Posts Tagged ‘composer’
“I was obliged to be industrious”*…
There’s an old joke that goes something like this: Mozart, on dying too young, finds himself in Heaven. He’s approached by God, who suggests that Mozart might become the conductor of Heaven’s orchestra. Mozart, taken aback, exclaims, “I’m flattered Lord, but surely Kapellmeister Bach is here and would be a more appropriate choice.” to which God responds, “I am Bach.”
Tyler Cowan with an argument that the joke isn’t so far off…
I’ve been reading and rereading biographies of Bach lately (for some podcast prep), and it strikes me he might count as the greatest achiever of all time. That is distinct from say regarding him as your favorite composer or artist of all time. I would include the following metrics as relevant for that designation:
1. Quality of work.
2. How much better he was than his contemporaries.
3. How much he stayed the very best in subsequent centuries.
4. Quantity of work.
5. Peaks.
6. Consistency of work and achievement.
I see Bach as ranking very, very high in all these categories. Who else might even be a contender for greatest achiever of all time? Shakespeare? Maybe, but Bach seems to beat him for relentlessness and quantity (at a very high quality level). Beethoven would be high on the list, but he doesn’t seem to quite match up to Bach in all of these categories. Homer seems relevant, but we are not even sure who or what he was. Archimedes? Plato or Aristotle? Who else?…
In any case, a reminder that we should all be listening to more Bach: “Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?“, from @tylercowen.
* Johann Sebastian Bach
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As we muse on magnificence, we might send melodic birthday greetings to Girolamo Frescobaldi; he was born on this date in 1583. A composer and keyboard virtuoso, he created some of the most influential music of the 17th century. His work influenced Bach, Johann Pachelbel, Henry Purcell, and other major composers.
Indeed, Bach is known to have owned a number of Frescobaldi’s works, including a manuscript copy of Frescobaldi’s Fiori musicali (Venice, 1635), which Bach signed and dated 1714 and performed in Weimar the same year.
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“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music”*…
Artistic approximation…
Charles Ives set himself an impossible problem [in his 114 Songs of 1922]. He wanted to use pitch distance to represent the fact that God is infinitely close to man. But what is an infinitesimally close pitch distance? In the end Ives gave up and left it to the singer to decide. Maybe what Ives wanted was a smallest perceptible pitch difference. There is no standard notation for this.
Wilfrid Hodges, “The Geometry of Music,” in John Fauvel, ed., Music and Mathematics, 2006
Vaguely apposite (but in any case beautiful): “Mystical Photographs Taken Inside a Cello, Double Bass & Other Instruments.”
Via Futility Closet.
* Aldous Huxley
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As we ponder proximity, we might send liberated birthday greeting to another musician deeply concerned with wrangling pitch: Ornette Coleman; he was born on this date in 1930. A saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer, he was the principal founder of the “Free Jazz” movement, which abandoned the chordal and harmony-based structure found in bebop for an avant-garde (sometimes jarring) approach to improvisation. Coleman’s “Broadway Blues” and “Lonely Woman” became genre standards; his album Sound Grammar received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
“Wherever you go, I don’t care where you go, just send me something in the mail from where you are”*…
Just one of the hundreds of postcards from the J. Smith Archive that one can enjoy on the “virtual road trip” that is Cardboard America.
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As we hit the road, we might sing “Happy Birthday” to Mildred J. Hill; he was born on this date in 1859. She wrote the music: In the early 1890s, she composed the tune which (with lyrics by her sister Patty) was called “good Morning to All” and was published in 1893 in Song Stories for the Kindergarten. In 1912, her music was appropriated (with lyrics by an unknown author) and published as “Happy Birthday”– which has gone on to become (according to the Guinness Book of Records) the most recognized song in the English language.
Famously tied up by copyright (to wit the rarity of its appearance on TV or in movies), Hill’s estate still receives royalties from it performance.
Mildred (left) and her sister Patty
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