Tag Archives: Johann Sebastian Bach

# 11 Contamination: Each of us is already a gem: Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations

February 26, 2013 

The “Goldberg Variations” (BWV 988) is a work for harpsichord consisting of an air with thirty variations, which were composed by Johann Sebastian Bach between 1741 and 1745 and published by the publisher Balthasar Schmid in Nuremberg. They are dedicated to Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, at that time he was serving as Kapellmeister to Count von Brühl in Dresden.

The work was conceived as a modular architecture of 32 tracks, arranged according to mathematical patterns and symmetries original.

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Johann Sebastian Bach taken from HERE

Glenn Herbert Gould (Toronto, September 25, 1932 – Toronto, October 4, 1982), the pianist who made ​​every work he performed, immediate and accessible to the public, showing respect for the aesthetic sensibility of each.

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Glenn Gould taken from HERE

 

In this recording Bach and Gould are together. The pianist despite sore hands for arthritis, plays the twelve variations that are divided into twelve scales for twelve tones that can be used with different instruments and sounds, giving you the chance to listen to them as if there was a present hope, beauty, compassion , smile. Gould offers a soft homesickness for the past that it now appears in a new form with nothing left behind.

Poverty and nakedness of this listening generate the possibility of the future that covers us with the mantle warm and clean, and they preserve us from some annoying speck vernacular of the present time. A real gem.
To listen to the Goldberg Variations, click HERE.

 

# 9 Contamination: A breath that is already melody: Nina Simone

February 18, 2013 

Nina Simone, stage name of Eunice Kathleen Waymon (Tryon, February 21, 1933 – Carry-le-Rouet, April 21, 2003).

He was a singer, pianist, writer, and activist for civil rights. It was especially jazz interpreter, although his style varied between different genres, from soul, blues, folk and gospel.

But she also expresses a musical style classic. She is an example of how the heart, technique, talent know no picket fences.

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Picture taken HERE

For example, in his song “Sinnerman”, we have Johann Sebastian Bach. The Toccata and fugue.

She follows the stairs with his full-bodied timbre and blood and in the regularity of counterpoint, his voice breaks out in the first minute slowly with a growing tension and withheld. Of this man who brings sleep and blunting of reason, a man she loved, but who is stingy with answers. And then she increases the timbre from the second minute and calls him, keeping order so stepped down, without excess. And then in the second minute he opened his voice. And he repeatsand with recall in rhythmic blouse, as if he corrected himself or his name from the stadium in a wave with the arm that wants attention. And then near the end of of the third minute, she takes up the rhythm and the orchestra goes alone. The rhythm is now expressed with the counterpoint. And she repeated again involving the listener and then she closes the fugue playing the piano.

 

UNIQUE. WONDERFUL. The rhythm and takes her as if it were in fugue for excellence, along with the orchestra starts and does not sing anymore: she emanates tones only with your breath! And in the seventh minute her voice, and no longer the plan, is leading the orchestra: IMMENSE.

To listen Sinnerman click HERE.