Bach's Bungalow

[Que]

Well, yes, there's that! 

Oh my, maybe it's by.....Pachelbel? 

[prémont]

Those who deny that BWV 565 was composed by Bach have a serious problem. They have absolutely no qualified suggestion as to who else the composer could be. Of course, the composer may be an unknown (that is, also unmentioned by his contemporaries) person who has only composed this work, or where the rest has been lost. But BWV 565 has certain unmistakable Bachian features, especially the work's violent accumulative energy. This applies to both the opening and the closing toccata parts, which can hardly have been composed for anything other than the organ - or at least reworked for organ beyond recognition, but also to some extent to the fugue part itself, which by the way in its figurations gives strong reminders of other Bach works, and may very well be a transcription of a very early (from first Weimar period) work for a stringed instrument, probably the violin, where one can recognize a bit of the way of writing (e.g. the motoric episodes between the fugal sections) in the much more perfect fugue from the solo sonata in G minor.

[Madiel]

*shrug* I can't say that I associate Bach with "violent accumulative energy". Whatever. I just know that whatever "unmistakable" Bachian features it might have, there equally have been plenty of people who've sensed that it doesn't entirely sound like other Bach pieces. There are a number of possible reasons for that, including it involving transcription and being from an early part of his career.

[Florestan]

*shrug* I can't say that I associate Bach with "violent accumulative energy". Whatever. I just know that whatever "unmistakable" Bachian features it might have, there equally have been plenty of people who've sensed that it doesn't entirely sound like other Bach pieces. There are a number of possible reasons for that, including it involving transcription and being from an early part of his career.

Or maybe he simply had a bad day. Even Homer nods. 

[JBS]

I do remember a theory--not sure of who originated it-that BWV 565 (in its organ form) was used by Bach either as a work showing off his own abilities as composer and organist, or as a work to test/demonstrate the capacities of new organs.

[prémont]

"violent accumulative energy".

Strong cumulative energy might be a better way to express it as e.g. in many organ fugues (BWV 548, 538, 582, 547).

I also miss an explanation of what in BWV 565 isn't entirely Bachian sounding. Already the fact that the work is unusual and original in it's conception is a Bachian trait.

[prémont]

I do remember a theory--not sure of who originated it-that BWV 565 (in its organ form) was used by Bach either as a work showing off his own abilities as composer and organist, or as a work to test/demonstrate the capacities of new organs.

An unsubstantiated but never-the-less very likely idea.

[Mandryka]

This all makes me think of Spike Milligan's Puckoon

With Rafferty's weight on the cross bar, Milligan pedalled home from the meeting via the Holy Drinker. They had tried to get into the cheap corner but were crowded out. But never mind, no matter what price you paid for liquor, it always tasted better.

'My lord, you're heavy,' Milligan grumbled.

'Don't ferget half of it is you, Milligan.'

'I'm only complaining about your half, which after all is the biggest.'

'Well, I'm grateful for the lift, Milligan.'

'With you holding me by the throat, I had no option.'

'It's just my way of askin'.'

A lemon-peel moon rose into the cold sky. Milligan whistled.

'Dat's a nice tune.'

'It's part of the Eroica Symphony – I wrote it.'

'You write the Eroica?'

'Yes.'

'What about Beethoven?'

'Yes, I wrote that as well.'

'You bloody liar.'

Cheerfully he whistled his next composition, Grieg's A Minor Concerto by Milligan. Life wasn't too bad. The trouble with Man was, even while he was having a good time, he didn't appreciate it. Why, thought Milligan, this very moment might be the happiest in me life. The very thought of it made him miserable.

58:47 here -- very good indeed,

[atardecer]

What I find more mystifying than the various ideas around the conception of BWV565, is why the work is so popular to begin with. There clearly is something attractive in that work others hear that I do not. I don't really hear very much that is compelling in it. If it proved to be by someone other than Bach or ceased to exist it would make little difference to me.

[Daverz]

What I find more mystifying than the various ideas around the conception of BWV565, is why the work is so popular to begin with. There clearly is something attractive in that work others hear that I do not. I don't really hear very much that is compelling in it. If it proved to be by someone other than Bach or ceased to exist it would make little difference to me.

I really like it, and I can't abide most solo organ music. 

[JBS]

The Wikipedia article on the piece implies its fame is linked to Stokowski's transcription and its use in Disney's Fantasia.

Whoever wrote the Wikipedia article seems to have had some fun writing this part.

.... it was not until the 20th century that it rose above the average notability of an organ piece by Bach.[22][25] The work's appearance (in an orchestral transcription by Leopold Stokowski) in the 1940s Walt Disney film Fantasia contributed to its popularity,[26] around which time scholars started to seriously doubt its attribution to Bach.[27]

The composition has been deemed both "particularly suited to the organ"[14] and "strikingly unorganistic".[28] It has been seen as united by a single ground-thought,[29] but also as containing "passages which have no connection whatever with the chief idea".[14] It has been called "entirely a thing of virtuosity"[30] yet also described as being "not so difficult as it sounds".[21] It has been described as some sort of program music depicting a storm,[30] but also as abstract music, quite the opposite of program music depicting a storm.[31] It has been presented as an emanation of the galant style, yet too dramatic to be anything near that style.[22] Its period of origin has been assumed to have been as early as around 1704,[32] and as late as the 1750s.[10] Its defining characteristics have been associated with extant compositions by Bach (BWV 531, 549a, 578, 911, 914, 922 and several of the solo violin sonatas and partitas),[10][14][33][34][35] and by others (including Nicolaus Bruhns and Johann Heinrich Buttstett),[10] as well as with untraceable earlier versions for other instruments and/or by other composers.[10] It has been deemed too simplistic for it to have been written down by Bach,[10] and too much a stroke of genius to have been composed by anyone else but Bach.[36]

What remains is "the most famous organ work in existence",[37] that in its rise to fame was helped by various arrangements, including bombastic piano settings,[38] versions for full symphonic orchestra,[39] and alternative settings for more modest solo instruments.[10]

[JBS]

BTW
Perhaps this group of posts re BWV 565 might be moved to a Bach thread?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

A thought about this attribution problem, not only with Bach. It assumes that composers are "programmed" a certain way and unable to step outside the program.

For instance, I can easily prove that Beethoven didn't write the Op. 131 Quartet. For starters, LvB had never written a quartet with 7 (!) movements before. Secondly, he had never linked all the movements in a quartet in that way before. Finally, he had never begun a previous quartet with a fugue. Clearly, Beethoven didn't write this piece; it must have been written by his contemporary and friend Reicha, who was known for his love of experimentation.

You can do this with other composers. Clearly, Sibelius didn't write the 7th Symphony, since he had never written a 1-mvt. symphony before. Mozart didn't write the "Prague" Symphony, because it doesn't have a minuet, an all his other late symphonies have minuets. Brahms didn't write the 4th Symphony, because it ends with a passacaglia, something he had never previously used for a finale.

Etc. I guess some musicologists just need something to write about.

[Mandryka]

A thought about this attribution problem, not only with Bach. It assumes that composers are "programmed" a certain way and unable to step outside the program.

For instance, I can easily prove that Beethoven didn't write the Op. 131 Quartet. For starters, LvB had never written a quartet with 7 (!) movements before. Secondly, he had never linked all the movements in a quartet in that way before. Finally, he had never begun a previous quartet with a fugue. Clearly, Beethoven didn't write this piece; it must have been written by his contemporary and friend Reicha, who was known for his love of experimentation.

You can do this with other composers. Clearly, Sibelius didn't write the 7th Symphony, since he had never written a 1-mvt. symphony before. Mozart didn't write the "Prague" Symphony, because it doesn't have a minuet, an all his other late symphonies have minuets. Brahms didn't write the 4th Symphony, because it ends with a passacaglia, something he had never previously used for a finale.

Etc. I guess some musicologists just need something to write about.

There are masses which used to be thought to be by Josquin on the basis of style, but in the event scholars now think they are likely by Bauldeweyn. Style isn't a very reliable indicator of authorship, for the reasons you point out. Scholars look at other things -- the manuscripts for example.

[Madiel]

A thought about this attribution problem, not only with Bach. It assumes that composers are "programmed" a certain way and unable to step outside the program.

For instance, I can easily prove that Beethoven didn't write the Op. 131 Quartet. For starters, LvB had never written a quartet with 7 (!) movements before. Secondly, he had never linked all the movements in a quartet in that way before. Finally, he had never begun a previous quartet with a fugue. Clearly, Beethoven didn't write this piece; it must have been written by his contemporary and friend Reicha, who was known for his love of experimentation.

You can do this with other composers. Clearly, Sibelius didn't write the 7th Symphony, since he had never written a 1-mvt. symphony before. Mozart didn't write the "Prague" Symphony, because it doesn't have a minuet, an all his other late symphonies have minuets. Brahms didn't write the 4th Symphony, because it ends with a passacaglia, something he had never previously used for a finale.

Etc. I guess some musicologists just need something to write about.

This is an absurd simplification. Style does not consist of the number of movements. The passacaglias attributed to Bach, Brahms and Shostakovich are not stylistically interchangeable just because they're in the passacaglia form. The question would not be whether Brahms would ever write a passacaglia, the question would be what would a passacaglia written by Brahms sound like.

[Mandryka]

Another famous one is Brahms's Haydn variations, which are actually variations on a theme by someone else (can't remember who! Pleyel maybe.)

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

This is an absurd simplification. Style does not consist of the number of movements.

True, I was just using it as an example of structural innovation. Stylistically, I could find examples of Bartok sounding like R. Strauss, Janacek sounding like Dvorak, Beethoven sounding famously like Scott Joplin, and plenty of others. Great composers don't always sound like we expect them to, which is one of the things that makes them great.

[Madiel]

True, I was just using it as an example of structural innovation. Stylistically, I could find examples of Bartok sounding like R. Strauss, Janacek sounding like Dvorak, Beethoven sounding famously like Scott Joplin, and plenty of others. Great composers don't always sound like we expect them to, which is one of the things that makes them great.

And yet I'm sure you have an idea in your head of what people "sound like", otherwise the comparisons you just made wouldn't work in the first place. You can't say that Beethoven sounds like Joplin unless you have a notion of a characteristic Joplin sound.

The stylistic lines between composers are not bright divisions. They are blurry. It's probability based. But presenting a straw man caricature of what musicologists are trying to do, using the weakest evidence you can possibly think of and suggesting this is the kind of evidence that is used as proof, is not helpful.

[Jo498]

Another famous one is Brahms's Haydn variations, which are actually variations on a theme by someone else (can't remember who! Pleyel maybe.)

The authorship of that wind divertimento is dubious but Pleyel seems a better candidate than Haydn although the theme might be really some chorale tune as it is called, so still from an older source.

I don't know about the details of BWV 565.
But there are lots of pieces by Bach where we know they are arrangements (like the solo keyboard concerti after Vivaldi and others or the 4 hpschd concerto after Vivaldi), there are also a bunch that were considered by Bach but turned out to be by someone else (the 2 violin trio sonata by Goldberg, some other pieces by Bach's eldest sons, 2 cantatas or so by Telemann).
There is another batch of works of which it was at least debated for decades if they were based on a non-Bach original (some of the keyboard concerti) so there are quite a few cases from which one could see how arrangements typically look like.
We even have by Bach himself an "organ concerto movement"(in some cantata) and a solo violin version based on the same material (prelude of E major Partita).
 

[Spotted Horses]

For what it's worth, when I first heard the Toccata and Fugue in d-minor it didn't "sound like Bach" to me (based on my relatively spare familiarity with his other organ pieces) and I could never figure out what part of it was the "fugue." With the suggestion that it was the transcription of a violin piece things fell into place for me, because a lot of the figuration sounded like typical violin style of the era, and I could imagine the enormous chords as fleshing out of arpeggiation. I could imagine it as something Bach might have thrown together to test the "lungs" of a new organ.

Whatever it is, I like it.