POO: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven

I think about Bach more than any modern musician, he's the best ever

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, April 16, 2014 12:36 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too. I spent all winter listening to a way disproportionate amount of Bach compared to everything else combined. Especially Bach keyboard music. Sometimes a Bach piece is in my head all day. Now that it's spring I guess I'm feeling more Beethoven and Mozart though all of a sudden.

I think this might be my favorite piece of music ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fhqqxEQRRY

and that's the best performance/recording I've heard of it by like a million miles

One thing about Bach is, even when his stuff is played by beginners like at a kids' piano recital it will usually sound pretty good, and if you play it yourself you feel like you are learning a ton of stuff. It's just so well-made, well-crafted and at the same time infused with genius.

What is the board consensus on Fur Elise? I think it is one of my least favorite pieces of music.

I like it fine but it is not as sturdy as anything from JSB, as the recent kids' recital mentioned above demonstrated.

It's fine, it's just been driven into the ground. The three sets of Bagatelles (op. 33, 119 and 126) are more exciting displays of what beethoven could do in the short fragmentary mode that would be the bread and butter of the romantics.

otm. Bought a Dover book of the Bagatelles and Für Elise and fooled around with learning the latter, but only as a comedy punch line and in fact saw those two popular comedy musicians -I forget their names, one is Russian one is Korean-American I think- do exactly that when I saw them this past New Year's Eve.

One thing about Bach is, even when his stuff is played by beginners like at a kids' piano recital it will usually sound pretty good, and if you play it yourself you feel like you are learning a ton of stuff. It's just so well-made, well-crafted and at the same time infused with genius.

― When I Get To The Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, April 17, 2014 1:11 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This. 99% of what's good about the music is in the notes on the page, so all you need is for someone to competently and clearly articulate the notes. That's why I like Gould so much for Bach and rarely enjoy him playing almost anything else, whereas a lot of otherwise wonderful pianists sound goofy to me playing their affected bach.

After too much coffee I was thinking that Mozart is sort of the Motown (lol almost pun) of classical music -- constant, polished hitmaker, everything sounds good and clean. Beethoven is a bit more like Stax -- raw, emotive, tumultuous. IDK what that makes Bach though.

Beethoven > Bach >>>>>>>>> Mozart

(I am Salieri.)

Bach = Fortune Records

Wow, the Kempff and the Lipatti upthread are phenomenal

Mozart has given me the most pleasure.

Mozart more and more. I'm mulling whether to go see Figaro in a couple weeks.

Speaking of Salieri: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/03/antonio-salieris-revenge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JauII1jCG6Q

I see I never specified my primary allegiance. It's Bach.

Bach for me too, perhaps more unusual is that I mostly like to listen to the cantatas.