and limited format, resembles a programming language much more closely
than conversational language.

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Synaesthesia
Yes Bach reused themes. He still composed a tremendous quantity and his
arrangements, counterpoint and sequences remain unmatched IMO

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Bud
He re-used more than themes; often entire movements of large-scale works were
re-worked, including for the Christmas Oratorio, as discussed in this article.
(I sing baroque music professionally and just sang the Christmas Oratorio a
couple weeks back; it's a personal favorite.)

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ggm
The walrus was paul: everyone recycles.

