WTF Bach

136: Bach's 12-Tone Fugue (WTC Finale!)

(Fear not the length of this episode: the last 25 minutes or so are three different playings of the piece.) Having written a prelude and fugue in every possible key, having created a single temperament for all of those pieces, having stretched the thematic growth from a 6-note fugal subject to one with all 12 possible notes, Bach achieves a victory that would become the very foundations of music. At the very end, in one of his layerings from the 1730s, he adds, S.D.G., Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone: While all pieces in this collection may suggest images, no single piece in the collection is as evocative as this one. For the first and only time in this volume, we get tempo markings for the set: andante and largo.The andante is indeed a walk— toward Golgotha. Two voices in imitation trade the weight of dissonances struggling against the fateful steps up to Mount Calvary:This prelude is the only binary piece in the collection, divided in half by repeat signs (whereas roughly half of ‘Book Two’ are binary preludes.) Finally we get to the fugue. Often called the first 12-tone row in history, the fugue’s subject makes use of every single chromatic note. If C=1 in this diagram (it is usually 0 in Schönbergian theory) you will find all 12 pitches accounted for:Sighs in the slurred notes, the theme bursts with musical ‘crosses.’ Those witnessing the crucifixion weep in four voices. Bach’s burden was tone— he carries all twelve of them. Equally striking in the subject is his own name, crossing upon itself dozens of times in this finale. Every other slur spells his name (in transposition.) A twelve-tone row, crosses, weeping, this theme has everything: It has been a great joy to work on all these pieces over the past 10 months. Thanks for all your support. ‘Book Two’ will also be studied in depth on the show, but not quite yet. There are guest interviews to be released and I will be turning my attention to Bach’s earliest vocal works in the coming months. Soli Deo Gloria!We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at WTFBach.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help!Concepts Covered:A long discussion on religion in 18th and 17th century Germany, re: the seriousness of Bach’s own faith. The Well-Tempered Clavier finale, in h moll is today’s subject, conjuring images of Golgotha, crucifixion music, Bach’s own signature, musical crosses, Simon bearing the weight of the cross in the prelude et cetera. The fugal subject is a twelve-tone row, a theory not fully realized until some 200 years after J.S. Bach. Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe

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135: H Major! The Final Major (And Tuning It...)

2w ago00:59:07Tap to summarize

We reach the last note in The Well-Tempered Clavier, B natural. To this point, Bach has climbed chromatically from C, visiting both minor and major modes in every half step, and before the stunning finale in b minor, Bach writes a somewhat simpler prelude and fugue, BWV 868, in B major. Thank Bach for God!There are few revisions between the earliest and latest copies, the most striking is the inner voice at measure 11 in the prelude. Which do you prefer: or,The two tuning schemes used in today’s episode are 1/4 Comma Meantone, and Kellner’s Bach. N.B. This Kellner is not J.P. Kellner, the important Bach scribe, but rather, Herbert Anton Kellner, an important 20th century musicologist. The fugue, in four voices, features two inverted entrances. (I inverted, vertically, the word ‘theme,’ which is visually more correct than spinning it 180 degrees— I know you’re here for such details.)Write That Fugue!We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at wtfbach.substack.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help!Concepts Covered:J.S. Bach’s BWV 868, the B major Prelude and Fugue from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, his compositional revisions between the early version and final fair copy. An analysis of large-scale harmonic progressions, such as the move from the tonic to dominant, and a similar movement, from sub-dominant to tonic. The prelude is played in two temperaments, Kellner’s Bach and quarter-comma meantone. Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe

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134: 5 Flats, 5 Voices: Bach in B-flat Minor

3w ago01:01:48Tap to summarize

“While the c# minor fugue awakens the conception of a mighty cathedral, the two numbers in b-flat minor may be likened to artistically wrought side-chapel’s vaults, in which things most precious are kept.” —Busoni’s remarks on BWV 867.Things most precious, indeed. We might well wrap up this dark pearl of b-flat minor and guard it in the ‘side-chapel vaults’ of our hearts. What noble suffering, what secret anguish, what quiet pain is here! To know this music is to be changed, to expand one’s emotional capacity.Notice how, in Bach’s calligraphy, each note in this nine (!) note chord has its own stem:Such detail is sadly missing from any printed edition: It’s Free to B.W.V.!The fugue, in five voices, appears to be almost entirely in stretto, each voice interrupting the former. Notice the overlapping colors:This culminates in what I imagine to be a personal victory for Bach, ‘stretto-ing the stretto,’ making the entrances as close as possible, where the second note of one voice becomes the first note of the next, from top to bottom, all five voices in a masterful technical display:(Looks a bit crowded, yes, but that’s the idea!)We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at wtfbach.substack.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help!Concepts Covered: We study the B-flat minor prelude, BWV 867, the Well-Tempered Clavier Book One, both five voice fugues in the second and penultimate minor positions, early manuscript and earliest version alongside P. 415, Bach’s revision of one extra measure. The fugue as a stretto fugue, possible connections between prelude and fugue, a complete stretto in five voices, a five-voice stretto, as well as the Busoni edition’s poetic description of this pair. Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe

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133: ¿Por qué César Vallejo?

May 500:33:41Tap to summarize

César Vallejo (1892-1938) is one of my favorite poets. To define his style is difficult: one doesn’t understand his poems so much as one absorbs them. His words— seemingly impenetrable— have a sense to them which gnaws and tugs at dormant parts of the mind.Some 12 years ago I holed up in a little shack near the Canada/USA border with nothing but his poetry to keep me sane— but he began unraveling my mind in a beautiful way that left an indelible mark on me as a reader. Please enjoy my anecdote as well as the profound memoir by Clayton Eshleman, the acclaimed translator of Vallejo’s poetry. Book details below:Vallejo, César. The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition. Edited and translated by Clayton Eshleman, foreword by Mario Vargas Llosa, introduction by Efrain Kristal, contributions by Stephen Hart, translated by José R. Barcia, University of California Press, 2009.ISBN: 9780520261730A link to the University of California Press where you can buy the book.W.T.F. Bach? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at wtfbach.substack.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help! Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe

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132: The Other Bach Piece You Probably Played

Apr 2800:45:11Tap to summarize

It’s thrilling to look at the music of Bach’s predecessors. We see the very shape of Bach to come (I say, referencing my own album…) In several of Buxtehude’s works, we find this texture:Bach tossed the trick into his bag for later deployment:Notice the ending: subtle, elegant, humble. Czerny didn’t think it was enough:Be on the lookout for the extra measure in your own edition! Tovey calls Czerny’s added bar, “perhaps the most Philistine single printed chord in the whole history of music.” Ouch!I Can Cantata!The fugue, one of my all-time favorites, makes strict use of two countersubjects. Together, they form a three-part wonder. I’ve tried to illustrate them:Bach, contrapuntist juggler, will juggle. Watch the orders switch:We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at wtfbach.substack.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly. You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help!Concepts Covered:The Prelude in B-flat Major BWV 866 from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Book I in the North German toccata style, influenced by Buxtehude's toccatas and prelude. The fugue is a perfect example of Bach's mastery of triple counterpoint with two countersubjects. Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe

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131: Dissecting The Dragon, A Minor Book 1

Apr 2100:52:16Tap to summarize

Perhaps before composing the bulk of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Bach had been challenging himself to create a fugue with real technical daring. This fugue, in a minor BWV 865, represents some of the composer’s most ambitious fugal writing. Have a look at an outline of the subjects alone—you might even follow this image while listening to the episode— this might give you some idea of the task Bach undertook:From the beginning of the piece to the end, the combinations of themes become more complex, from entries one by one, to a three-voice stretto and finally all four voices simultaneously.Work! Those! Fingers!The prelude, meanwhile, is much simpler. Between the earliest version and the revisions found in P.415, we see Bach lacquering in his workshop. Notice the right hand:Bach finds more movement in revision:The detail I miss from the earliest version is the beautiful B-flat in the left hand:Although I do like Bach’s longer pedal point in the revision: Enjoying your contrapuntal journey? Here’s how you can help:We encourage our listeners to become a paid subscriber atwtfbach.substack.comFree subscriptions (yes, you can subscribe for free!) are also beneficial for our numbers.You can make a one-time donation here. https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachSupporting this show ensures its longevity. Thank you for your support!Concepts Covered:We study J.S. Bach Well Tempered Clavier, the history, lessons and analysis. Performance practice and contrapuntal structure, especially the complicated stretto fugue in a minor BWV 865 with its inverted stretti, its triple strettos and finally a four-voice stretto half inverted. Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe

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130: A Double Fugue & A Second Manuscript

Apr 1400:55:49Tap to summarize

Remember this image from the E-flat Major Prelude and Fugue epsiode, where Bach puts a double fugue at the half within the half?Bach does it once more in today’s episode. We’ve arrived at the other double fugue in this collection, BWV 864 in A major. Bach begins the prelude by juggling three ideas:The ordering of these ideas will switch. A few bars later we see the same three ideas shifted around:Bach presents the same ideas a total of six times in the prelude. Whereas we logicians would love to see all six combinations (ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CBA, CAB,) Bach gives us four of the possible orderings. The final one with the syncopation on bottom is particularly nice:Feed the Contrapunctus: Now the fugue: This is the correction I got all excited about. This is from Anna Magdalena’s copy (called the Müller Manuscript) where we clearly see a revision that may improve on P 415. Look closely at the note which is whited out, this is the G-sharp that is found in Bach’s autograph, here, corrected to an E.After playing this measure as we know it, I can’t help but feel that this little gem hidden within Anna Magdalena’s copy reflects the latest thinking of the composer.You can view the Müller Manuscript here: https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001076 Interesting how the shapes in the first of the subjects in the double fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier have similar rising perfect fourths:Similar shapes in the E-flat major pair:And finally, here is the charming work of the young WF, copying out one of his father’s cantatas at a young age. See the little attempt at making a mirror monogram, WFB? Wonderful! Schweitzer beautifully recounts this scene.We Rely Exclusively on Paid Substack Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:We encourage our listeners to join at wtfbach.substack.comThis is the best place to leave comments.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help!Concepts Covered:J.S. Bach’s A major, book one, Well-Tempered Clavier, Anna Magdalena’s copy, also known as the Müller Manuscript (not to be confused with the Möller Manuscript,) Double fugue writing, juggling three contrapuntal ideas in the prelude. We also paint the scene for how Bach’s cantatas were assembled. A beautiful picture of WF Bach, CPE Bach and Bach’s nephew, JH Bach. Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe

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129: I Got Rid Of All My Books (11 Years Ago...)

Apr 700:24:00Tap to summarize

Back to Bach next week! In the meantime, I thought you’d appreciate a story I wrote after I ‘discarded’ the majority of my possessions— mostly books. Whereas I easily tossed things like clothes, artwork, komono, plates, pens, et cetera, getting rid of my massive library took months and was an emotional rollercoaster. I haven’t ever looked back! …mostly. Sans Eyes, Sans Books, Sans EverythingIf you go home with somebody and they don’t have any books, don’t f*** ‘em!-Not so old aphorismLast scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion;Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.-As You Like It, 2:7-for Marie Kondo (and Rachel)At eighteen years old, I moved to New York City with five books: a Mozart biography, a Bach biography, a Beethoven biography, a book about Beethoven’s piano sonatas, and a Bible. My sheet music library (which was already massive) and any other books (which were insubstantial) I left with my parents. All I valued at that time was playing the piano and any reading dealing with that. After a year, my personal Pentateuch had grown four times in size, but was humble still.Eleven years later I had one-thousand nine hundred and thirty two books.Books bought, books found, books stolen, books given, books I printed: any way one could get a book, I got books. I dreamed of creating a library that resembled my teacher Lowenthal’s: wall to wall books, books falling out of books, books used as bookshelves themselves, pages on the ground from who knows which books, books with missing covers, covers with missing books, books rapidly-read-horizontally-stacked-under-coffee-cups books, books under-the-piano-to-muffle-the sound books, books piled-on-top-of-the-piano-to-complete-a-cliche books, the divine image of the godhead seen in books spinning endlessly out from the library walls.“I always imagined heaven to be a kind of library.”That was the first sentence by Borges I ever read, and Lowenthal’s study was the closest to paradise I had been.—I lived in seven different apartments in New York, and with each move at least 75% of the boxes were books, and with books come their doomed counterparts: bookcases (so help us god.) Many a reader may commiserate. Once the first small white case was filled, (Ikea, 2007) there needed to be a match (Ikea, 2008.) By 2009, I had two crumbling, completely useless, bookcases.I called the poet Ron Price, who, though he owned less books than Lowenthal, seemed to have given more thought to their casing. I discussed a sleek white Ikea bookshelf I had seen online:“Oh! Don’t buy a f***ing BILLY!” he shouted.He knew the make. …Everybody knew the make. Little did I know, the crumbling pieces of piecemeal that already housed my books bore the same name.“Buy some nice wood. Make some sturdy shelves.”“Hmm… You’ve been down this road it seems.”He chuckled.“The… shelves are even more important than the books?” I went so far as suggesting“I don’t know about that.” he muttered.In a month, I had, at only a few times the cost of escaping Billy’s curse, three black bookcases, two inches thick per shelf. Unbendable.My East Harlem studio was immensely stylish: I dreamed I would see reconstructions of it in museums as I had seen reconstructions of Proust’s bedroom. Two tall cases stood side by side, and a third half-case, tastefully empty, was stacked horizontally on the other two. It created one giant fifteen foot wide wall, ten feet tall. It was like a tree for inanimate objects.And then, many a reader may commiserate, I tasted the rainbow: a design magazine with a bookshelf arranged by color. I didn’t do anything else for two weeks.I spent every day agonizing over the color of books and where on the new color coordinated shelves they would go. I grouped by color, but then realized my groupings were random. I needed the spectrum: a clean sweep from infrared to ultraviolet. I needed a circle? No, but, this was disastrous. Is color a circle? No, color is a triangle, right? The primary colors are only three… After two months of switching books around, I hit upon the solution: Primary colors would outline a triangle marking the top and the lowest corners. Then, the secondary colors would form the inverted triangle pointed at the bottom. It was so obvious. The only choice then was which of the primary colors to put at the top. In my collection, it made sense that blue should be the crown. Hence: orange went to the bottom, green and purple at the shoulders, therefore yellow and red at the... damn! That looks amazing!But what of all these books without color? Whereas I had previously banished them to the edges, now the black and white spines fit brilliantly into the middle. A zero in the middle of all the brilliance. Quickly, no matter how beloved the content, brown, tan, and off-white, gray books, these were imposters. I stuffed them here or there where they wouldn’t stick out. Eventually I put them with the dishes: behind the cabinets. The bookshelf, now made of only resplendent spines, became a centerpiece. It had eye gravity. It never escaped comments from guests.Any difficulties one might imagine, like two different colors on a spine, for example, were surprisingly rare. And when they did occur, each book somehow fit into only one section. There was one book though, (three novels by DH Lawrence) that had an obtuse, subtle, yet obvious, but odorous! an obnoxious color. It could not be placed: was it pinkish orange, bluish pink…? I know of nothing in the universe colored the same. I tried him in the reds, in the near pinks, in the center of the oranges, on the fringes of the oranges, with the near yellows, no luck. I banished him to the basement.“Look at all these orange books!” That’s what most people said after being sucked into the shelf for some time. (Penguin fiction, bottom center.) Schirmer sheet music publishes in bright yellow, which held down a sunny corner, whereas Henle publishes in matte blue. Dover —many a musician has cringed— seems to publish only in the most carefully selected distasteful colors, but when searching for the perfect transition from reddish-orange to orangish-red, Dover somehow prints an accurate Pantone 17-1464.Now, perhaps you reading will join in with the main criticism, which was, “how can you find anything now?!” But this was ridiculous, I knew all my books of course: the color of every spine, the height, width, the feel, the smell… besides, I had actually read most of these! (That oh-so-memorable moment my illiterate aunt visited and accused me of ‘collecting them,’ that there was no way a person could read so many books.)Rachel would quiz me:“Ancient China?”“In the off green.”“Nonsense of Edward Lear?”“Is dark red.”“Baghavad Gita?”“Purple!”Never could she stump me. She started switching books to see if I would notice. At first she tried the obvious: swapping a blue with a yellow, as if to test if I so much as glanced toward the shelf once a day. Then, sneakily, she tried switching a dark red with an off red. Finally she took to inverting certain books, but I noticed every time.—This was short-lived. Maybe only half a year before the shelf was condemned. It actually did get photographed in a (now defunct) design magazine. I felt like I had achieved something great when that happened— but it was April 2015, and we collectors know what happened then:Marie Kondo burst on the scene. God save our recycle bins. One excerpt from her book— a book about organizing, mind you, not a book about the human spirit, not a book of poems, not a book about love or anything of the sort: a book about organizing, left me in tears. What was wrong with me?And so began the days of getting rid of all my books. Poignant Pentateuch to boastful nineteen-hundred, however many it had been, it was all doomed to die now.Obviously enough, all of the books with the dishes were sold. If they were there, what was their use? Those that gave me a hard time in the color wheel were quickly off the wheel and onto the street. Reference books- gone, cookbooks- gone, any extremely common book- gone. I had, in the eleven years of reading, lost touch with my religion: goodbye St. Augustine, St. John of the Cross, GK Chesterton, (I’ll keep Thomas Merton, though.) I had also, in a sense, also outgrown the beats: goodbye Ginsberg, farewell Ferlinghetti. I sold six hundred books to one single shop in Brooklyn (and visited it a year later to the eeriest of feelings…) I made many a friend happy by giving away any book they asked for. I was actually able to pay my rent with book sales, and to show for it, I had an even brighter, ever slimmer color wheel.That April, I sold, gave away, or put on the street sixteen hundred books. I now had only three hundred odd books. That shelf gave me such immense joy to look at and be near, I stopped purging. I had arrived. Something, as Marie Kondo said it would, ‘clicked.’—But poor Rachel. We were through. I left for Europe to moan. Would I ever grow up? When I came back to my old life, and my new color wheel, the joy wasn’t in it. I had to clear out all the memories and rid myself of all attachments. The books she gave me had to go, even those quite dear to me: Steinbeck’s letters, R Kelly’s ‘Soulacoster: the diary of me’ (once full of laughter, now simply full of sadness… for godssake, the ‘of’ is in italics!) Frank Ohara’s poems, Thomas Lux poems, gone. She was a reader, all the books we read together had to go: Eugenides, Cheever, Dahl, Yeats.I was nearing 200 books. Some didn’t fit in with the colors so I taped their spines with brightly colored tape — then a few days later...

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128: Donald Francis Tovey's Well-Tempered

Mar 2400:40:48Tap to summarize

I don’t blame us for preferring our rather clean, modern Bach editions to this:But are we so confident in our own interpretations that we can throw out the likes of Hans Bischoff, Carl Czerny, Ferruccio Busoni (pictured) and Donald Francis Tovey? These heavily annotated performance editions, while, yes, they should be read alongside a ‘cleaner’ modern edition, can certainly still teach us some beautiful musicianship. In this episode, I let Sir Donald Francis Tovey’s remarks on the g-sharp minor prelude and fugue, BWV 863, lead us through an analysis of the work.Some more from Busoni (the previous prelude and fugue,) his footnotes and ossias are exciting:Most of these editions are in the public domain on IMSLP. Have a look: https://imslp.org/wiki/Das_wohltemperierte_Klavier_I,_BWV_846-869_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)Finally, here is the source of confusion about the Picardy third at the end of the g-sharp minor fugue. At first glance, it certainly looks like B natural in the alto voice. (Soprano clef) But look closer. (Sorry for the resolution.) This is not Bach’s normal natural sign. It has a slash (maybe two slashes?) through it:Here are few of Bach’s natural signs. Upon comparison, the above sign certainly is modified with extra strokes to form a sharp:We Rely On Listener Support! How to Donate to this Podcast:The best way to support this podcast, is to become a paid Substack subscriber at wtfbach.substack.comEnough paid subscribers = exclusive content, monthly merchandise giveaways!You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for listening! Thank you for your support.Concepts Covered:An analysis of BWV 863 exploring the four-voice fugue, the two counter-subjects, the invention of the prelude with its inversions — guided by Sir Donald Francis Tovey's annotated Well-Tempered Clavier edition. We mention Busoni, Czerny, and Bartok’s edition as well. What do these historic performance editions still have to teach us? Why a modern urtext editions won’t tell the whole story, and finally the confusion at the end of the prelude and fugue: the Picardy third in the alto voice at the finale. Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe

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Bach's Birthday is Today, Not March 31st.

Mar 2100:06:29Tap to summarize

Happy Birthday Johann. Today, March 21st, not March 31st.Let me repeat that for those of you feeling clever or citing google without thinking:Happy Birthday Johann. Today, March 21st, not March 31st.Why are people confused about this? How did this become a thing? And what extremely boring person got so frustrated with a toccata they started tampering with Bach’s wikipedia page?There were two main calendars in Europe at the time: the Julian and the Gregorian. We are currently on the Gregorian, but it took a while to get everyone on board. Greece held out until 1923 even, and Protestant Germany was holding back in 1685, when Bach was born.But you know, you gotta get with the times, man! Gotta catch up to the modern world! It’s gonna be 1700 pretty soon! We’re gonna have mercury thermometers and calculus… You’re living in the past! …ten days in the past!So in 1700, Germany did indeed make the jump from Julian to Gregorian. In the year 1700, they jumped from February 18, to March 1. No one died, no one was born between Feb 18th and March 1st, 1700 in protestant Germany. (No one even used the toilet.)Germany joined the Gregorian calendar when Bach was 15 years old, with the legal stipulation that all prior dates would remain valid. A legal stipulation, in fact, protecting the old dates from being overridden, and converted to the new calendar.So, come on people, let’s not try to override this actual legal stipulation. (Here’s my gentle reminder that saying Bach was born on March 31st is illegal.) We can’t go about dismissing ecclesiastical records in favor of our modern abstractions just because we’re feeling smug about hybrid cars and vegan smoothies. It’s not like the Gregorian calendar represents some objective truth that the Julian calendar was failing to capture.Bach was Born on March 21st. The next person I hear whispering in the bar, “well, technically he was born on March 31st…” is getting a mordent —to the face.Are you that person who’s trying to switch Bach’s birthday to the 31st? Wow. Can’t wait to hang out with you on Christmas: “Actually, statistically speaking, the odds that Jesus was born on the 25th of December are practically zero! Did you know that in Judea, shepherds typically watched their flocks by night from Spring to early Autumn?” Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get a life.Maybe you know about Shakespeare and Cervantes? That they died on the same day? Or rather, the same date. It’s the same thing: Protestant England, on the Julian calendar, and Catholic Spain, on the Gregorian. It created this beautifully poetic coincidence. The greatest writers of their generations both died on April 23, 1616— 10 days apart.Now, we’re not going to switch the date on which Shakespeare died, are we?! No. That’d be asinine. Which is exactly what shifting Bach’s birthday to March 31st is, asinine. March 21st is also Early Music Day in Europe— for this very reason, and we’re not going to move early music day are we? No, that’d be asinine.March 21st is also, nicely, International Poetry Day, …and World Puppetry Day, …and World Day for Glaciers— if you ask me we have too many days, but sure, why not. In fact, why not make a puppet of Bach reading a poem and dance him around on some ice cubes today.Today is also Harmony Day in Australia, beautiful! The immortal god of harmony, that he should share Harmony Day in Australia. I pictured everyone leaning into triads and flat-nines down unda’ but this day happens to be about racial harmony, but still! Still. Let’s sing four-part chorales with everyone we know.Bach’s birthday is March 21st. It always was March 21st. You know who was born on March 31st? Haydn. Who? Exactly. Never heard of him. If anyone wishes me a happy birthday Bach in 10 days, I’m blocking you.Dig Out Your Inner Ear:Enjoying your contrapuntal journey? Here’s how you can help:We encourage our listeners to become a paid subscriber atwtfbach.substack.comFree subscriptions are also beneficial for our numbers.You can make a one-time donation here. We run a 501(c)3, so let us know if you want a tax deduction:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachSupporting this show ensures its longevity. Thank you for your support! Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe

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All episodes

136: Bach's 12-Tone Fugue (WTC Finale!)

135: H Major! The Final Major (And Tuning It...)

134: 5 Flats, 5 Voices: Bach in B-flat Minor

133: ¿Por qué César Vallejo?

132: The Other Bach Piece You Probably Played

131: Dissecting The Dragon, A Minor Book 1

130: A Double Fugue & A Second Manuscript

129: I Got Rid Of All My Books (11 Years Ago...)

128: Donald Francis Tovey's Well-Tempered

Bach's Birthday is Today, Not March 31st.