Bach

Article

Bach is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 04, 2021 and June 03, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “a kind of robust baroque language a la Bach”; “a veritable “who’s who” list of musical greats such as Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn”. It most often appears alongside China, Handel, Paris.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: October 04, 2021
  • Last seen: June 03, 2022

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

October 04, 2021 · Original source
I agree with all this. I think where it gets challenging is where the most parsimonious ways of doing something, given the constraints of tonality and the other rules of music, have already been “taken”, so to speak. I think this may be true of fugal counterpoint, which seems to want to tend stylistically towards a kind of robust baroque language a la Bach and Handel, and no-one since the mid C18th has really been able to do it particularly differently. So do we accept that that’s basically how fugues sound, or do we resolve not to write fugues? Not sure
June 03, 2022 · Original source
For a period of about two centuries, writing music for castrati was a top goal for composers, a goal that was achieved by a veritable “who’s who” list of musical greats such as Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn. In addition to their singing, castrati frequently also doubled as professional composers, impresarios, and teachers. We might point to people like Dr. Dre and Jay-Z as modern analogues of the more prominent castrati—artists who were highly influential because of their own music, but also because of their personalities, record labels, eyes for talent (e.g. Dr. Dre signing a young Eminem), and business activities. As we will see in the next section, the larger-than-life singer/musician archetype can be traced back to individuals like Farinelli, Caffarelli, Tenducci, Senesino, and many others.