{"id":696,"date":"2011-08-29T09:36:44","date_gmt":"2011-08-29T13:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/?p=696"},"modified":"2011-08-30T10:40:12","modified_gmt":"2011-08-30T14:40:12","slug":"day-thirty-three-italian-concertofrench-overture-cd-2-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/?p=696","title":{"rendered":"Day Thirty Three: Italian Concerto\/French Overture (CD 2-10)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Bach-Complete-Works-155-Box\/dp\/B000HRME5U\/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1311823878&amp;sr=1-2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/img\/BachEdition2.10.jpg\" alt=\"Bach Edition 33\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a>If it&#8217;s possible, the first composition on this CD is even more recognized (and loved) than the Brandenburg Concertos. It&#8217;s so Bach, so Baroque.<\/p>\n<p>I know. I know. I&#8217;m making a big claim. But listen to it and you&#8217;ll see what I mean.<\/p>\n<p>I refer, of course, to Italian Concerto in F major (BWV 971), movement one (&#8220;Allegro&#8221;), which sounds like this:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CqAv7TOwhuE\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"390\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>That piece on YouTube is even played on the harpsichord (which is what I&#8217;m listening to this morning &#8212; although from a different performer)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;as opposed to, say, Glenn Gould&#8217;s version played on the piano:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Rg_uWtsQcKs\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"390\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Come on now. Admit it. You prefer Gould&#8217;s version, don&#8217;t you? Yeah. I thought so.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not that Pieter-Jan Belder&#8217;s playing of the harpsichord (on today&#8217;s Brilliant Classics CD) is bad. It&#8217;s actually very good. But (and here it comes again) I prefer the sound of the piano. It&#8217;s more expressive than the harpsichord.<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;ll buck up and keep listening to these Brilliant Classics performances because<!--more--> the recordings are first-rate and the musicians are extraordinary.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what Wikipedia <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Italian_Concerto,_BWV_971\">entry<\/a> on Wikipedia (there&#8217;s an entry on Wikipedia for just about everything, isn&#8217;t there?) says about the Italian Concerto:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Italian Concerto, BWV 971, original title: Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto (Concerto after the Italian taste), published in 1735 as the first half of Clavier-\u00dcbung II (the second half being the French Overture) is a three-movement concerto for two-manual harpsichord solo composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. The Italian Concerto has become popular among Bach&#8217;s keyboard works, and has been widely recorded both on the harpsichord and the piano.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Another standout piece on today&#8217;s CD is Chromatic Fantasy &amp; Fugue in D minor (BWV 903), movement one (&#8220;Fantasie&#8221;). There&#8217;s some really interesting playing there, with cascading notes that sound like a waterfall. Lots and lots of notes. Pieter-Jan plays this with a mastery even Helen Keller could hear. Let&#8217;s see if I can find this on YouTube so you know what I mean:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LIXYF_3_taU\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"390\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And, just to be fair, here&#8217;s Glenn Gould&#8217;s version:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TWFN9702Fzg\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"390\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>All I can say is that page of music must have been black with notes.<\/p>\n<p>The compositions on today&#8217;s CD are:<br \/>\nBWV 971 &#8212; 1735 (Bach was 50)<br \/>\nBWV 831 &#8212; 1735 (Bach was 50)<br \/>\nBWV 903 &#8212; 1720 (Bach was 35)<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, just to give you an idea about why I like doing these &#8220;Days With&#8221; explorations, on while I was searching YouTube to find a harpsichord performance of Fantasy &amp; Fugue in D minor (BWV 903), movement one (&#8220;Fantasie&#8221;), I encountered someone who had posted a piano version using a particularly fetching painting. Here&#8217;s what I mean:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nb6BXo0032A\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.155DaysWithBachAndMe.com\/img\/YouTubeBach.png\" alt=\"Bach Edition 33\" width=\"325\" height=\"300\" align=\"middle\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The description of the YouTube clip says this:<\/p>\n<p>Chromatic fantasia and fugue in D minor BWV 903, Fantasia<br \/>\nRosalyn Tureck, piano.<br \/>\nPicture: Waterhouse (1849-1917), Miranda, the Tempest<\/p>\n<p>That lead me to the Wikipedia <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_William_Waterhouse\">entry<\/a> for the English painter John William Waterhouse, an artist about whom I was not familiar. And that led me to this painting, titled &#8220;Miranda, the Tempest&#8221; (painted 1916):<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nb6BXo0032A\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.155DaysWithBachAndMe.com\/img\/Miranda_-_The_Tempest_JWW.jpg\" alt=\"Bach Edition 33\" width=\"470\" height=\"330\" align=\"middle\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s haunting. I&#8217;m absolutely captivated by that painting.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s why I love doing these &#8220;And Me&#8221; journeys. It&#8217;s often the serendipitous encounters along the way that make the daily routine worthwhile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If it&#8217;s possible, the first composition on this CD is even more recognized (and loved) than the Brandenburg Concertos. It&#8217;s so Bach, so Baroque. I know. I know. I&#8217;m making a big claim. But listen to it and you&#8217;ll see what I mean. I refer, of course, to Italian Concerto in F major (BWV 971), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,73,129,74,376,377,375,372,374,291,24,373,378,379,380,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=696"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":726,"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions\/726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.155dayswithbachandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}