teenagers who are obsessed with playing Bach.

[bach_is_awesome]

Ive been playing piano for very long and for some reason only enjoy playing bach. Am I the only the only teenager whos favorite artist is bach?

[mussels_with_nutella]

I can say that I am sure I love Romantic composers, maybe ALL of them. Very very few of Clasicism music (Haydn, Mozart...) and very very few from Bach (only those who inspire... true feelings, like "air on the G string", and maybe no more).

I am also sure, that I miss an important part of music just for HATING it (I hate, indeed, Bach's music).
So, I'm really concious of this and my question is: WHY do you love Bach? What's in Bach, apart from complicated forms and counterpoint, and no more? Because normally it inspires no more than superficial happiness and feelings, and... nothing. Why are so many people, so many, who love Bach.
I cannot understand what is in his music.

Can you help me understand all of you? Many thanks!!!!

[bach_is_awesome]

Thanks for the response.  Honestly I do understand your feelings towards bach. Bach is certainly an acquired taste. I personally despise romantic music and i enjoy bach not necessarily for the raw emotonal (pun intended. Tell me if you got) effects, but for the intellectuall enrichment that comes with his heavy counter point.  Bach did though write some of the most emotional music of all time in his religious choral works. Not so much in his keyboard works though.

[wwalrus]

emotonal.....my sides

[j_menz]

my sides

Your Philistine side, and what others?

[outin]

... should get a life 

[wwalrus]

Your Philistine side, and what others?

[j_menz]

... should get a life 

By which I take it you mean exchanging an (unhealthy) obsession with Bach for a (wholly natural) one for Domenico?

 

[outin]

I am also sure, that I miss an important part of music just for HATING it (I hate, indeed, Bach's music).
So, I'm really concious of this and my question is: WHY do you love Bach? What's in Bach, apart from complicated forms and counterpoint, and no more? Because normally it inspires no more than superficial happiness and feelings, and... nothing. Why are so many people, so many, who love Bach.
I cannot understand what is in his music.

Can you help me understand all of you? Many thanks!!!!

I really don't get it either, I see most of Bach's keyboard works as intellectual exercise, not as music that would in anyway touch me. And still I am a big fan of Baroque music...

[outin]

By which I take it you mean exchanging an (unhealthy) obsession with Bach for a (wholly natural) one for Domenico?

 

Of course 

And why not add some Rameau, Telemann and a few other contemporaries to the mix

[mjames]

Misleading title

Anyways, emotional is tsubjective. I don't know how you cannot cry at Bach's chromatic fantasia and fugue or his mass in b minor
Like please.
I find Telemann to be boring and uninspiring

[worov]

Because normally it inspires no more than superficial happiness and feelings, and... nothing. Why are so many people, so many, who love Bach.
I cannot understand what is in his music.

Can you help me understand all of you? Many thanks!!!!

Listen to this and tell me if it's not emotional :

Now listen to this Double Violin Concerto :

I can't say these pieces are very happy.

[hardy_practice]

Schmaltz be damned.  As the teen says, it's the counterpoint dummy!

[minona]

I tend to think people go on about emotion a little too much as a way of pronouncing their own ability to 'identify' soulfully with the great masters.

But, not only is music about communicating pure emotion (even crappy chart pop music can get people crying) I think music is also a conceptual realm, a strange space for structural ideas, and music can be mind-expanding in this respect.

Apart from Bach's beautiful pieces full of sentiment (famous Goldenburg varation), there are patterns in his music that appeal to the senses much like forms and structures in nature and it is not all meant to be about alluding to deep emotional wounds or whatever. His music often sounds like it has grown out of the ground to me, and I find that beautiful in that transcendental way. Certainly he, perhaps as much as any composer, had plenty of feelings to transcend, accepting fate as part of life.

Bach probably suffered in his life more than, say, Rachmaninoff, and I think this is detectable between the cracks of his music, rather than worn on his musical sleeve.

Conversely, I think some romantic pieces are laughably overly romantic and superficially sentimental. I don't think their every waking moment needed to be full of turmoil and despair or deep love to create great works. I also think there was a lot of exaggeration in the music, even self pity, perhaps to manipulate audiences in a (in my opinion) too blatantly obvious way.

[outin]

I tend to think people go on about emotion a little too much as a way of pronouncing their own ability to 'identify' soulfully with the great masters.

But, not only is music about communicating pure emotion (even crappy chart pop music can get people crying) I think music is also a conceptual realm, a strange space for structural ideas, and music can be mind-expanding in this respect.

Apart from Bach's beautiful pieces full of sentiment (famous Goldenburg varation), there are patterns in his music that appeal to the senses much like forms and structures in nature and it is not all meant to be about alluding to deep emotional wounds or whatever. His music often sounds like it has grown out of the ground to me, and I find that beautiful in that transcendental way. Certainly he, perhaps as much as any composer, had plenty of feelings to transcend, accepting fate as part of life.

Bach probably suffered in his life more than, say, Rachmaninoff, and I think this is detectable between the cracks of his music, rather than worn on his musical sleeve.

Conversely, I think some romantic pieces are laughably overly romantic and superficially sentimental. I don't think their every waking moment needed to be full of turmoil and despair or deep love to create great works. I also think there was a lot of exaggeration in the music, even self pity, perhaps to manipulate audiences in a (in my opinion) too blatantly obvious way.

I do not usually care for overly romantic stuff either and I really like Baroque music. And I don't cry when I listen to music, Bach or anything else.

I just don't care for counterpoint in Bach style...Maybe because I dislike choral music in general. Substance can be created with fewer components. I am kind of a minimalist I guess

For me music also becomes most enjoyable when there are breaks in the natural structure or elements that are unpredictable, weird or even wrong in the traditional sense. The German/Austrian tradition often lacks that, so I find much of the music rather boring.

[swagmaster420x]

I tend to think people go on about emotion a little too much as a way of pronouncing their own ability to 'identify' soulfully with the great masters.

But, not only is music about communicating pure emotion (even crappy chart pop music can get people crying) I think music is also a conceptual realm, a strange space for structural ideas, and music can be mind-expanding in this respect.

Apart from Bach's beautiful pieces full of sentiment (famous Goldenburg varation), there are patterns in his music that appeal to the senses much like forms and structures in nature and it is not all meant to be about alluding to deep emotional wounds or whatever. His music often sounds like it has grown out of the ground to me, and I find that beautiful in that transcendental way. Certainly he, perhaps as much as any composer, had plenty of feelings to transcend, accepting fate as part of life.

Bach probably suffered in his life more than, say, Rachmaninoff, and I think this is detectable between the cracks of his music, rather than worn on his musical sleeve.

Conversely, I think some romantic pieces are laughably overly romantic and superficially sentimental. I don't think their every waking moment needed to be full of turmoil and despair or deep love to create great works. I also think there was a lot of exaggeration in the music, even self pity, perhaps to manipulate audiences in a (in my opinion) too blatantly obvious way.

this is a great post; bach was a genius, he understood mathematically and intuitively the relationship between frequency and pitch and his works reflects an innate talent for music and utilization of patterns.

btw baroque music is SOOOOO emotional

<-- - - - - -- - - -  -- this song is best
baroque is the only style of music that has touched my soul, others are pretty and epic and fun but idk how to explain it... baroque melodies just seem like theyre trying to communicate some emotional experience.. or something. more than any other style, at least for me, the voices of baroque music tell stories.

[pianoman53]

btw baroque music is SOOOOO emotional

<-- - - - - -- - - -  -- this song is best
baroque is the only style of music that has touched my soul, others are pretty and epic and fun but idk how to explain it... baroque melodies just seem like theyre trying to communicate some emotional experience.. or something. more than any other style, at least for me, the voices of baroque music tell stories.

You know it's a paraphrase by Liszt, right?

[swagmaster420x]

You know it's a paraphrase by Liszt, right?

ya, but the main theme is baroque

[mussels_with_nutella]

I agree with most of you that Baroque music can be emotional (why not? there are lots of examples).
But still it's not Baroque's personality and temper... is it? So it is not a valid answer for me.
However, I found Bach_is_awesome's and outin's answers quite interesting.
Firstly, outin's.

I really don't get it either, I see most of Bach's keyboard works as intellectual exercise, not as music that would in anyway touch me. And still I am a big fan of Baroque music...

It's a curious contrast. I love mathematics, so it may come in analogy, perhaps. However... music is so different from mathematics for me... in purpose and structure... why put inteligence in something that could be loving? From this question arise personal answers, I suppose, and as different as Oustin's and mine. That's why, as well, music from Romanticism is for me absolute music (pun intended )

Finally, Bach_is_awesome's.
I'm just surprised one can despise Romantic music. Why? (Defining, just for me, romantic music as that music that turn your heart into ascent, make you feel terror and oppression, and suddenly bright happiness, relief, ecstasy)
Secondly, I didn't know Bach's choral music was more emotional, thanks for the info! (unfortunately I, like Oustin, despise choral music (except from one or two, like the 'fantasy choral something' from Beethoven hahaha).
And thirdly and more important for me, what is in his heavy counter point? I mean, when I hear counter point, heavy counter point, my head hurts and I find it terribly void of feelings and... unnecesary pain xD what, specifically, do you enjoy by listening to those intertwined melodies and discrete sounds?

P.S.: I didn't get the 'emotonal' sentence hahaha I am neither native English nor have Bach's tonalities knowledge, if the setence meaned something relate to it If you can explain it to me, i would appreciate it!

[minona]

I love mathematics, so it may come in analogy, perhaps. However... music is so different from mathematics for me... in purpose and structure... why put inteligence in something that could be loving?

Love is intelligence too, but why do you feel everything must be only so obviously about that? Carpentary isn't just about that, for example.

Secondly, I didn't know Bach's choral music was more emotional, thanks for the info!

=1h9m52s

Buddhists believe in trancending (not rejecting) the animal emotions, that all passions and desires are destructive if not channelled. I think many devout Christians also feel this way. Bach was channeling non-verbal ideas, not only about love but about the natural order expressed in sound.

He was trying to get to what he believed was the 'holy source' (a devine knowledge) revealing it in patterns of sound. For him, it was all love and worship, not merely about the everyday but about the eternal.

And thirdly and more important for me, what is in his heavy counter point? I mean, when I hear counter point, heavy counter point, my head hurts and I find it terribly void of feelings and... unnecesary pain

That is very strange to me. Counterpoint is extremely beautiful in the same way as structures in nature (leaf and tree growth patterns, anatomy, etc) and textiles found all over the world.

In addition, how do you explain why the romantic composers you enjoy revered Bach's music? In any case, the romantic composers were well-versed in the art of counterpoint. I don't know what this idea is you have in your head, but I feel it is not entirely about what you are hearing.

[swagmaster420x]

I love mathematics, so it may come in analogy, perhaps. However... music is so different from mathematics for me... in purpose and structure... why put inteligence in something that could be loving? From this question arise personal answers, I suppose, and as different as Oustin's and mine. That's why, as well, music from Romanticism is for me absolute music (pun intended )

You don't deserve to love math if you don't understand that math is inherently beautiful. It makes perfect sense for music, something meant to be beautiful, to include an element like math, which is beautiful.

i also definitely agree with mimona's comment about counterpoints being beautiful in terms of structure

for me, baroque is the style of music that is most melodic, and im using melodic to describe it because my vocabulary is too limited; what i mean is that in baroque music I can hear voices more distinct that those in any other form of music. for me, it's like the music is recounting a story

[hardy_practice]

It was no coincidence that WF, Bach's eldest son and greatest pupil, majored in mathematics at Uni.

[mussels_with_nutella]

I think that in the last comments I have found the answer I am not thinking on it... i'm sure.
I feel like Minona is right in his ideas concerning Bach's purposes. I knew that Bach composed for a church in life, and that he was religious. But I couldn't understand why, then, his music. Now do I Thank you very much!
I will listen to Bach with a different attention I hope I enjoy it! Thanks!
By the way, really charming way of writing that of yours, minona
I will watch that documentary as soon as possible Thank you very much, I have no other words in my vocabulary for thanking, but i would say it. You may have solved one of what it was becoming an eternal seek for the "obvious for everyone but not for me" answer 

[4greatkeyboards]

In my humble opinion piano music is built up mainly this way:

Bach is where all serious students should start. Then we progress.

* Bach
    * Mozart
       * Beethoven
           * Liszt
              * Chopin
                 * Tchaikovsky
                     * Rachmaninoff

Each composer learned from all the forbearers.

As I studied the Rach 3 concerto I could not help but notice the similarities to the
Chopin 4th Ballade.
 

[awesom_o]

You've left out some extremely important composers in your list there!

[cometear]

Bach is ok in my opinion. His works are definitely great to improve technique, and theory but I find that his keyboard works are very raw and lacking most likely because of the instrument of the time. I do enjoy Bach's violin concerti and string works but not very much his keyboard works. I can say the same for most composers of his time. My favorite era would have to be the Classical era. I enjoy works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. I do like Romantic music at times and a very select few pieces of Contemporary music.

[outin]

In my humble opinion piano music is built up mainly this way:

Bach is where all serious students should start. Then we progress.

* Bach
    * Mozart
       * Beethoven
           * Liszt
              * Chopin
                 * Tchaikovsky
                     * Rachmaninoff

Each composer learned from all the forbearers.

 

But there's only ONE composer on your líst that I even want to play... So why would I bother?

If this is you perception of piano music I find it quite narrow.

[hardy_practice]

Bach is ok in my opinion. His works are definitely great to improve technique, and theory but I find that his keyboard works are very raw and lacking most likely because of the instrument of the time.

Then use your instrument of this time and put it in!

[cometear]

Then use your instrument of this time and put it in!

I do use my piano but I still find his music not as enjoyable as later composers.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

I have a feeling we're not gonna get along too well...

[thorn]

Taking that list, the problem with Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin is that there's a long tradition in which they are considered "great composers". Due to this, a lot of music teachers and institutions treat it as a given that people will enjoy their music.

If we introduce people to Bach by playing his music to them, lending them recordings, telling them key points (but not the entire history) of the man's contribution to music, then they will approach him with an open mind.

If we introduce people to Bach by telling them "This is a great composer. You will like his music. You are a bad pianist if you do not play his preludes and fugues", then they will go one of two ways:

1) They will obsess over Bach to keep up appearances but never have anything of true substance to give to performing his works, or to give when explaining to others why his music is great.

2) They will shut down and hate the man. Again this is a shallow hate which they will never really be able to justify, they will simply hate him because they are "supposed" to like him and they disagree with that notion. Nothing to do with the man or the music.

The same is applicable to Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin. Of the others on that list, there are plenty of people who will quite happily assert their dislike of Liszt. I don't think Rachmaninoff is old enough to bear the same weight of tradition as the others and as beautiful as his orchestral music is, I was never aware of Tchaikovsky's piano music being on par with the others on the list (except for the 1st concerto).

[fnork]

Am I the only the only teenager whos favorite artist is bach?

Oh no, don't worry - the baroque kids have been around for a while: