With just a month and a half left before the launch of Bach Explored, I've been spending increasing amounts of time with the various composers who feature in the series's opening concert. Although I've performed most of these works before, I've never put them all together in a single program. About a week ago, I mused on the early-music-induced question of whether certain lesser-known pieces really are good enough -- whether they're worth the countless hours we musicians will spend learning them, and whether they ultimately deserve the audience's time and attention. Well, in putting together "Bach Explored", I've had to revisit these thoughts over and over again. It may seem, ultimately, that the question is rhetorical: indeed, if I'm actually asking whether an hour and a half of unknown music is worth reviving, then surely the answer can be found, in abbreviated form, behind the very title of the series. It is Bach we want to Explore, and it is Bach's gravitational pull around which Walther, Westhoff, Pisendel, and countless others merely orbit. Right?
Well, one rhetorical question often hides another. "Exploring Bach" is not so much about Bach's music itself as it is about the riches on which he built. Bach, of all baroque composers, had an exceptionally well-developed sense of music's value and enduring artistic importance, and he combined this with a deep pride in his German cultural heritage. It is not by coincidence that he based his cantatas and chorales on traditional Lutheran melodies, or that he wove German folk-music into many of his works: he saw himself as The Great German Musician of his age.
This sense of heritage is as present in his violin works as it is in his sacred music. His Sonatas and Partitas are the earliest unaccompanied violin works to have entered the standard repertoire; however, when he penned them, Bach was joining a tradition of polyphonic violin writing that had thrived in Germany for two generations before his birth. Nor was his debt only to the virtuoso violinists who revolutionized technique in the 17th century: baroque musical composition was a pragmatic art, and he must have been equally motivated by the brilliant technique of the friends and colleagues with whom he performed. These violinists, ranging from the vaguely-familiar Pisendel to a number of long-forgotten anonymous masters, are the inspiration for the present series. Without their innovations, Bach's violin music could not have been written. To Explore Bach is to perform them.
In the coming weeks before the opening concert, I'll be writing about each of the sonatas that make up the first program. I hope you'll join me as I investigate these forgotten greats -- and, ultimately, I hope you'll join me for the performances!
Well, one rhetorical question often hides another. "Exploring Bach" is not so much about Bach's music itself as it is about the riches on which he built. Bach, of all baroque composers, had an exceptionally well-developed sense of music's value and enduring artistic importance, and he combined this with a deep pride in his German cultural heritage. It is not by coincidence that he based his cantatas and chorales on traditional Lutheran melodies, or that he wove German folk-music into many of his works: he saw himself as The Great German Musician of his age.
This sense of heritage is as present in his violin works as it is in his sacred music. His Sonatas and Partitas are the earliest unaccompanied violin works to have entered the standard repertoire; however, when he penned them, Bach was joining a tradition of polyphonic violin writing that had thrived in Germany for two generations before his birth. Nor was his debt only to the virtuoso violinists who revolutionized technique in the 17th century: baroque musical composition was a pragmatic art, and he must have been equally motivated by the brilliant technique of the friends and colleagues with whom he performed. These violinists, ranging from the vaguely-familiar Pisendel to a number of long-forgotten anonymous masters, are the inspiration for the present series. Without their innovations, Bach's violin music could not have been written. To Explore Bach is to perform them.
In the coming weeks before the opening concert, I'll be writing about each of the sonatas that make up the first program. I hope you'll join me as I investigate these forgotten greats -- and, ultimately, I hope you'll join me for the performances!
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