Cool stuff. Watching Bobby McFerrin perform is such a wonderful treat.

Gounod's 'melody line' for want of a better word over the gorgeous broken chords of WTC Book I prelude No 1 is an abomination to the purity of Bach's work. In fact it reminds us why Bach had the sense not to do it !

As for this !
Sheep in the audience who are probably only ever capable of attempting to engage themselves with Bach's works if presented to them in some gimmicky form like this or by that Frenchman penis t that 5ucks around with Bach. Get back to your Pat Metheny CD's folks.

An American cliche indeed - the audience.

I figured you would call me out for this clip having a such small percentage of rootage from america. But instead you attack the audience which, in actuality, was made up of a relatively small percentage of American's. If, by your last insulting statement, you mean that inclusion, bringing people together, and sharing joy through musical talent are american cliche, so be it. Your first insulting comment about the audience being 'sheep' can only be combated if you educate yourself, I can't do that for you. Because, according to many of the articles and press coverage of this event, the audience must've contained a very large percentage of the Bach enthusiasts' who, regarding JSB, were knowledgeable and well-informed. Maybe you're bitter because you weren't informed about this huge commemorative event.!?

This video is of a performance at the following event held July 28th, 2000, in Germany... but you knew that because you were there, right Rob?

Leipzig, Germany Stages Bach's 250th Anniversary

On July 28 of this year, following more than two years of preparation, the German city of Leipzig (Bach's home town) hosted an unprecedented musical marathon. For an unbroken period of 24 hours, the immortal works of Johann Sebastian Bach inspired a continuous media celebration that included live music, music recordings, documentaries and "news clips" concerning the life and work of this illustrious composer. The entire event was produced for television and up-linked to satellite for broadcast in 30 countries. The complete production of "24 Hours of Bach" involved over 400 musicians, in six orchestras, seven ensembles, three choirs, plus forty soloists and conductors. ...

;;;more at...
http://www.meyersound.com/news/2000/leipzig/

also check out...
http://www.bach-net.org/leipzig.aspx

for this event...

...the State Library in Berlin, in collaboration with eight other institutions, have joined together to unveil the Bach Digital Project, perhaps the most remarkable Web site devoted solely to a single composer and his work. (Collaborating institutions include the Bach Archive, the University of Leipzig, the British Library in London, the Saxon State Library, the State and University Library in Dresden, the University of Jena, and the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart.) ...

...more of this at...

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Bach+Digital+Commemorates+the+250th+Anniversary+of+Johann+Sebastian...-a063710353

fascitating stuff!

Yeah I remember now. I saw some of that event on TV.

BBC Radio 3 played Bach 24/7 that week of Bach's 250th birthday. I streamed it onto my hard drive & wound up with a Wav file gigabytes in size that no software can handle !

Actually I don't give a monkey's where the audience was. I don't hold truck with nationalism. It leads to wars.

I stand by my comments about Gounod's stupid attempt to place a tune on top of Bach's already complete & pure work. Besides where did I say the audience was American ?

As for entertainment. Mc Ferrin actually hummed it well. However It'd have been a lot more 'entertaining' to hear him humming it without without an audience making a noise in the background with that Gounod thing. But then I guess listening to pure Bach in that way isn't classified as 'entertainment'... thank God.
I'm not the kind of person that's into 'entertainment'.
I'd rather listen to Bach on a couch & let it put me into a trance. Trio Sonata number 5 1st movement BWV 529 is good for that. But then come to think actually most Bach is.

I’d have liked to have been at that event. But as with all live events it usually spoils the music once the audience participate.
Had I been there I’d have been been thinking of them – please shut TFU.

Bach the most stupendous miracle in music, the distiller of the essence of musical craft. I like the way Wolffe writes of Bach - "Bach had an aural as well as dextral facility that made people gasp. At the keyboard, whether performing a work of his own, sight-reading or improvising, Bach also had a gift for polyphony unequalled before or since. With the striking exception of Berlioz, who refused to allow Bach to impress him, every major composer has been stunned by his fertility, by the ingenious combining, shaping and weaving of voices that constituted his style and which he brought to a refinement far exceeding that of earlier German polyphonists such as Pachelbel and Buxtehude, from whom he had learned the basic elements. No composer after Bach was so thoroughly the ‘learned’ musician that Wolff describes. The works he composed (and very often performed) were so beautifully and so intelligently worked out and elaborated that they exhausted the resources of tonal sound. In Bach’s counterpoint, the listener is aware of a remarkable complexity but never a laborious or academic one. Its authority is absolute. For both listener and performer, the result is an aesthetic pleasure based equally on immediate accessibility and the greatest technical prowess."

The next Bach concert I shall be attending will be a performance of one or two of the Orchestral Suites played by the chamber orchestra my son's getting together in London. Having a spot of bother finding a cellist though.
You should hear the fugue my son has written.

C major or G major?

I sort of agree with Robin. Sort of. The Prelude is extraordinary as Bach wrote it. But I don't agree that Gounod's Ave Maria is "an abomination to the purity of Bach's work." It's simply a different work. The original is not harmed by it. Same with playing Bach's keyboard music on piano with articulations and dynamics that were not possible on the harpsichord and were, therefore, not a part of Bach's original conception. Suppose a composer decided to use this prelude as the basis for a theme and variations? Would each variation be "an abomination to the purity of Bach's work?" What if one of them varied the theme by floating a melody over it? Oh yeah, that's just too horrible for words...

“I don't agree that Gounod's Ave Maria is an abomination to the purity of Bach's work."

Abomination is too strong a word perhaps. ‘Superfluous’ might more appropriate. Bach was the distiller of the essence of musical craft. Gounod’s line is not good distillate. It's out of place. It’s not clever & as I said it reminds us why Bach didn’t write such a part for that prelude.

"It's simply a different work. The original is not harmed by it."

Anymore than the Mona Lisa would be harmed by adding a moustache Y/N ?
That would at least be amusing.

"Same with playing Bach's keyboard music on piano with articulations and dynamics that were not possible on the harpsichord and were, therefore, not a part of Bach's original conception. "

Fine in the hands of the likes of Gould on piano, but in the hand of certain other pianists attempts to romanticise…. No thanks.

“Suppose a composer decided to use this prelude as the basis for a theme and variations? Would each variation be "an abomination to the purity of Bach's work?" What if one of them varied the theme by floating a melody over it? Oh yeah, that's just too horrible for words...”

A composer already has. He was called Johann Sebastian Bach because you see this prelude already is a set of 32 variations, according to my counting, of the motiff with each variation repeated twice.

Correction - 32 variations, according to my counting, of the motiff with each variation repeated once.

**"It's simply a different work. The original is not harmed by it."

Anymore than the Mona Lisa would be harmed by adding a moustache Y/N ?
That would at least be amusing.**

As long as the muoustache wasn't added to the original, the original would not be harmed.

A theme and variations is not based on a motive, but on a set harmonic structure (like almost every jazz performance). So, no, the prelude is not a set of variations. It as an expression of a harmonic structure using almost exclusively a single motive.

Variations may be based on things other than harmony.

This is a cute thread.

I specified a theme & variations, which I'm sure you know is a well-defined form. The Prelude in C is no such thing and you know it. You're just trying to avoid admitting your position is silly given that it completely ignores what McFerrin was doing in the video, which was creatively interacting with the audience in a way that he knew he would be able to. I'm sure he understands Bach's Prelude as well or better than anyone in Houston and knows that it does not need Gounod's melody. But his aim in life is clearly not to protect the purity of music that's nearly 300 years old. I'm not going to presume to state what his aim is, because I'm sure I would fall short of his conception of it (I suspect he operates on a level that would be lowered by "conceptions"). But I will say that he is the most astonishingly creative singer & vocal improviser I've ever heard. And, of course, he has recorded the Bach/Gounod "Ave Maria" with Yo Yo Ma. I suspect Mr. Ma's understanding of Bach's Prelude is equal to or superior to McFerrin's. So if they get that the prelude doesn't need Gounod's melody, why'd they do it? Were they just trying to make a buck? Perhaps it's this: McFerrin, in his vocal explorations, played around with singing that prelude. It was challenging and interesting, but it didn't quite work all by itself. Why? Because he can't sustain the lower part while singing the upper part. Without that sustained lower part, it does not stand alone. But with Gounod's melody, hmm...

I want to clarify, that only said "anyone in Houston" because this is jazzhouston.com. I did not mean to imply that the situation was different in other places. I know a lot of people in Houston--jazz, classical, whatever--whose musical understanding is world-class and far superior to my own.

I think Bobby's goal is education and building bridges. To include the audience in a performance like that opens the entire audience to something personal, not just observing.

This is not meant as an insult, but I almost see Bobby as a more modern version of Victor Borge. He reaches so many people thru music and as a character on stage---he's an ambassador for life and uses music as his way of communicating.

And I agree, he's one of the most incredible vocalists/improvisers I've ever seen.

It's really important to me to have a nice unaffected person in his 40's with a girly hairdo getting the audience to attempt to hum a tune that really doesn't fit the Bach, for me to be able to pretend to appreciate Bach. Bach without the gimmicks is a complete non runner for me LOL

The amazing thing is it's not such a joke!
It's reality.

But there you go. We live in a world where people are so undiscerning they actually on the whole think Mozart's dumbed down polyphony is better then Bach's music.
A world where Bach's widow died a pauper because there was so little money to be made in writing simply the best music ever written that was an education for all that followed !

you have a point, robin. but it was such a world long before bach was writing that music. getting people to actively participate has to be a good thing, though. it's certainly better than making them sit quietly listening to stuff they don't understand because someone says it's superior, or forcing them to study/play music that has no meaning for them because teachers have decided it's better for them. bach was speaking in his natural language. that's why he continued to speak in it even when most of the rest of the world was developing a different language. no one is going to speak better in a language they have not mastered than in their own language. and no matter how well they master another language, they are going to tire of trying to speak in it if no one understands it. if one cannot speak well, then one cannot express oneself. and if one cannot express oneself, one cannot know oneself. if one cannot know oneself, then one cannot recognize oneself in art. and thus, art becomes meaningless. it my be impressive or magical or something, but it will seem, at best, a stunt or an entertainment; a diversion from ordinary life.

imv, there are a few ways to react to the situation. 1) one can rail against it. 2) one can seek to pick out of it what one likes and values, ignoring the rest and so building a personal reality of ones own choosing. 3) one can seek to plant and grow the seeds of a world more amenable to meaningful art. i may be wrong about this, but i can't think of any other options and i believe i've listed the options in order of difficulty.

mcferrin seems to be trying to do both 2 & 3, for he does things like that in the video, but he also does things like his improvisational collaborations with chick corea, some of which have been recorded and released as the cd "play." if you're not familiar with it, check it out. is it equal to bach? well, i've never heard anything equal to bach. but i'm happy not to be like one of my professors in college who only listened to bach. i listen to all kinds of music and find enrichment in all of it. if there were no "less than the best," then meaning of "the best" would be "alone."

"i've never heard anything equal to bach. but i'm happy not to be like one of my professors in college who only listened to bach. i listen to all kinds of music and find enrichment in all of it."
-well said, Kevin.

Never get into a pissing match over someone else's opinion. It doesn't affect my enjoyment or enrichment or EDUCATION one iota. If someone wants to close their mind to the possibility that there is, in fact, something to be gained from listening to other masters, fine. Let them muddle through life pining for the reincarnation of a dead man's music. Music has moved on and up, in my opinion. (because that's what really counts to me. I respect other people's as long as they are informed and respectful of mine and my peers that I respect)

Frankly, Bach is one of the greatest, if not the greatest composer. Certainly he was the best and most prolific documented composer 250 years ago. Worthy of study and acclaim, yes. But is he really the be all, end all? I do not listen to Bach daily. I have studied his music and arranged some for saxophone quartet. I respect and admire the man's work. But I prefer to listen to those even more relevant to my music and what is happening in more recent times. Music that stirs my soul and that of the people I make music for and with. Are we masters? Debatable and dependent on point of view. (in a student's eyes or to a lay person, we might be thought of as such) But I, of course, say no. Not even close. Like Bach and every other serious musician, we are trying to learn more and get better constantly. Music is bigger than all of us and no one person can know everything there is to know. Not even the great Bach.

Kguess I see some of what you say, but I think you are over complicating & detracting a little with words. Words are not music.

J4L
"Music has moved on and up, in my opinion"

I'm more inclined to think not so much upwards. If one defines progress as the level of architecture & degree of organisation within then more sideways & back a little.

Bach's musical utterence exists on a level of of human-spiritual nobility that serenely floats above the transient & inconsistent attempts of even the very great composers who followed him ... and they knew it too !

He is incomparable... the greatest solace, and the greatest joy.
If anyone could convince me there is a divine hand in things ... he would do it.

BY means of the unequalled level of organisation & purposeful logical development & beautiful mathematical patterns, Bach’s music gives us a window to look into a world of perfect forms that no other composer gives us.

This from 300 years ago sounds as if 300 years in the future or is simply timeless.
Dazzling & vibrant.

http://johannsebastianbach.zoomshare.com/files/Bach/Bach_Partita_5_in_G_BWV_829_-_7_Gigue.mp3

http://johannsebastianbach.zoomshare.com/files/Bach/Bach_Partitia_6_in_e_BWV_830_-_3_Corrente.mp3

The climax at the end of this Fugue is truly remarkable.

http://johannsebastianbach.zoomshare.com/files/Bach/Bach_Fugue_BWV_541_Andre_Isoir.mp3

better than bach in all respects. Musically, inclusively, intellectually, etcaterally......'
listenally

http://www.linktv.org/video/4683/world-music-bireli-lagrne-and-friends-les-yeux-noirs

pay attention at 5min16sec. solo kills any and all bach, sorry imho...blah

bye bye bach...adios, vaya con dios... arrivederci, the world's movin' on, quicklier than ever, with or without you. round and round we go...

You're OT. This thread's about American cliches not Gypsy cliches.
Jeez he's put on weight since I saw him 20 years ago here & I think his pyrotechnics were a little more impressive back then.

If I read you correctly, Wagner was obviously wrong about Bach being 'The most stupendous miracle in all music'.
Birelli Lagrene is instead !
After all Lets be fair to Wagner, he never got to hear Birelli Lagrene.

The whole number isn't exactly imbued with the Black Eyes melody is it ?
Unlike a Bach composition whereby the theme, melody or motif would permeate every moment expressed in all possible permutations giving one a wonderful sense of unity purpose & design, as opposed to being a random process.

I love that Gypsy stuff, but after 20 minutes or so the incessant chink chink rhythm starts to grate a little. However it's great stuff especially to be there live after a couple of beers. Especially if they were to get the audience to sing along or clap their hands LOL.

I think I prefer this example of Dark eyes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a64uyOUw_A

The piano, accordion & clarinet add some interest. Plus the guy on percussion has a Bobby Mac Ferrin hair do & that's very important to me, albeit it's tied up in a bun.
My preference is for the slower numbers like Nuages. Just IMHO of course.

The organic build up & Bach's organ orgasm at around 4.00 in this fugue leaves you cold I take it. That's a shame because you're missing out on one of the most glorious moments in all music (No innuendos please LOL)

http://johannsebastianbach.zoomshare.com/files/Bach/Bach_Fugue_BWV_541_Andre_Isoir.mp3

Hey Paul,
You are so right. Every once in awhile someone says something and forget that. Thanks for the reminder.

Babble brot bambula gruelwitch frankly