The Best Classical Music To Listen To While Studying

by Emily E. Hogstad, Interlude

© us.123rf.com/

Whether you’re a newbie or a lifelong connoisseur, all classical music fans agree: some pieces work better as background music than others…especially when we’re studying! A Mahler symphony is powerful in the concert hall, but in the study hall, its grandiosity and mood changes might prove distracting.

So that begs the question: what are the best pieces of classical music to listen to when you hit the books? We all have our favorites, but here are eight of mine. Keep in mind that this is not a traditional list, and many of the pieces here push the boundaries of the traditional definition of “classical music.”

Soundtrack from “Koyaanisqatsi” by Philip Glass. Music written in the minimalist style appears several times on this list. Many people find minimalism’s trademark repeated rhythms, gradual tempo changes, and tonal language helpful to listen to while concentrating. All of these elements are on full display in Philip Glass’ soundtrack for the 1984 experimental film Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance. The music serves as the main aural feature of the film since there is no dialogue. Instead, the story is told through shots of landscapes, military installations, and cities, with Glass’ mesmerizing soundtrack playing for nearly the whole movie.

Sinfoniae Sacrae by Giovanni Gabrieli. Gabrieli was born in the 1550s and died in 1612. Despite the fact that he lived so long ago, there is something fresh and engaging about his compositional language, straddling eras between Renaissance and Baroque. The Sinfoniae Sacrae are rhythmic and upbeat, with just enough contrast to keep things interesting!

Soundtrack from “The Village” by James Newton Howard. “The Village” may not have been a huge box office success, but its haunting soundtrack is transporting, twisting through wistful moods like the view from a kaleidoscope. Superstar violinist Hilary Hahn is a featured soloist, lending the music some serious classical music credentials. 

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Phrygian Gates by John Adams. Phrygian Gates shares important hallmarks with the Glass soundtrack mentioned above. It was written in 1978-79 and features a rhythmic, shimmering solo piano musing away for almost half an hour. As the notes spin, they cycle through a variety of different keys, providing interest. The result is mesmerizing, and perfect for getting into a study groove.

Soundtrack from “The Fountain” by Clint Mansell. Like “The Village” soundtrack, the soundtrack from “The Fountain” may not be classical music strictly speaking, but it does feature well-respected performers from the classical music scene. Members of the Kronos Quartet, an American string quartet that specializes in new music, perform along with the band Mogwai. The result is an overwhelmingly melancholic score that is both dreamy and thought-provoking.

Trois Gymnopédies by Erik Satie. Composer Erik Satie began publishing these three short piano pieces in 1888. They are especially striking for how they balance deep emotion with stasis (a stasis created in large part by the recurring notes in the bass). It comes as no surprise that these deeply affecting pieces have been commandeered for use in modern pop culture, including appearances in movies, orchestral arrangements, and even a Janet Jackson track. They are both calming and inspiring: perfect for studying.

Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach. The story of the variations’ conception is legendary. Apparently Count Herman Karl von Keyserling, a diplomat to the Saxon court, had trouble sleeping. The count asked a musician in his service, a keyboard virtuoso by the name of Goldberg, to play harpsichord for him as he battled insomnia. Bach wrote a set of theme and variations for Goldberg to play during these nighttime concerts, and the “Goldberg Variations” were published in 1741. Even if you’re not trying to fall asleep, the Goldberg Variations provide one of the most beautiful backgrounds in all of music.

Anything by Hildegard von Bingen. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) was many things: an abbess, a philosopher, a mystic, an author, and even a composer. Her music lacks tempo indicators and is monophonic (meaning that it contains only one melody line without accompanying chords). Accordingly, her works sound exceptionally flowing and otherworldly, especially to a modern ear. It is perfect music to explore while studying.

Those are the first eight pieces that come to mind. However, one of the (many!) great things about classical music is that it’s a genre that spans continents and millenia. Eight pieces are just a single drop in an ocean of awesomeness. So dive in yourself and find the pieces that work for you!

A Whiter Shade Of Pale - Procol Harum - Cover by Emily Linge

4,343,017 views  Mar 3, 2022  I'd like to pay tribute to Gary Brooker with this timeless masterpiece by Procol Harum. This song was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Special thanks to Ovidio De Ferrari for helping with the piano arrangement

Thanks also to Elvis Garagic @SoundStruckStudio Dubai for the mix/mastering

Lyrics:

We skipped the light fandango

Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor

I was feeling kinda seasick

The crowd called out for more

The room was humming harder

As the ceiling flew away

When we called out for another drink

The waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later

As the miller told his tale

That her face, at first just ghostly

Turned a whiter shade of pale

She said "there is no reason"

And the truth is plain to see

But I wandered through my playing cards

Would not let her be

One of sixteen vestal virgins

Who were leaving for the coast

And although my eyes were open

They might have just as well've been closed

And so it was that later

As the miller told his tale

That her face, at first just ghostly

Turned a whiter shade of pale

24 Amazing Facts About JS Bach

Published by Revelle Team on June 10, 2016

Baroque and Bach are two words that are very often linked together. Widely regarded as one of the definitive composers of the Baroque period, Johann Sebastian Bach’s works are still loved today as each new generation discovers his incredible gift.

However, many people are unaware that without some specific enthusiasm and recognition for this master’s classical works, Bach might have been relegated to obscurity. Only having been known as a skilled organist, musical mathematician, and that guy with the perfectly curled, white wig.

Fortunately however, his musical compositions were admired and appreciated by geniuses like of Mozart and Beethoven; and in 1829, nearly 60 years after his death, Felix Mendelssohn, carried Bach’s Passion According to St. Matthew out of oblivion and into the German concert hall for a significant historical event. Although it had been nearly a hundred years after this beautiful masterpiece had been composed, the concert ignited a flame of curiosity and re-evaluation of Bach’s work, resulting in a world-wide acknowledgement of his brilliance and importance to Baroque classical music.

Here are 24 additional facts and trivia about this famous composer:

Johann Sebastian Bach was born March 31, 1685 in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany.

His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach was a 7th generation musician, and carried on the tradition by teaching him how to play the violin.

Bach lost both his parents when he was 10 years old. While living in Ohrdruf, Germany, his older brother Johann Christoph Bach taught him organ.

In 1700, he was granted a scholarship at St. Michael’s School in Luneburg for his fine voice.

During an inaugural recital on the new organ his talents earned him the job of organist in Arnstadt, in 1703, at New Church, where he provided music for the services at the church, as well as instruction in music to the local children.

Bach moved to Muhlhausen in 1707 to become the organist in the Church of St. Blaise.

Bach married his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, and they had seven children. His sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel became composers and musicians like their father.

Bach’s next position was as court organist in Weimer, in 1708 for Duke Wilhelm Ernst. It was here he composed his very famous Toccata in D Minor.

Bach was given a diamond ring in 1714 from the Crown Prince Fredrick of Sweden who was amazed at his playing.

Having angered Duke Wilhelm for requesting release from his position on short notice and desiring to go work for Prince Leopold of Koethen, Bach was arrested and put in jail for several weeks in 1716.

Upon his release from jail, Bach became the conductor of the court orchestra, in which Prince Leopold played.

In 1719, Bach tried to arrange a meeting with another prolific composer of that era, George Frideric Handel. Despite being only 130 kilometers apart, the two never did meet.

Bach’s wife, Maria, died suddenly in 1720 while he was away with Prince Leopold. She was 35 years old. The fifth and final movement of the Partita in D Minor for solo violin, “Chaconne,” was written to commemorate her.

In 1721, Bach married Anna Magdalena Wülcken. They had thirteen children.

Bach wrote the majority of his instrumental works during the Koethen period.

In 1723, he became the choir leader for two churches in Leipzig, Germany, in addition to teaching music classes and giving private lessons.

Most of Bach’s choral music was composed in Leipzig.

Bach’s deep religious faith could be found even in his secular music. He would put the initials “I.N.J.,” a Latin abbreviation that means, In Nomine Jesu, or “in the name of Jesus,”on his manuscripts.

The Brandenburg Concertos were written in 1721 as a tribute to the Duke of Brandenburg.

The Well-Tempered Clavier was composed as a collection of keyboard pieces to help students learn various keyboard techniques and methods.

Fredrick the Great, King of Prussia inspired Bach’s composition of a set of fugues called Musical Offering in 1740.

The Art of Fugue was begun in 1749 but was not completed.

After struggling with blindness and a failed surgery on his eyesight, Bach suffered a stroke and died in Leipzig, July 28, 1750. He was 65 years old.

His entire career was spent in a contracted area of Germany that is smaller than most of the States in America.

Johann Sebastian Bach is considered the quintessential composer of the Baroque era, and one of the most important figures in classical music in general. His complex musical style was nearly lost in history but gratefully it survives to be studied and enjoyed today. You can learn more about this icon by visiting his dedicated website. In the words of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), “Study Bach: there you will find everything.”

Dolphins behave better after listening to Bach and Beethoven, study finds

Bottlenose dolphins enjoyed listening to Bach as part of the study. Picture: Getty

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM

@sophiassocials

 

Beethoven’s ‘Almost a Fantasy’ and ‘The Swan’ by Saint-Saëns are just some of the pieces of classical music enjoyed by Italian dolphins involved in this latest scientific study. 

Most scientists agree that dolphins are very intelligent creatures. The species have demonstrated in multiple studies that they are quick learners, empathetic, self-aware, and great at problem solving.

But a recent study published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science has now proved that dolphins are also music lovers, and that classical music specifically could improve social behaviours of the aquatic animals.

Researchers at the University of Padua in Italy found that playing classical music resulted in the dolphins showing more interest in each other, giving more gentle touches and swimming in synchrony for longer.

Eight dolphins in the eastern beach-front city of Riccione, Italy, were played 20 minutes of classical music a day via an underwater speaker for seven sessions. The aquatic mammals heard a number of pieces of classical music including Bach’s Prelude BWV 846, Grieg’s ‘Morning Mood’ from Peer Gynt, Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau, Beethoven’s Almost a Fantasy, and ‘The Swan’ from The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns.

Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the Caribbean Sea. Picture: Getty

On other days, the dolphins were played the sound of rainfall for 20 minutes (auditory stimulus), given floating toys to play with for 20 minutes (an already known form of enrichment for the animals), or shown natural environments on television screens for 20 minutes (visual stimulus).

The group of dolphins was made up of five female and three male dolphins between the ages of five and 49 years old. Three of these dolphins, which are housed at a dolphinarium in Riccione, were born in the wild.

The researchers found that only the music had a long-lasting positive effect on the dolphins’ behaviour. As only classical music was used, the researchers admitted the results may not be specific to just the classical genre, but that classical music could be particularly useful when improving social behaviours in dolphins.

The use of music was also a particularly useful tool for when the animals were under stress or in situations that could lead to increased conflicts.

 Lead researcher Dr Cécile Guérineau said the way the dolphins acted, suggested they were showing happiness.

“This system is linked to reward, social motivation, pleasure and pain perception,” explained Dr Guérineau. “Activation of opioids receptors is correlated with a feeling of euphoria. [And] we know that in a wide range of animals – from mammals, monkeys, dogs, rats etc, to non-mammals, birds – endorphins, i.e. one type of endogenous opioids, are related to social bonding.

“Dolphins may also be able to perceive rhythm because they are a vocal-learning species. It may be that, similar to how dancing at a party makes us feel good and helps people to bond, when dolphins synchronize to a beat, they also feel good and connect with their fellow swimmers.”

Best Songs in D Minor

by Hermione Lai , Interlude

Bach’s Toccata in D minor 18th century copy by Johannes Ringk

Sometimes, I really don’t understand the descriptions assigned to particular keys. When it comes to D minor, we can read that it represents “dejected womanhood which broods on notions and illusions.” I guess it’s a pretty fancy and period description of a scorned woman in love? Others have said that D minor “expresses a subdued feeling of melancholy, grief, anxiety, and solemnity.” Whatever the case may be, some of the most famous and popular classical pieces ever are written in D minor. And here is my list of personal bests.

Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor

I can tell you that it was not a very easy choice because of all the gorgeous compositions in D minor that I have to leave out. However, for me it’s all starting with the Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. Today that song is used in a variety of popular media, ranging from film, video games and ringtones. But the association today is not melancholy or a scorned woman in love, but sheer terror. This association with horror and Halloween first appeared in a 1962 film adaptation of “The Phantom of the Opera.” It just goes to show that specific associations are easily formed in connection with visual media, but the D minor Toccata and Fugue is still a most powerful composition, and certainly one of the best songs in D minor. 

Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor

Portrait of Felix Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Hensel, 1847

Felix Mendelssohn learned a lot from the music of Bach. In fact, he was responsible that the music of Bach found its rightful place on the world’s concert stages. Mendelssohn looked at the styles and compositional techniques of the past and developed a highly personalized music style. Not everybody was enthusiastic for Mendelssohn to go back in time, and Berlioz once said, “Mendelssohn paid too much attention to the music of the dead.” And the always-punchy critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw compared Mendelssohn to a senile academy professor whose exercises in a dead musical language “are as trivial as they are tedious.” Then as now, it’s difficult to please the critics. Mendelssohn complete his piano trio in D minor in 1839, and Robert Schumann wrote in his review that “Mendelssohn is the Mozart of the 19th century, the most illuminating of musicians.” There is a good bit of melancholy yearning in the opening movement, and the slow “Andante” is actually a song without words that turns to passion. The scherzo is light and airy, and it all ends with a passionate rondo. For me personally, this is one of the most powerful and best songs in D minor ever. 

Mozart: Requiem

Mozart’s Requiem

Since the key of D minor is supposed to express grief and solemnity, it’s not surprising to find a good number of Requiems in that category. Composers who have written Requiems include Bruckner, Reger, Fauré, and probably most famously, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The passionate lover of music, Count Franz von Walsegg commissioned the work for his twenty-year old wife Anna, who had sadly passed away.

The Count was a fellow Freemason, but as we all know, Mozart himself died before he could complete the composition. Sorry to disappoint all fans of the movie Amadeus, but Salieri had nothing to do with the Requiem or with Mozart’s death. Mozart’s wife Constanze hired several composers to finish the piece and deliver it to the Count. Constanze did suggest that her husband actually believed that he was writing the requiem for his own funeral. Whatever the case may be, it is one of the most powerful classical compositions I know, and it certainly is one of the best songs in D minor.

Haydn: Symphony No. 80 in D minor

Portrait of Joseph Haydn by Thomas Hardy, 1791

D minor seemed to have been a highly popular key for composing large-scale symphonies. We have symphonies No. 1 by Dohnányi, Ives, Rachmaninoff and Richard Strauss. Prokofiev and Balakirev wrote their 2nd symphonies in D minor, the same key used by Bruckner in his symphonies No. 3 and No. 9. Dvořák composed his symphonies No. 4 and No. 7 in D minor, and there are also symphonies by Schumann, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Glazunov, and of course the monumental symphony No. 9 by Beethoven. Which one is actually my favorite? To tell the truth, I really can’t decide. So I went back to the father of the symphony, Joseph Haydn, and I found a delightful storm and stress symphony in D minor. His 80th symphony probably dates from 1784, and for some reason it does not have a nickname. However, it is a symphonic gem and Haydn showed everybody coming after him what was actually possible in a symphony. And it is for that particular reason that Haydn’s 80th is my representative for symphonies in D minor. 

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Rachmaninoff proofing a manuscript

Some composers are actually rather difficult to read. Sergei Rachmaninoff was clearly one of the last great pianist-composers in a long tradition stretching back to Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and Brahms. He proudly suggested that “a composer’s music should express the country of his birth, his love affairs, his religion, the books which have influenced him, and the pictures he loves… My music is the product of my temperament…” Rachmaninoff was fiercely egotistic in artistic matters, but also frequently depressed without any specific cause. Very few people ever heard him laugh, and only occasionally did he crack a rare smile. He was often grave in expression and mannerism, and seemed to have been stuck in prolonged periods of philosophical longing and melancholy. Almost sounds like Rachmaninoff could be considered the poster child for D minor. And wouldn’t you know it, he did write a great number of works in that particular key, including the fabulous 3rd piano concerto. It is without doubt one of the all-time best songs in D minor. As you can tell, the key of D minor was really popular with composers, and I have tried to find my favorite songs; what is yours? Next time, I will take a look at the best songs in the cheerful key of B-flat major.

Exploring Partitas: Johann Sebastian Bach

by Georg Predota, Interlude

Johann Sebastian Bach

In the course of your instrumental studies or attending concert performances you might have come across works title “Partita.” It is a slippery term, and throughout history it has designated a number of different concepts. At times it was used to indicate a variation, a piece, a set of Variations and a Suite or other multi-movement genres. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries it was applied to variations or elaborations on a bass of a traditional tune. Over time this evolved into a collective term for a set of variations. This musical application seems to have been rather popular in Italy, with keyboard compositions thus titled by Trabaci, Frescobaldi, Rossi, Strozzi and Scarlatti. However, this musical form also made it into Germany and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) composed a number of Partitas on various chorale melodies.

Bach: Partita No. 1

As the 17th century progressed, “Partita” acquired an additional meaning in Germany. Whether by design or linguistic uncertainty, the “Partita” was considered a kind of instrumental piece made up of connected sections or movements. As the word “Partita” appears in dictionaries as “consignment, item or game,” it evolved into a collection of contrasting movements of dance character, something that we would call a “Suite.” Johann Sebastian Bach individually published a set of six keyboard suites titled “Partitas” starting in 1726. The entire set was published in 1731 as his “Clavier-Übung I.” The six partitas for keyboard are the last set of suites Bach composed, and they are the most technically demanding. Above all, the Partitas are some of the most sublime instrumental compositions that Bach ever composed. 

Bach: Partita No. 2 in C minor – I. Sinfonia

Johann Sebastian Bach’s systematic exploration of stylized dance music and music based on dance rhythms represent some of his greatest musical achievements. In all, he composed three sets of dance suites for solo keyboard, each consisting of six individual suites. The French Suites are compact and light in characters, while the English Suites have more extended opening movements. The Partitas, chronologically composed last, offer music on the grandest scale. Remarkable for the extreme technical demands they place on the performer, each Partita opens with an elaborate, ornate and complex movement that is structurally unique with respect to the other five. The C-minor Partita is one of the best known and frequently performed suites; it is also one of the most eccentric. The opening “Sinfonia” functions as an overture and imparts a high degree of seriousness. An austere and highly dissonant French overture introduction gives to highly decorated melody over a walking bass line. It concluded with a lively and animated two-part fugue, “an astonishing progression of moods that defines the ambitious scope of this suite.” The Bach biographer Nikolaus Forkel wrote in 1802. “Such excellent compositions for the clavier had never been seen and heard before. Anyone who had learnt to perform well some pieces out of them could make his fortune in the world thereby; and even in our times, a young artist might gain acknowledgment by doing so, they are so brilliant, well-sounding, expressive, and always new.”

Title page BWV1001-1006 autograph manuscript, 1720

Johann Sebastian Bach was an accomplished violinist. He probably received first instructions on the instrument from his father, and his first official post engaged him as a violinist. As such, it is hardly surprising that Bach would compose music for his own performances. And his Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas, BWV 1001–1006, might easily have served this particular purpose. We learn from Bach’s student Johann Friedrich Agricola, that these pieces “were personally so meaningful to Bach that he would often sit at the harpsichord and play for himself keyboard versions of the works.” They are dated 1720 on the manuscript, but it is likely that they had been composed between 1708 and 1717, during Bach’s stay in Weimar.

Bach: Chaconne manuscript

At any rate, Bach’s contemporaries were not really warm to these solo compositions, and Schumann and Mendelssohn actually published accompaniment to clarify the harmony. It is unbelievable to think that the entire set was first published only in 1802, and that the first complete recording was made by Yehudi Menuhin in 1936. These Partitas offer a synthesis of dances borrowed from all over Europe, and the first four movements of the Partita No. 2 follow the order of a traditional Baroque dance suite. While this pays homage to one branch of the Partita DNA, the massive concluding Chaconne addresses the other branch; it is a monumental set of variations on a ground bass. In Bach’s hands, both Partita traditions combined in one unbelievable composition. 

BWV 1006 Preludio autograph manuscript, 1720

Carl Philipp Emanuel vividly remembered his father’s violin playing. “In his youth, and until the approach of old age,” he reports, “he played the violin cleanly and penetratingly, and thus kept the orchestra in better order than he could have done with the harpsichord. He understood to perfection the possibilities of all stringed instruments. This is evidenced by his solos for the violin and for the violoncello without bass. One of the greatest violinists once told me that he had seen nothing more perfect for learning to be a good violinist, and could suggest nothing better to anyone eager to learn, than the violin solos without bass.” The Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin showcase Bach’s skill as both performer and composer. They demonstrate a level of “technical and musical mastery previous composers had not approached, and indeed, they are still one of the high peaks of the violin literature.” While the solo violin sonatas follow the habitual Baroque sonata layout of slow-fast-slow-fast, the partitas unfold as a sequence of dance-inspired movements. Bach held the opening movement of the Violin Partita No. 3 in particular high esteem, as he subsequently arranged it for an instrumental movement of a wedding cantata and a festive overture for a church cantata.

Bach: Flute Partita

In 1917, the German musician Karl Straube discovered a manuscript entitled “Solo [pour une] flûte traversière par J. S. Bach.” Straube believed that he had found a Bach autograph, but more recent research has shown that two copyists had produced it. Looking at watermarks and paper types, it appears that a substantial part of the manuscript was copied in Leipzig around 1723/24, while the “copyist of the first five lines suggest that it may have been begun slightly earlier, between 1722 and 1723 in Köthen.” During his tenure as music director at the Calvinist court in Köthen from 1717-1723, Bach produced a prolific number of chamber and solo music. Among them the keyboard suites and inventions, the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, and the Brandenburg Concertos. Concurrently, the baroque flute was quickly becoming one of the most popular instruments among amateurs and virtuosos. This particular work was surely composed for the virtuoso, “as the technical demands of the unaccompanied Partita require the flutist to juxtapose melody with the illusion of harmony by quickly moving between registers.” It is scored in four instrumental-dance movements, but Bach never actually called it “Partita.” After much consideration and research, 20th-century scholars and editors affixed that specific designation.

Pope Francis reveals he loves Bach’s Passions and schmaltzy Italian classical-pop

 1 February 2022, 17:21 | Updated: 1 February 2022, 17:26

Pope Francis reveals he loves Bach’s Passions and schmaltzy Italian classical-pop. Picture: Alamy/Emojipedia

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

 

The Pope’s personal playlist is an unexpected marriage of Bach, Piazzolla and Pärt, with Italian pop-opera hits.

Last month, the Pope delighted the music world when he was spotted slipping out of the Vatican to visit a record store in downtown Rome, and leaving with a classical CD in hand.

The Pope has previously professed his love for the music of Bach and Mozart, calling Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor ‘sublime’ and ‘unsurpassable’.

Now, through a tweet from the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Gianfranco Ravasi, we have been given a deeper insight into Pope Francis’ curious cocktail of musical tastes.

Cardinal Ravasi posted a photo of the “musical materials” he had received from the Pope in advance of Italy’s iconic Sanremo Music Festival. The cluster of recordings included a vinyl of Bach’s St John Passion, a CD of minimalist composer Arvo Pärt’s Adam’s Lament, and an album by operatic pop trio, Il Volo.

Read more: This is the Pope’s favourite music

“We’re approaching #Sanremo2022, and I have received another set of musical materials from Pope Francis. Best wishes to the festival!” Ravasi tweeted.

Along with the Bach and Pärt, the Pope sent Ravasi an EP of Italian record producer and singer Caterina Caselli’s song ‘Nessuno mi puo’ giudicare’, and an album of music by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla.

When Pope Francis visited StereoSound, the Rome record store, earlier this year, the store’s owner Letizia Giostra told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera that his surprise visit was “an immense thrill.” She added: “The Holy Father is passionate about music and was already our client, years ago, when he was still a cardinal and would pass through Rome. Then, of course, we never saw him again. And now he came to visit us, to say ‘hello’”. The Pope’s music library, curated by Ravasi, is said to include nearly 2,000 CDs and 19 vinyl records, among which tunes by Édith Piaf and Elvis Presley can be found.

Johann Sebastian Bach and His Circle of Friends I

 by Georg Predota, Interlude

Johann Sebastian Bach

Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788) described his father’s household in Leipzig as a “pigeon coop.” People were constantly swarming in and out all the time, and he told the Bach biographer Forkel, “with his many activities Bach hardly had time for the most necessary correspondence, and accordingly would not indulge in lengthy written exchanges. But he had the opportunity to talk personally to good people, since his house was full of life.”

Forkel: J.S. Bach Biography

Johann Sebastian and his wife Anna Magdalena Bach kept an open house, welcoming friends and colleagues from near and far. “No master of music was apt to pass through Leipzig without making Bach’s acquaintance and letting himself be heard by him.” And that included a good number of the leading figures in contemporary German musical life, including Carl Heinrich and Johann Gottlieb Graun, Franz Benda, Johann Joachim Quantz and the famous husband and wife team of Johann Adolph Hasse and Faustina Bordoni, who came to Leipzig several times. The Bach family frequently entertained at home, and that always included house concerts. And we do know that Carl Philipp Emanuel performed in his father’s Concerto for two Violins, BWV 1043.

Johann Nikolaus Forkel

From 1736 until his death, Johann Sebastian Bach held the title of Royal Polish and electoral Saxon Court Composer. The composer actually never traveled to the Kingdom of Poland or the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, governed by Augustus II (Augustus the Strong,) and his son Augustus III. However, when Augustus III succeeded his father in 1733, he announced a surprise visit to Leipzig one year later. Bach immediately went to work and in a mere three days composed his secular cantata “Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen,” (Praise your good fortune, blessed Saxony) BWV 215.

August Weger: J.S. Bach

This cantata was first performed on 5 October 1734, in front of the Apels Haus, the Elector’s palace on the market square in Leipzig. Apparently, Augustus III was overjoyed, and he wrote in his official account that he had been “warmly pleased.” Bach had already been in contact with Augustus III in 1733, when he presented the manuscript of a “Missa of Kyrie and Gloria” to the monarch. These movements later became part of the B-minor mass, and Bach eventually did get his “Royal Polish” 1736 appointment.

St. Michaelis monastery in Lüneburg

Johann Sebastian Bach lost both parents before the age of ten. He spent the next five years with his older brother Johann Christoph in the town of Ohrdruf. And at school, he became best friends with Georg Erdmann. When Johann Christoph’s ordered his younger brother out of the house, the two friends decided to walk to Lüneburg, a distance of almost 350 miles. There they joined the choir of the wealthy Michaelis monastery, which provided free places for poor boys with musical talent. The boys were inseparable until their paths diverged in 1702. Bach moved back to Thuringia, and we have no idea what happened to Erdmann over the next 27 years.

Bach’s letter to Erdmann

Bach and Erdmann had lost touch, but their friendship endured, as we learn from two surviving letters dating from around 1730. “Dear Friend,” Bach writes, “you might excuse an old friend, who allows himself to bother you with this letter. Almost four years are gone, since you answered my last letter. I remember you asked me to report about my difficulties, which I would like to do now. Since our youth you know my career, until my change as a bandmaster in Koethen…” Bach also reports to Erdmann about personal matters, “I am married for the second time… From my first marriage three sons and one daughter are still living, whom you saw in Weimar years ago. From my second marriage one son and two daughters are living. My oldest son is studying law; the two others still go to school, one in the prima; the other one in the secunda. The children from the second marriage are still little; the oldest is six years of age. They are all future musicians.” The “Partite diverse” BWV 766 dates from around 1700, at a time when both Ermann and Bach were studying at the Michaelis School.

Johann Matthias Gesner

During his time in Weimar, Bach became good friends with the eminent philologist and scholar Johann Matthias Gesner (1691-1761). An expert in Semitic languages, classical literature, metaphysics and theology, Gesner became librarian and vice-principal at Weimar. Eventually, Gesner was appointed rector at the School of St. Thomas, and he therefore became Bach’s boss. As it turns out, Gesner was the only superior in Bach’s 27 years of service in Leipzig who recognized, admired and fostered his greatness. Gesner freed Bach from many unnecessary responsibilities, and since he was an admirer of Bach’s music, “he allowed Bach to assume his social position as a truly great musician and to assert his influence at the school as well.” Gesner raised Bach’s salary, allowed him to travel, freed him from teaching Latin, and asked for advice on updating the curriculum, admissions, and administrative approaches. In fact, Gesner published an extensive description of Bach in 1738, placing the composer far above the musical gods of Greece. In turn, to celebrate Gesner’s 40th birthday on 9 April 1732, Bach adapted his Cantata “Soar upwards in your joy” to celebrate the occasion.

Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen

In 1719, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen sent Johann Sebastian Bach on an errand to Berlin. Bach was placed in charge of negotiating for a new harpsichord for the court, and he tried out a number of instruments in the presence of Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt. We don’t know what Bach played on that occasion, but he was invited to send in some compositions.

Christian Ludwig, Margrave of
Brandenburg-Schwedt

Initially, Bach did not respond to the commission as he himself said, he “took a couple of years.” Bach changed his mind in 1721, however, as Prince Leopold summarily dismissed him from his services. As such, Bach was forced to look for employment opportunities elsewhere, and he sent the Margrave six instrumental compositions. These compositions became known as the Brandenburg Concertos, and they represent a compendium of highly original and individual compositions for a varied combination of instruments. According to the composer “they were written to exploit the resources of Cöthen.” However, these resources did not seem to have been available to the Margrave of Brandenburg. As such, Bach received no thanks, no fees and no employment offer. 

He was born Christian Friedrich Henrici in Dresden in 1700, but everybody knew him under the pseudonym “Picander”. Picander started his poetic career in Leipzig in 1721, and in time, he would become one of Bach’s most important poets. He probably wrote his first text for Bach in 1723 but there are still some uncertainties as to the authorship of texts during Bach’s first years in the city. However, by 1725 Bach and Picander were definitely working together.

Picander: Book of Poems, 1732

Their collaborations produced some of the most important works in the Lutheran tradition, including the St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), the funeral music for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, and the St. Mark Passion (BWV 247). Picander claimed that Bach “set a whole cycle of his cantata texts in 1729.” Since only nine of these Bach settings are known to have survived, Picander’s claim must be approached with some caution. Their collaboration, however, wasn’t limited to religious texts, but also produced a number of secular works as well. For one, there is the well-known “Coffee Cantata,” and the delightful “Peasant Cantata,” written at a time when Picander served as a Liquor Tax Collector and Wine Inspector.

Georg Böhm

During his early years at Lüneburg, Bach was probably taking organ lessons from Georg Böhm (1661-1733). Böhm was principal organist at the Johanniskirche in Lüneburg, and the young Bach studied at the Michaelis School between 1700 and 1703.

First page of Reincken’s An Wasserflüssen Babylon, with an endnote in J. S. Bach’s hand

Although no formal connection existed between these two institutions, Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel reported to the Bach biographer Forkel in 1775, “My father loved and studied the works of the Lüneburg organist Georg Böhm.” Strong and clear evidence of this teacher/student relationship emerged on 31 August 2006 when the earliest known Bach autograph was discovered. It is a copy of Reincken’s famous chorale fantasy “An Wasserflüssen Babylon,” and Bach signed it “Il Fine â Dom. Georg: Böhme descriptum ao. 1700 Lunaburgi.” It is clear that Bach knew Böhm personally, and they apparently became close friends. This friendship seems to have lasted for many years, as Bach named Böhm as his northern agent for the sale of his keyboard partitas No. 2 and 3 in 1727. 

Maria Barbara Bach (1684-1720) was the second cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach. She had been orphaned at an early age and was sent to live with relatives in Arnstadt. Johann Sebastian met her after his appointment as church organist in 1703, and for a time they apparently lived in the same house, as relatives do. In 1706, Bach was severely reprimanded for inviting a “strange maiden” into the church organ loft to “make music.” Scholars today believe that the maiden in question must have been Maria Barbara.

Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara Bach

When Bach’s maternal uncle died in Erfurt, he left Bach a substantial amount of money. As such, Bach was able to marry Maria Barbara on 17 October 1707 in the village of Dornheim, near Arnstadt. Their marriage, by all accounts, was a contented one and four of their seven children lived into adulthood, including Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

C.P.E. Bach

In 1720, Bach accompanied his employer Prince Leopold to the spa in Karlsbad. When he returned two months later, he discovered that Maria Barbara had died from a sudden illness, and that she was already buried at Köthen’s Old Cemetery. She was only 35, and the heart-broken composer gave voice to his grief in the monumental “Chaconne,” the fifth and final movement of the Partita in D minor for solo violin. Play

Johann Adolph Scheibe

The composer, organist, theorist and music critic Johann Adolph Scheibe (1708-1776) considered J.S. Bach and George Frideric Handel to be the finest composers of keyboard music. Yet, on 14 May 1737, Scheibe published a weighty criticism of Bach’s music, claiming “by his bombastic and intricate procedures he deprived music of naturalness and obscured their beauty by an excess of art.”

Title page of Scheibe’s music criticism, 1745

Bach was not amused, and he urged his friend, the Leipzig lecturer in rhetoric Johann Abraham Birnbaum (1702-1748) to write a response. That response was printed in January 1738, and Bach distributed the article among his friends and acquaintances. It discusses the issues of naturalness and artificiality in Bach’s style, and his “definition of harmony as an accumulation of counterpoint,” made an important statement about the unique character of Bach’s compositional art. Scheibe’s attack, as it turned out, stimulated a good bit of sympathy for Bach, and in the end he published a conciliatory review of the Italian Concerto, which included the apology “I did this great man an injustice.” Play

Electress Christiane Eberhardine

In order to commemorate the death of the Electress Christiane Eberhardine in 1727, the University of Leipzig planned an extended memorial ceremony. The Electress was somewhat of a religious celebrity, as she had remained a Protestant when her husband, August the Strong of Saxony, had converted to Roman Catholicism.

Johann Christoph Gottsched

Bach was commissioned to set a text by the Leipzig professor poetry, Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700-1766). That commission proofed to be controversial, as the university director of music Johann Gottlieb Görner, considering himself to be Bach’s superior, tried to bar Bach from taking any role in the service. The council thought otherwise and Bach retained the commission. As such, Bach performed the two parts of his Funeral Ode (BWV 198) on 17 October 1727. This cantata unfolds in ten sections, and includes chorales, recitatives and solo arias for soprano, alto, and tenor. Even the bass gets a lengthy accompanied recitative that borders on being an aria itself.

(To be continued!)