Bach Organ Works and Some Lyrics

On this website I’m going to;

• play and briefly describe some of Bach’s organ works
• play and briefly describe some of Bach’s works that are not for organ
• include a piece that Mozart wrote as a tribute to Bach and some excerpts from Handel
• include some lyrics inspired by the Bach melodies
• on my 50th anniversary of learning the organ explain how I happened to learn the organ and include some other musical highlights
• include some “musical” quotations

Plus, in a way this website is for children but in a way it’s for adults; way too much for one website, but, I hope you’ll find something you’ll enjoy reading and listening to….. I’ve been able to put together a dream team of guest musicians so on that note (musical note?) here is the title page.

Morton Hyams, organ, keyboard and original lyrics        

Guest Artists

Lisa Hadley, mezzo soprano
Jacob Cooper, baritone
Débo Ray, vocalist
Herman Johnson, saxophone
Elbert Foster, trombone and vocals

Note: I had the chance to play the “swallow’s nest” organ in the cathedral in Freiburg im Breisgau. It was hundreds of feet above the ground with no barriers. Not a good time to slip!

 

INTRODUCTION

It’s (music) something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.

Billy Joel

Hello,

Thanks for reading and listening. I’d like to start out by praising and thanking music itself. It’s great to sing, play, listen, dance to music or perhaps make up your own music. I used to play piano at events, especially weddings and sometimes people would come up and say that they used to play an instrument and they’re sorry they gave it up.  I would always tell them the same thing, that it’s not too late! My daughter Sandra was very good at the clarinet and she played a little guitar. Now she’s busy working as a Nurse Practitioner at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I hope that someday when she has more time she plays an instrument again.

I hope when you listen to a new piece of music you listen seriously and give it a chance to see if you like it. And I’ll try to follow my own advice. When I first heard Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos I thought, what’s the fuss? It took several times listening to them before I began to love those pieces.

Bach is everything. A symphony is no joke.

*Johanness Brahms

*Brahms was always revising his music. It took him 14 years to write his first symphony. But all four symphonies are gorgeous and his Fugue for organ in a flat minor is amazingly nice. Also I have a similar thought; playing Bach on the organ is no joke…it’s still hard!

My favorite composer/musician is Bach. I want to focus on his organ pieces but also include some other pieces he wrote and a few pieces by other composers. Also this might sound odd, but his music inspired me to write some lyrics. More than with other composers, his music sounds wonderful when it’s played in ways you don’t expect. I heard a wonderful interpretation of one of Bach’s Flute Sonatas played on the steel drums in a NYC subway station. When I was in high school I loved playing a record album (in vinyl) titled Jazz Loves Bach. It was played by a jazz quartet with Newton Wayland on the piano and it featured two Bach Flute Sonatas. I am pleased to say, it’s on the internet so you can listen to it and see if you like it! If you listen to the selections I’ve recorded I’ll be flattered, but I’ll also try to give some more suggestions of things that you can listen to. I’ve been finding it’s very easy to look up things on the phone. It’s even easier than using a regular sized computer!

 

How I Happened to Learn the Organ

It’s about 50 years since I first played the organ so I thought it would be a good time to reminisce a little bit and tell you how I happened to play the organ.

When I grew up Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts were a sensation. It was so long ago, the first television episodes were in black and white. You can see and hear some of the episodes on the internet, along with a wonderful introduction by Whoopi Goldberg. 

Leonard Bernstein was the conductor of the New York Philharmonic so of course it featured that orchestra. But he also talked about popular music. I remember an episode where he talked about the theme song from a spy series called Secret Agent Man. He explained how a particular chord made the music more exciting. And he was the composer of West Side Story, a musical based on Romeo and Juliet. Like Romeo and Juliet it was a love story but the two gangs were from NYC.

On one of the television episodes there was a guest artist, a sixteen year old pianist, Andre Watts. He played the most difficult music for piano, a piano concerto by Liszt. (In a piano concerto the piano is featured and the orchestra plays too.) I had the chance to hear him in a concert and talk with him after the concert. By the way, he was very nice and he is still playing concerts. At that time I thought that I might be like him, a concert pianist too.

I had a chance to play one movement from a Mozart concerto at Boston Latin School night at the Pops with Arthur Fiedler conducting. It was very exciting but I was afraid I would forget some of the music (the concert pianists were expected to memorize the music) The stage was brightly lit so when I looked out at the audience their faces looked pale, a little bit ghostly. I was less sure I wanted to be a concert pianist like Andre Watts.

I lived in the Fenway so I was able to walk to the main branch of the Boston Public Library and borrow records. The German organist, Helmut Walcha, by the way, he was blind, had beautiful recordings of Bach organ works, but I hadn’t thought of learning the organ. You can also find his recordings on the internet. I majored in music at Brandeis and they had a wonderful organ by a local builder, Fritz Noack. There was a senior who was always practicing but when he graduated I’d have the organ to myself. Sometimes I’d hide in the building so I could play after it was closed. At Brandeis I had the chance to take a few lessons from Yuko Hayashi.

My third year I had the chance to study music at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth and take lessons from the Welsh organist Royston Havard. I’m proud to say I was a co-winner of the Charles Clements Organ Prize. I wrote to Helmut Walcha to see if I could study with him but he wrote back with a polite refusal. Studying with him would have been a challenge because I understand I would have had to memorize every piece in Bach’s Orgelbuchlein, over 50 pieces! I worked, though that’s a little inaccurate, I didn’t get paid at a German organ factory. I worked with someone who crafted the pipes. He encouraged me to go to his country, Holland and play the Schnitger organs.

It’s probably much harder to do that now; at that time you could go to the church, find the person who had “der schlussel” the key, pay a little fee and get to play the instruments. Built three hundred years ago, in Bach’s time, those were the nicest organs I’ve ever played. Each stop (particular sound you could play by itself or in combination with other stops) sounded like an orchestral instrument. Incidentally “pulling out all the stops” means that the organ is at its loudest; all the pipes are sounding!

Groningen (in Holland) has a particularly famous organ and like Amsterdam it has canals. By then I had run out of money but it would take me at least a week to receive the money my parents were wiring me. I met someone who said I could stay in his houseboat. He was going somewhere else. I was sleeping and someone was opening the hatch and coming down the ladder. Fortunately it was just the landlord hoping to collect the rent. I hope by now you’re anxious to hear some music!

 

 

Bach Organ Works; Little Fugue in G Minor and Toccata and Fugue In D Minor

Bach was famous for fugues and the Little Fugue (for organ) is the piece that is most often used to demonstrate a fugue. So why not start with that piece!

I noticed a book I had, Fugues for Beginners. Despite the title and the fact that the book is only fifteen pages long writing a fugue doesn’t seem that simple. The book was intended to prepare composition students for an examination in which they had to be able to take the melody they were given and turn it into a fugue. When I was in Wales I don’t remember writing any fugues. But in classes that were called Palestrina Counterpoint I had to be able to write in the style of Palestrina, an earlier Italian composer.

If you count the number of white and black notes in one octave (or scale) you’ll find there are twelve notes. In the two books of The Well Tempered Clavier Bach wrote a staggering 48 preludes (opening pieces and 48 fugues; eight on each note). The first is the most famous but each one is a gem.

Detectives analyze the evidence; let’s analyze the music! The Little Fugue starts out with the main tune (the subject) in the highest voice. Then in the next lower voice; the alto, the melody reappears but it starts and continues on another note. Meanwhile the first part plays new music; the countersubject. There is a kind of interlude in which you don’t hear the main melody. Then the melody reappears starting on the same note but it is in the lowest part, the bass, so the music sounds lower. Leonard Bernstein has an episode in which he explains how making a fugue is like building a Ferris wheel. I wasn’t able to guess but perhaps you can guess and then look up the clever answer to see if you got it right. 

I made up some words to the Little Fugue to help you track when the main tune comes back. Perhaps you can count the number of times. I’ve tried to make the words logical because this fugue is logical but, I have to admit, the words are a little silly.

There’s no doubt about it, the Little Fugue is definitely an incredibly logical, well organized piece of music. What if the next piece was more exciting and spontaneous and very dramatic? I have the perfect piece; if not Bach’s most famous piece of music then certainly his most famous organ work, The Toccata and Fugue in d minor. I was looking up the piece on the internet, but what was this I’m reading? The author of the article was quite sure that this piece wasn’t by Bach. Someone else had put Bach’s name on the music because he thought it would sell better, and the author thought the real composer was Fischer! Perhaps I should contact Ping Pong Productions and see if Josh Gates of Expeditions Unknown wants to take on this musical mystery. But wait a minute; maybe we can try to solve it. It’s true that some pieces attributed to Bach at a later time were thought not to be by him. I have no expertise in examining the sources and the manuscripts so I can’t argue that, one way or the other. But if another piece by Bach sounds like that toccata and fugue that makes it more likely that the music is by Bach. Do you think that’s a good idea? I think the first section of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue sounds a little like that toccata and fugue. What do you think? I only heard one piece by Fischer but you could look up one of his pieces, though there aren’t that many available on the internet and see if you think the music sounds similar or is as nice as Bach’s (I haven’t conceded yet) much more famous piece selection. Another argument that Bach did write this piece is, so many of the pieces he wrote were unique, even to him. I can’t think of another piece that sounds like the Fantasia. (The one before the last.) Let’s try to solve this mystery!

When you hear the famous opening notes perhaps you’re not filled with dread and fear but perhaps you’ll think of Halloween, scary movies and maybe even the piece entitled “Thriller” from Michael Jackson’s great album, Thriller. When I played the piece recently I thought that while every moment wasn’t necessarily ominous every moment of the piece reminded me of a musical “fantasie”; something fantastic was always happening and you never knew what would happen next.

This piece was included in very old movies starting in 1933; The movies were in black and white and sound had just been invented. A few years earlier live musicians including organists provided the music. That gives me the opportunity to thank Roger Gietzen for giving me the chance to play Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid on the wonderful theater organ at a very patriotic location, The Lincoln Theater at Mt. Vernon, Washington.

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

Leopold Stokowski

Getting back to the music, you know you’re at the fugue section of the piece when you hear the first three notes that then alternate with the a; a g a f a e a d a c# a d a e a f a … One final thought on this piece; in Walt Disney’s Fantasia Mickey Mouse conducts this piece but the actual conductor and arranger is Stokowski. Fantasia has fabulous musical selections and fabulous artistry by the cartoonists/animators.

Bach Chorale Preludes; Freedom and I Have a Dream

Music is the province (the one special thing) that can touch the heart.

J.S. Bach

I say to you today, my friends…..I still have a dream

Martin Luther King Jr.

The next two pieces are about freedom and the dream for a better world. Though the first piece (a chorale from the Orgelbuchlein), was based on two hymns that happened to have the same melody; God is Good, and God’s Son has Come, the music is sincere and hopeful and I thought of the wonderful words of Martin Luther King from his “I Have a Dream” speech. In other words I changed the original lyrics. But the Bach’s Orgelbuchlein chorale seems to express MLK’s sentiment. Incidentally I had the chance to hear MLK at Temple Israel in the Riverway in Boston. I was just a few rows away from him. He had already given his I Have a Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial and he had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest person to win that prize up to then. Stevie Wonder and his song Happy Birthday helped make MLK’s birthday a national holiday.

God’s Son has Come

Let’s look at what’s happening in the music. In the music there is a canon; a repeated melody or round; just like Frere Jacques. One voice goes four times as fast as the melody and Bach specifies the trumpet stop for one of the melodies. Even though the piece is short and I’ve played it many times for some reason the piece is still tricky to play.

The next piece is also a chorale, but it’s quite a bit longer. An Wasserflussen, By the Waters of Babylon is based on a hymn and, the hymn is based on Psalm 137. The Psalms (songs of praise) are one section of the part of the bible sometimes called The Old Testament. This psalm tells the story of the Jewish people/the Israelites when they were captive in Babylon. They put away their harps and refused to sing the happy songs their captors wanted them to sing; perhaps to torment them. All of this took place about 550 years before they started the calendar we use today, about 2,700 years ago. About 1,000 years before that those same people were captive in Egypt, inspiring the famous spiritual, Let My People Go.

 

Wasserflussen; By the Water’s of Babylon

Bach was invited to play the organ at a church in Hamburg. For more than two hours he improvised (made up) the music and he played the An Wasserflussen chorale for half an hour. The old organist at that church in Hamburg was astonished. He told Bach, “You revived the old custom of improvising on this hymn.” The minister and hymn writer Martin Luther (yes MLK was named after him) included this hymn in one of his hymn collections. Clearly this was a popular hymn in Germany. And it also seems clear that the hymn/psalm was sympathetic to the Jewish people who were captive in Babylon. Yet these same people were treated extremely badly in Germany, not just in the 1930s and 40’s but also in Martin Luther’s time. In this country as well as in many other countries I think you have to agree, on many occasions people have been treated unfairly. I can only think of one response/answer to this problem. When one person or a group of people are treated unfairly people need to speak up, try to help and, try to make things better.

Music from Bach’s First English Suite and Bach’s “Jazz” Improvisations

Bach’s first wife died and he remarried. Bach was in his thirties and Anna Magdalena was only twenty. Bach gave her a wonderful wedding gift, The English and French Suites for harpsichord (the most popular keyboard at that time.) The historians tell us that it wasn’t that important that one group of pieces was called English and one French. They both consisted of dance movements and the dance movements were mostly French. Probably to show her how to play the music he has a section titled (in French) how to play the “agreements” (trills and turns.) However, it turns out to be much more than that. This rare instructional footnote makes it clear that Bach wants the people playing his music to take a creative approach! Bach is not just demonstrating how to play the trills; the music he’s written out is more like a jazz improvisation or, a variation on the original music. (On the repeat I play the new more complicated version and I’m using a different sound on the organ.) The title of this piece is Sarabande, a slow Spanish dance. After that there are two bourees. The first is in a minor key. It is assertive and very rhythmic. Perhaps you might say the music is lusty and a little earthy. All at once there is music in major key. It is very royal and I thought I would use the trumpets for this piece. Could Bach have been thinking about an event at King Arthur’s Court, a celebration by Robin Hood, a coronation? There was one German (originally) composer who did have his music played at British coronations. He was born In Halle, Germany in 1685, the same year Bach was born and he became famous in England. His name was George Frideric Handel.

How Bach Almost Met Handel and the Messiah

Bach tried to meet him when he was visiting Halle, his birthplace. Prince Leopold from Cothen (where Bach wrote the Brandenburg Concertos) lent him a horse. Bach was only 25 miles away. But they never met. Perhaps Handel wasn’t interested in meeting Bach

King George II was a big Handel fan. He started the custom of standing up when the Hallelujah chorus from the Messiah was played. You’ll recognize this piece! George III was also a Handel fan. This was the king in the Revolutionary war who had a starring role in Hamilton. He requested music by Handel for his coronation and since that time that same music has been played at every British coronation.

Excerpt from the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah

Sinfonia in A from the Three Part Inventions

I don’t know what Bach was thinking of when he wrote the Sinfonia in A major but it reminds me of a perfect, perhaps you might say sublime conversation. Only three people are, as it were, speaking, but they all seem to be commenting on the last thing that the other person said. What are they speaking about, love, ice cream? Perhaps you’d like to guess. I’m not saying that this has to be your favorite piece of music. But if you do like it what would be your title for the piece? Incidentally some of the other sinfonias have a completely different mood. One of the sinfonias, I think is very sad.

Bach’s Quodlibet and Theme from The Goldberg Variations

In the Goldberg Variations the Quodlibet is the last piece before the first piece is repeated. The first piece is called an aria and it is the theme, the main tune; every other piece is a variation. There is a famous story about these variations. The Count couldn’t sleep so he commissioned Bach to write some variations for his harpsichordist. And, his name was Goldberg. The variations must have helped him sleep because the Count sent Bach a gold piece, the most money he was ever paid for any piece he wrote. The famous Bach scholar from Harvard Christian Wolff said that couldn’t have happened. I think he wouldn’t have said that unless he was sure. Professor Wolff thought that Bach might have been competing with Handel to see who could write the best variations. He also said he liked Glenn Gould’s performance of this piece on the piano. That’s actually one of the most famous piano performances of all time! When you play that piece on the organ it allows the performer and listener to hear the parts more clearly, because the organ makes it possible to play at least some of the parts with different sounds.

Glenn Gould also wrote a piece called, “So You Want to write a fugue,… you have the nerve to write a fugue, so go ahead.” The music sounds pompous but actually it’s humorous. I tried writing a fuge and found out it’s quite difficult. Glenn Gould’s fugue was recorded by the famous Julliard (string) Quartet with famous singers. Robert Koff was a founding member of the Julliard Quartet and a professor at Brandeis. Even non music majors told me he was their favorite professor and, he gave me my only chance to play one of the Brandenburgs (on harpsichord).

The quodlibet in the Goldberg Variations is the last variation (the 32nd) before the theme is repeated. When I hear it I think of how it seems to be expressing lofty thoughts yet at the same time there’s something about it that’s good humoured. After all those variations Bach seems to be winking and smiling and saying, “In the end haven’t we had a marvelous time.”

The title of the  second movement of the E flat Flute Sonata is Siciliano. One dictionary defines the siciliano as a dance with a mournful melody. This siciliano is in a minor key but I don’t think it’s sad. Though, my wife did think it was melancholy. To me it’s just very passionate. I’m thinking of those lovely latin melodies like Besame Mucho that are also in a minor key. In Jazz Loves Bach when Fred Buda plays this piece on the drums using latin percussion instruments it sounds to me like that’s the perfect way to play this piece. I’m dedicating the lyrics, the words I made up for this song to my wife Lynn, We met at a dance and both her parents come from Calabria. That s on the tip of the “boot” of Italy. It’s only about 300 miles to Sicily but, to get there you have to take a ferry.

 

Siciliano, featuring Débo Ray

If I don’t have my coffee I’ll feel like an old goat.

J.S. Bach

I tried to make that piece into a love song, but Bach wasn’t famous for his love songs. If you want to hear love songs with words you have to look to the works of Bach’s fellow g.o.a.t.s.. I must admit it seems a little odd to call these great musicians goats. Perhaps it’s only proper to use that expression when you’re talking about athletes. That brings to mind something that happened to me a few days ago. I was walking on the Needham golf course and I saw a goat. Sandra’s friend, Nate told me that Tom Brady was the quintessential goat (greatest of all time). No I didn’t see Tom Brady. He wouldn’t be playing golf in the Needham golf club. They weren’t sure he’d be a worthy member but he was finally admitted to Brookline’s Country Club. Actually if he is playing golf right now it’s probably not in Massachusetts! It wasn’t Tiger Woods, it wasn’t Aly Raisman though I keep passing the street that was named after her. And my daughter told me she saw her father and he was wearing an Aly Raisman line of clothing. She knew it had to be him. The goat I was talking about was a real goat. I’ll include the picture in case you don’t believe me.

Beethoven tells you what it‘s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe.

Douglas Adams

I seem to have been distracted from my main point, the love songs of Bach’s fellow greatest of all time composers. They were all from either Germany or Austria and they all lived at least 175 years ago. I think you’ll have to agree, it’s a pretty good list! They are, the other two b’s; Beethoven and Brahms plus Mozart. All of those other composers wrote many love songs. Beethoven wrote Für Elise for his girlfriend Elise. Her sculpture is in the Beethoven house in Bonn, Germany.

Two famous composers fell in love with Clara Schumann; Schumann and Brahms. Not only was she beautiful and a skilled composer; she was a world famous concert pianist and she could play their music for adoring audiences. Brahms and Clara collaborated on some pieces. Also Brahms wrote the Liebeslieder (love songs) for two pianists and a four part chorus. I had the chance to conduct some of these pieces when I was a student teaching at Newton South High School. Mozart’s wife Constance was an opera singer and there are many love songs in his operas, including La Ci Darem di Mano; Give me your Hand. Also a slow movement from one of Mozart’s piano concertos became the love theme in the Swedish movie Elvira Madigan.

David Luther a friend from NYC currently living in Arizona called me and I happened to be practicing the organ. I played him the second Bouree. He liked the trumpet sounds in that piece so that gave me an idea. I’d try to turn the concluding movement of the E Major Flute Sonata into a kind of trumpet concerto.

3rd movement E Major Flute Sonata

The Flute Sonatas and so many other great pieces were written in Cothen. What was it about Cothen that inspired Bach to write all that great music when he was working there? His employer, Prince Leopold gave Bach twice as much money as his predecessor and, the palace had a beautiful performing space; the Hall of Mirrors…..

Cothen Hall of Mirrors

In Dir Ist Freude, In Thee Is Joy from the Orgelbuchlein

I thought I’d conclude this section with another organ piece from the Orgelbuchlein. This piece, In Thee is Joy was written for a service on a New Year. I hope those people who heard this marvelous piece were appreciative!  It opens with a distinctive melody in the pedal (it’s played by the feet.) Toward the end a new melody that goes down in a scale and has some spectacular trills appears. But, the old melody also comes back.

Addenda; Bach’s Remarkable Piece, The Fantasie in G Major

The next piece has a middle section that is quite long and unusual. I thought perhaps it might be a bit more difficult to listen to. So I’m putting it in an addenda section if you’d like a listening challenge. Also I think the Mozart Gigue, the last piece is also unusual. It doesn’t sound like any other Mozart piece. I’m curious to know what you think of that piece. 

I had some ideas for words to the Fantasia but of course I can’t say I know what Bach was thinking. To me the middle section sounds like music that would be appropriate on Thanksgiving. In particular I thought it was expressing thanks for all the beautiful nature we all have the chance to enjoy. I thought of a piece by Handel that has exactly the same theme.

Ombra Mai Fu is the very first song from Handel’s opera Xerxes. In the song, an aria, the singer thanks the plant for the shade that it provides (it must have been a very hot day!)

This song and other arias from Handel operas have been recorded by superstar singers including Kathleen Battle, Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli and Jessye Norman. And, on the internet. Handel wasn’t only a composer, he was also a producer (like a Broadway producer.) He had to find the top talent and sell a lot of tickets! The oratorios (like The Messiah) were in English. But the English audiences wanted their operas to be in Italian. It’s a bit of an odd situation. Handel was German but he was working in England. And, he was competing with opera composers who actually were Italian. Again, Handel was competing against Italian opera composers but over half the operas they chose were by Handel!

Handel wrote many operas, but out of all the operas Ombra Mai Fu, also known as Handel’s Largo became the most famous song/aria. I’m putting an extract from this aria and the Fantasia back to back so you have the chance to hear the contrasting musical styles.

The Fantasia is instrumental, Bach gave no indication about what or whether there was some kind of story line he had in mind. But there is a piece that does have a story line. How do we know? Because, there are sentences in between the movements in which Bach explained exactly what he had in mind. The title of that piece is, The Departure of The Dearly Beloved Brother. I had some ideas about words and Don Reid came up with some wonderful lyrics. Bach was an orphan so it was especially important to try to persuade his favorite older brother not to leave. In other words, this piece was autobiographical.

The last piece in this little short “musical” is a Fugue on the Sound of the Posthorn, the instrument that the coachmen in the mail coaches play; I’m sorry, I gave away the ending. Again it’s like an 18th century musical!

My ideas for a storyline for the Fantasia are as follows. The first section seems like a dance. Or, perhaps two animals are chasing each other. I also had the sense that, perhaps, two people were competing as in the Gershwin song, Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better. The second section is so long, but so beautiful; it’s a bit like a run on sentence! To me the long second section is showing appreciation. But if that is the case is Bach appreciating ice cream or beautiful nature? Who knows?

When I played this piece a member of the congregation thought the last section sounded like waves. My idea is, the last section sounds like someone trying to figure out how to escape from a cave or perhaps crack a secret code. But, in either case finally he or she succeeds at the very end of this long piece! It seems as if this Fantasia could be the soundtrack for a short movie; perhaps an animated movie. Nate, Sandra’s friend knows a lot about movies. Perhaps he knows a movie that fits this sequence. And,perhaps a reader out there would be interested in putting together an animated sequence.

 Mozart’s Leipzig Gigue in G Major

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff. Frank Zappa

Mozart visited one of the churches where Bach was both the organist and the  Music Director in Leipzig. (He played for more than one at the same time.) And, Bach wrote some of his greatest music while he lived in Leipzig. Mozart looked at the music for one of Bach’s choral pieces then as a tribute to Bach as he was leaving he scribbled out a gigue.

 In almost all of Bach’s keyboard suites, the gigue was the last piece. (The other pieces were also dance movements.) Mozart left the music on the guestbook of the person who at that time was organist in that Leipzig church. How was Mozart able to think of such a complicated piece in such a short time? And at seven years old he played piano for the most famous rulers in the world at that time. He even had a chance to play with someone who at a later time would become notorious, Marie Antoinette. At that time she was also just a child about the same age. That brings to mind Roger Sessions. He graduated from Harvard when he was just eighteen years old and when he was in his twenties wrote some chorales for organ. Those pieces sound like they were inspired by Bach.  The music is striking and probably, it’s unlike anything else you ever heard.

Closing Thoughts

After I recorded some of Bach’s Flute Sonatas I thought of what Brian Williams said about Steve Schmidt, “He has a way with words.”  That reminded me of how Bach has a way with notes! There’s a story about how there was a competition between France and Germany to see who had the best organist, Bach represented Germany and Marchand France. On the day of the competition they wondered what happened to Marchand. It turns out he had heard Bach practicing and, evidently, he left on the next available stagecoach. 

Perhaps you can celebrate Bach’s music next year by going to Boston’s Lutheran church and hear a wonderful organist, Jonathan Wessler as well as other organists at the annual Bach birthday celebration.

…..Play on, play on. William Shakespeare

When I hear the middle section of Bach’s Fantasia I think Bach was being appreciative and thankful. And, I don’t think that’s a wild guess. And I’m thankful Bach wrote all that wonderful music. As Bach said, “I worked hard”

Best of luck in all your endeavors, especially your creative ones. And, whether you sing, play, arrange, compose or listen, I hope you enjoy the music!

——-

Herman Johnson, saxophone has played for the campaign of the first President Bush, The Super Bowl, and at Boston’s Esplanade. At Berklee he taught Branford Marsalis, Kevin Eubanks and me!

Elbert Cooper was my music student years ago in the Boston Schools. When he taught in the Boston Schools he came up with a wonderful idea; present concerts that combined student and professional talent. Why can’t that be done more often!  I played this past Christmas with Elbert in a gospel service in Woonsocket, R.I..  And this past summer Elbert organized a street festival near Franklin Park that included a pianist who used to play with the Fifth Dimension and a singer, his talented daughter Mercedes.

Debo Ray has played in Boston at Scullers, the Regatta bar and for MFA’s Juneteenth celebration. She has sung with Esmeralda Spalding and Bobby McFerrin and Terri Lyne Carrington at locations including Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.  Through a program at Berklee School of Music she has given master classes in India, China as well as Africa. Debo tells me that her friends call her both Debo and Deborah. And, she pronounces Debora with an “oh” sound. That happens to be the French pronunciation. She also tells me that for every person, their own name is the most important word.     

Lisa Hadley has sung for the High Holydays at Temple E-Manuel, Marblehead for many years. She has perfect pitch (she knows the actual note) and she’s a fabulous sight reader. She has sung for Monadnock Music and at Kings Chapel, Boston. The Music Director at King’s Chapel, the Boston composer Daniel Pinkham has dedicated several of his songs to her.

Jacob Cooper is versatile in many styles. He sings at the Church of the Advent in Boston and is a sought after opera singer.

Michael Opton is not just a web designer. He is my tennis partner and with his wife Susan provides fine gardening and landscaping design. Their company is named Terrascapes.