Just before seeing this on HN I was listening to Buxtehude's organ works on my way home. Buxtehude was one of the main inspirations for Bach as a composer¹, and I always find it interesting to go back and forth. But there's a reason Bach is the one that has come to be a superstar - there's the huge number of surviving works, of course, and in many ways how "the student surpassed the master", not least in contrapunctal complexity and fugal techniques, but also in the incredible fluidity he could achieve with a seemingly arbitrary number of voices.<p>Still one can listen to Buxtehude and get taken in the beauty and playfulness of his works, and we instantly imagine how young Bach was equally mesmerized by the same music, and in a way, how it kindled a passion and Bach continued to dig into the same musical goldmine that Buxtehude had been excavating - sometimes even the same tunnels, to my ears.<p>Some of my faves in the Buxtehude collection, mostly dramatic stuff (no links because I'm on crappy 3G):<p><pre><code> Toccata In D Minor (Bux 155)
Toccata in G Major (Manualiter) (Bux 164)
Passacaglia in D minor (Bux 161)
Prelude in G minor (Bux 149)
</code></pre>
[1]: I won't say "the main inspiration" because this is going a bit far into opinion-land, and it doesn't even make sense to single out a single composer as "main influence", but either way, Buxtehude is definitely up there with Bach's mentor Georg Böhm.
I used to play the pipe organ before becoming a software engineer. Bach's works are like living inside of a multi-threaded algorithm in real time. You can understand/appreciate a lot of them from a high level without knowing what they really are doing as implementation details. Some people even can play his pieces just with muscle-memory. But if you try to fully understand as a composer what he is doing in any piece, it's this astonishing, unparalleld depth that just keeps giving over years and decades. I just realized something new from a movement of piece I've heard for 15 years now the other day, and this happens regularly.
Hooray for Bach on HN! I can't recommend highly enough the performances of <a href="http://bachcollegiumjapan.org" rel="nofollow">http://bachcollegiumjapan.org</a>, a Japanese ensemble that I believe has recorded the full choral works of J.S. Bach, along with many pieces for instruments only. The performances are vital and electrifying, while also extremely thoughtful and counterpoint-driven.
I really like AllOfBach's attempt to provide free/gratis recordings of, eventually, all of Bach's repertoire; it is a laudable endeavour.<p>What disappoints me is the lack of vision on how this cultural resource can be maintained and spread amongst whoever benefits from it in the long term. All the copyrights appear to reside with the Netherlands Bach Society, and there appears to be no legal way to spread this resource beyond streaming it via Vimeo (for which by the way you need to allow cookies for player.vimeo.com if you use Privacy Badger).<p>These are high quality recordings by excellent musicians, it's a shame that copyright encumbers it without some open culture license like Creative Commons.<p>I should really take the time to write them and ask about their views on this topic.<p><i>Edit: I should perhaps say middle-to-long-term, as copyright might eventually expire (if we are lucky).</i>
For those who enjoy J.S. Bach's organ works, James Kibbie recorded performances of complete works, all played on original baroque-era organs, in Germany:<p><a href="http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/" rel="nofollow">http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/</a><p><a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/James_Kibbie/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/James_Kibbie/</a>
If you are interested in pipe organs but can't afford one, check out Hauptwerk and its collection of hundreds of pipe organ sample sets from everywhere in the world.<p>Check also its open-source alternative, GrandOrgue.<p>There are excellent and free sets that work with both at <a href="http://piotrgrabowski.pl" rel="nofollow">http://piotrgrabowski.pl</a>.<p>Musicians spend thousands of dollars to build MIDI organ consoles or convert real consoles to use with these virtual pipe organs, myself included. PCs with 64GB RAM and server specs are not uncommon.
I love seeing this on HN! I'm particularly fond of Bach's cello suites but I'm probably biased since I'm a cellist. <a href="http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-1010/" rel="nofollow">http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-1010/</a>
This thread is turning into a set of recommendations related to Bach. So here's mine.<p>Zhu Xiao Mei is a Chinese pianist who teaches in Paris. She grew up during the Great Leap Forward and spent 5 years in a reeducation camp, never giving up her spirit and illegally importing her parents' "bourgeois" piano at great risk to her and their life, via friends doing her favours, storing and playing it in a freezer. Teachers stored the Western scores that had been banned by Madam Mao in a room on the 3rd floor which they never dared visit again.<p>Out of the camp, she emigrated to the US at the merest sign of the border opening, having heard Western playing and realised the gulf that stood between her understanding of what great music was and what was actually possible. She did small jobs like cleaning houses to survive until she ended up in Paris where she was noticed and her career could take off. [1]<p>She discovered Bach's Goldberg Variations almost by accident. The person in whose house she was staying could not stand hearing piano being practiced, except for that piece, so that's what she practiced for hours every day, gradually learning it inside out, and it became her favourite piece. Her performance on an Asia tour shocked a friend by its sensitivity and wisdom and he recommended it to me. Maybe you need something a little different from Gould.<p>I recommend reading the book before listening to her playing the Variations [2], there is an entire world in that performance and the knowledge makes it more personal.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Piano-Labor-Goldberg-Variations/dp/1611090776" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Piano-Labor-Goldberg-Variation...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0F5VRgKK1g" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0F5VRgKK1g</a>
If any Bach newbies want something easy listened to start with, don't miss the classic, Toccata & Fuga in D minor:<p><a href="http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-565/" rel="nofollow">http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-565/</a><p>Especially the middle parts (2:37 and forward) is just astonishing ...<p>Very beautiful site btw!
Oddly, when I try to play this in my normal browser (Chrome 58, fedora x64, EFF privacy badger extension installed) I get "Sorry
Because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here."<p>It works fine in an incognito window.<p>What a great piece.
I love organ music. And it's important to note that Organ recitals (that is, Organ performances not part of a religious service) are not a rare thing!<p>For example, there are two recitals at Stanford's Memorial Church scheduled next month:<p>• June 5, a recital by Ethan Williams, Stanford student.
<a href="https://events.stanford.edu/events/673/67311/" rel="nofollow">https://events.stanford.edu/events/673/67311/</a><p>• June 16, the annual Commencement Organ recital of Dr. Morgan, Stanford University Organist.
<a href="https://events.stanford.edu/events/686/68615/" rel="nofollow">https://events.stanford.edu/events/686/68615/</a><p>Both events are at 7:30 PM in Memorial Church (<a href="https://campus-map.stanford.edu/?id=01-500" rel="nofollow">https://campus-map.stanford.edu/?id=01-500</a>), and typically end around 9 PM.<p>You can also keep an eye on <a href="https://religiouslife.stanford.edu/programs-events/music" rel="nofollow">https://religiouslife.stanford.edu/programs-events/music</a> and <a href="https://events.stanford.edu" rel="nofollow">https://events.stanford.edu</a> for future performances (there's already one scheduled for August).
great piece of music, beautiful website design, something completely different for a change.<p>Bach wasn't into computers much, but man did he hack those notes. Great pick!
I came here -- having read the title too quickly --- thinking it was an oddly phrased advertisement for a BMW 7-Series. I wasn't disappointed though.
If anyone on here wants to get fully into their organ music, Priory is a fairly definitive label (nb: Am son of the founder). The "Great European Organs" series was recently celebrated on BBC Radio 3 here in the UK.<p>Quick search for Bach on the website:<p><a href="http://prioryrecords.co.uk/index.php?route=product/search&search=bach" rel="nofollow">http://prioryrecords.co.uk/index.php?route=product/search&se...</a>
Thank you so much -- this is really fantastic!! There's something quite smooth about this performance or this organ's sound...I usually find organ music harder to get into but not this piece...I just finished listening to this for the eighth time...and it's on again...
These "allofbach" videos never play correctly on my computer, they play then stop then play then stop.<p>Why so much video quality if it's going to ruin the music experience completely?
This is my favorite:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC3Upv8DuRQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC3Upv8DuRQ</a>
I get:<p>> Sorry<p>> Because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here.<p>I have privacy badger but it's only blocking Google Analytics. Hm.
Nice music. I'm a sucker for Bach.<p>The website though, ...<p>Won't let me view anything until I use Landscape mode on a mobile device. It's MY device and I'll use it the way I want. I guess I'll watch it on YouTube, which isn't so dictatorial.