Bach's Modern Legacy

[Trazom H Cab]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJh6i-t_I1Q

I was listening to the 40s station on my satellite radio in my car today and "No Moon At All" came on.  I've heard it many times before but, for the first time, I wondered who wrote it.  So I checked and it was Redd Evans with the lyrics and Dave Mann with the music.  Then I read that Mann lifted the chord progression from the first movement of Bach's "Double Violin Concerto"  When you listen closely, you can hear "No Moon At All" in it.  I wonder how many modern songs and standards came from Bach.  "Lover's Concerto" obviously borrowed "Minuet in G Major" but how many less obvious examples?

[starrynight]

There would be quite a few things over time in popular music.  One of the more famous being A Whiter Shade of Pale.  This page helps answer your question in some detail anyway, and there will be other pages with information. http://www.whosampled.com/Johann-Sebastian-Bach/sampled/.  That particular website may look at direct borrowing/incorporation more than re-arrangement.

Though beyond just giving examples there could be asked what kind of legacy and how much of a legacy it is as well?  Is it merely just lifting melodic ideas or does it represent some specific influence of JS Bach (beyond just what some may see as a tribute)?  Does it represent not just JS Bach but aspects of the baroque style, or simply aspects of the continuing Western classical tradition which Bach himself was simply a part of?  He himself was influenced by plenty of people in his own music.  It's natural enough for music to always take inspiration from music of the past, while at the same time expressing it in new ways for a contemporary audience.  Classical music itself has taken inspiration from popular music at times in the past, so maybe this two-way borrowing shows that these high walls that people build up between classical and popular shouldn't be so high after all?

[Trazom H Cab]

"A Salty Dog" reminds me irrepressibly of the second movement of Bach's Konzert in A-moll.  So I suppose we can guess who was a big influence on Procol Harum. Speaking of Minuet in G Major, if you listen to Handel's "Music for Ancient Instruments" the last few minutes of it is the same thing as Bach's Minuet just a bit sped up.  I would have to assume that either the melody was common and both borrowed it or one of them copied from the other.

[Trazom H Cab]

I nearly forgot ELP's "Infinite Space" off the Tarkus album.  It starts off with Toccata in F on the organ but when the piano part starts up, they switch over to to the Well Tempered Clavier exercise book1, #6 in D Minor.  Of course, this is over-the-top borrowing and I'm talking more of a subtle approach where you don't hear the Bach in it unless you listen very, very closely.

[jochanaan]

Well, anyone who writes imitative counterpoint today is indebted to Bach for showing us what it can do.

[Trazom H Cab]

But I'm looking for a conscious borrowing but without it sounding like it was borrowed.  You might never think to link "No Moon At All" to "Double Violin Concerto" until you learn that the former was consciously borrowed from the latter and you wonder how many times that was done.  Professional songwriters needing something to stoke the fire turn to Bach.  Some turn to Beethoven.  But I'll bet Bach has been borrowed from more than anyone else in the West by modern songwriters.  His melodies are so catchy that they make great hooks in pop songs.

[starrynight]

Songwriters could turn to all kinds of inspiration. 

I still think it's an interesting subject beyond the usual list thread.  Most of the time classical music elements are incorporated not as a contrast but as a merging into some modern popular music production.  And I'm not sure just looking at it as being about JS Bach is so helpful, that's even contradictory considering this subject I feel.  And I'm sure Bach wouldn't have liked it turned into the modern kind of hero worship.  The very idea of such borrowing is that the music goes beyond such assumed personal idiosyncrasies of the music, it can act as a neutral idea that can be molded to the will of the modern songwriter/composer.  Of course music by JS Bach is likely to be more available and famous than some other composers of his period, he has been more acclaimed.  So that will explain the specific choice of either already famous melodies or even not so famous things from his output. 

So I think it could come down to the general flexiblity of baroque music and being able to simplify a melody and use it as some kind of backing or even highlighted melody on a modern song.  I think some classical period pieces have been amenable to that as well, for instance the Moonlight Sonata.  Though as time goes on there may be melodies more specific to the charactistics of specific instuments or combinations of instruments, or maybe more complex in length or harmonies?  Didn't these baroque composers often rearrange their own music for different forces anyway?

 

[mc ukrneal]

American Tune by Paul Simon.

[Scion7]

Ritchie Blackmore lifted from Bach on his solos for Burn and Highway Star, and stated so in interviews.