Back to ripping some CDs finally, but sticking with the Bach box set in hopes of finishing it up this weekend and putting it away. Plus it is Good Friday, and while I am in no way a practicing christian, there is something I like about throwing on a recording of one of the Bach passions every year. So I am hoping I can get to those discs after I finish up these last few discs of cantatas.

I’ve tried to alternate between the two Bach passions every years since my Bach class at Berkeley with John Butt. I know both of those pieces pretty well, and there is something very enjoyable about how dramatic these pieces can be, and also how beautifully melodic. So I’m not sure why I am so surprised that the cantatas are as well. I haven’t listened to all the cantata discs by any means, but I have been having lots of fun this past week throwing random ones on. These are pieces that Bach basically wrote as part of his weekly duties to the town church, and were performed by the town’s musicians. And the writing isn’t dumbed down… these must have been some pretty talented musicians that got to work with Bach in his church. And the vocal writing is just beautiful. The passions are really the closest thing we have to a Bach opera, but the cantatas show a lyrical side of Bach that can be overlooked if all you listen to is his instrumental music.

My friend Don (also a composer) and I were talking just the other day about ‘melodic’ music, and were in agreement that writing great melodies has always been difficult. Some composers had no problem with this and would just turn them out like it was nothing. Mozart was like this especially – so much so that sometimes it seems like he would create a beautiful melodic line that wouldn’t get developed… sometimes just to connect two sections, and that was it. He could afford to – there were more waiting. Beethoven struggled melodically, and often turned to motivic development instead. Not that there aren’t some great Beethoven melodies, but in general once he hit a good one, he worked it and got as much out of it as possible. Today, I think most composers just don’t know how to deal with it (myself included). I fall back on texture and dramatic tension, but there isn’t much I write that is singable… and when there is, I don’t think it reaches the level of even the lowest level of acceptable melody that Mozart would consider. And I know this, and find other ways to compose. So it is really quite amazing to hear these weekly works by Bach… this isn’t the academic Bach (that put together ‘Art of the Fugue’, nor is it the flashy Bach of the Brandenburg Concertos (applying for a job). This is the Bach that sat down every week to compose music for his church. It wasn’t entertainment, but it was for the people he lived with, and I get the sense that they appreciated the work he did. What a gig.