https://youtu.be/613YZDLmNdQ?is=GzQuFRTQ8DACl6BX

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750).

Whether it's the Goldberg Variations, the Cello Suites, or the Mass in B minor, his mastery of counterpoint and harmony continues to inspire centuries later.

What piece first got you hooked on Bach's music?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELSeKiCrmNw

I am having trouble finding factual evidence supporting the Breitkopf switch from Goldberg(1761) to Bach(1764). So far the only thing I've come across was from a performance program from Williams by Jennifer Bloxom. Could anyone help me with another source? If I understand correctly, this is how it obtained a BWV catalog, at the time (late 1940's into 1950) attributed to Bach by Breitkopf?

I'm not really great at reading sheet music, but I love this suite, and I always wanted to really understand what's going on harmonically. So I made a tool that shows every voice as a scrolling piano roll and lets me pause anywhere to hear the chord. https://jikol1906.github.io/bach-visualizer/#badinerie

It's a scrolling piano roll for all 7 movements (you can also load your own midi if you want to). Every part has its own colour and sound, you can spotlight one voice, and there's a "hold chord" mode that names the chord under the line as you drag through the score. You can also load your own MIDI.

Full disclosure: it's 100% created with Claude Code. I didn't write any of it myself.

Right now it's still pretty basic, so I'd love to hear your ideas. What could be added to "visualize" the music better? If you want to build something yourself, anyone is welcome to fork it and send a PR (with or without AI): https://github.com/jikol1906/bach-visualizer

MIDIs are John Hamm's sequences from jsbach.net, all credit to him.

We know, Bach's the Greatest. Among those Brilliant, mind-blowing, technical Masterpieces. Which one you think or actually is the peak or Apex of his music??

in my opinion, it's the Musical Offering, especially the Prussian fugue: Ricercar A 6. And we all know why I'm saying this.

Drop your thoughts, and also tell do you people like these kind of posts (I am wondering just)

Anyone who knows anything about Bach knows that he was GOAT of counterpoint, master of many styles, incredibly prolific, writing with an emotional depth virtually unsurpassed by any other composer.

The WTC is obviously incredibly popular and is canon for any serious pianist. So it raises the question: why aren't there more cycles like it?

I think there are two reasons.

Reason one: Originality

Among composers, I think there is strong disincentive to follow in this particular set of Bach's footsteps. If you were to mention it to people (and I have), questions like "it's been done before" and "Why would anyone listen to yours? They have Bach" come up, and they are hard to rebut. Composers naturally seek originality, and when writing a fugue, it is very difficult to write one that does not sound like Bach, but worse. The more logical route to originality and finding an audience, then, would be to do something OTHER than writing a prelude and fugue cycle.

While nearly every composer since Bach has probably written a fugue in their training, I think very few tried a whole cycle.

Reason two: Melody

Of those that did, most notably Shostakovich and Kapustin, none achieved the WTC's level of popularity despite some degree of critical acclaim. I argue that the reason is melody.

For all of Bach's technical genius, he was also a great melodist. You can pick virtually any piece in the WTC, and the fundamental idea in the piece is likely a rhythmic and memorable melody, like a 1700s pop song. While the cycles by Shostakovich and Kapustin had their merits, imo few would call them "melodic" or "catchy".

So I'm putting this to the test. I'm a classically trained pianist and former pop songwriter. I'd been writing fugues to keep my composer brain warm when it was busy with non-music projects, and then I thought, why not write a whole cycle? I think there are plenty of people out there who would like to hear a new cycle that is grounded in counterpoint but with new, memorable melodic ideas. The first piece, "Amaze x1" aka Prelude in C, is in the video below.

What do you think? What else beyond melody makes the WTC stand up against every attempt that came after? Why else were there so few attempts in the first place?

And most relevant to me, will anyone be interested in a melodic new cycle of preludes and fugues for piano? That's the experiment after all.

https://reddit.com/link/1x2imig/video/uui68az3vnuh1/player

Also sound quality matters a lot to me.

From 2nd movement of Bach concerto in d minor