Context: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. A musical genius, he composed 1128 pieces in total. Many for the harpsichord and organ, including one for four harpsichords.
Impressive to say the least.
I like to imagine that in 1719 hearing a piece like that was roughly the same as it feels for someone to hear ridiculously intense EDM in 2026
Something for all the students to play together.
But also he kinda ripped off Vivaldi.
Great meme, thanks. One for the album.
If you're not stealing something from somebody else and improving it are you even a classical composer? 😄
Good artists borrow, great artists steal.
'Did you ever meet Bach?’
‘Which Bach?’
‘London Bach.’
‘Not I.’
‘I did. He wrote some pieces for my uncle Fisher, and his young man copied them out fair. But they were lost years and years ago, so last time I was in town I went to see whether I could find the originals: the young man has set up on his own, having inherited his master’s music-library. We searched through the papers – such a disorder you would hardly credit, and I had always supposed publishers were as neat as bees – we searched for hours, and no uncle’s pieces did we find. But the whole point is this: Bach had a father.’
‘Heavens, Jack, what things you tell me. Yet upon recollection I seem to have known other men in much the same case.’
‘And this father, this old Bach, you understand me, had written piles and piles of musical scores in the pantry.’
‘A whimsical place to compose in, perhaps; but then birds sing in trees, do they not? Why not antediluvian Germans in a pantry?’
‘I mean the piles were kept in the pantry. Mice and blackbeetles and cook-maids had played Old Harry with some cantatas and a vast great Passion according to St Mark, in High Dutch; but lower down all was well, and I brought away several pieces, ’cello for you, fiddle for me, and some for both together. It is strange stuff, fugues and suites of the last age, crabbed and knotted sometimes and not at all in the modern taste, but I do assure you, Stephen, there is meat in it. I have tried this partita in C a good many times, and the argument goes so deep, so close and deep, that I scarcely follow it yet, let alone make it sing. How I should love to hear it played really well...*
-Patrick O'Brian
Why not a concerto for seven harpsichords?
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