Do you have a "Can't stand it" piece? A piece of music that you listen to that you consider to be so beautiful that you have a hard time listening to it? One of mine is Chopin's etude op 25 no 12 in c minor. If there is such a thing as the sounds of Angels singing, this is what it would sound like IMO.
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Kristofer P.D.Q. Emerig said:
Beautiful song, but one of the least Bach sounding pieces I've ever heard. This is one of his last cantatas and sounds more like Handel. Where's the rhythmical bass or the interplay of violin parts. Bach must have mellowed with age.
Fredrick zinos said:
How do you know he was 29? You're saying he wrote 199 cantatas by age 29? That's unbelievable.
I am comparing this piece to a great deal of his piano music which I have performed. His St. Matthew Passion, also performed. His Brandenburg Concerto's, parts of most of them I have performed, and many other Cantata's which I have performed and heard performed live, and his cello suites, though I have only performed the first two.
Lawrence
BWV 971, Andante from the Italian Concerto:
http://www.score-on-line.com/tmp/89.139.14.83.DIL0024b.PDF
I never heard anybody's (but my) performance of this fragment, and not sure I will enjoy one. Sometimes I play it, using different instruments, many times several hours without a stop, each time finding new mental and emotional associations. This is like reading your favorite book, which takes all your attention every time you open it. I can only compare the expressiveness of this music with the following Marcello's fragment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IgFPi4PCqc
So in all probability this was not his 199th cantata. I know what it takes to perform one Bach cantata. They are 20 to 30 minutes long and the ones I have heard or performed are very difficult. He simply would not have had the personnel or time to perform one per week. This is the same kind of folklore that claims that Handel wrote his nearly three hour Messiah is a few weeks. We can separate fact from fairy tales. Even if it is true I choose not to believe it.
Lawrence
Fredrick zinos said:
Bob, in response to your April 21 comment, I was introduced to the Firebird Suite by Yes, and agree it is a fantastic piece https://soundcloud.com/yesofficial/yes-yessongs-opening
I agree, in principle, with Kristofer.
I don't really understand what is meant by "so beautiful I can't stand it," since sublime beauty is something wholly desirable.
Maybe we are speaking metaphorically. In the story of Zeus and Semele, the mortal woman Semele demands to see the god Zeus in his original divine form, and when she sees that form she is consumed in flames, and her body turns to ash. (As she turns to ash, her unborn child, Dionysus-- or Bacchus-- is saved from destruction by Zeus).
If there is such a thing as devastatingly divine beauty, "unendurable beauty," then that probably is found Romantic works, in the first movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, or the climax of the first section of the last movement of Mahler's Second, or in the neglected first movement of Mahler's Third. Beethoven's Seventh and Mahler's Third were both "inspired by Bacchus."
Of course, we may ask, do we want music so beautiful we "cannot stand it," or whether we want music which, in the classical or Platonic sense, gently "harmonizes the listener," and "improves his soul."
Perhaps Romantic music only "inflames it," whereas certain "classical" ouevres actually edify and satisfy, playing to both the emotional and the intellectual faculties.
In modern times, we may want music which does all these things; and which surprises us, never allowing us to know when we will be inspired, inflamed, calmed, enlightened, shocked or tranquillized.
In my opinion, I absolutely love "Im Wundershoenen Monat Mai" in Schumann's "Dichterliebe"! It brings a tear to my eye every time! As for Debussy's piano pieces, they are what made me want to compose for piano (which was the stepping stone into where I am today with my composing).
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