Playlist: Best of Bach

I have long stood in awe of the music of J.S. Bach. It demands the utmost from those who attempt to play and interpret it. Embroidered with elaborate detail and rich with gold-dense harmonies, the sheer craft of it is our greatest artistic treasure. We naturally revel in the heightened sense of execution the music demands, whether we’re performing it or listening to it; the challenge becomes part of the aesthetic experience. When it builds an intricate edifice of interlocking lines atop a foundational harmonic progression, Bach’s counterpoint exteriorizes his inner architectural genius. To see a Bach score on paper is to be dizzied by black ink; to hear a Bach score in the hands of experts is to be dazzled by the capabilities of the human mind and body. Two hundred and seventy years’ worth of musical and technological invention haven’t rendered the splendor of Bach’s creations any less brilliant.

Click Here to access the playlist on YouTube.

This playlist includes some of the most sublime moments from Bach’s choral-orchestral repertoire, with arias and choruses from the Mass in B Minor, the Passions, the Christmas Oratorio, and the Magnificat. It also highlights a few of his cantatas for solo voice, which feature not just the solo voice but also some of his most beautiful writing for solo instruments. Speaking of solo instruments—I had to include some of his works for unaccompanied cello and violin, wherein he dares to summon an ensemble’s worth of complexity from one player. You will also enjoy some of my favorite moments from his instrumental works—the concertos, Brandenburgs, and orchestral suites—as well as keyboard works.

At all times, but especially now, when “coming by evening through the wintry city” to attend a concert isn’t possible, Adrienne Rich’s “At a Bach Concert” beautifully sums up my feelings about this composer, and the essence of his work.

At a Bach Concert

Coming by evening through the wintry city
We said that art is out of love with life.
Here we approach a love that is not pity.

This antique discipline, tenderly severe,
Renews belief in love yet masters feeling,
Asking of us a grace in what we bear.

Form is the ultimate gift that love can offer –
The vital union of necessity
With all that we desire, all that we suffer.

A too-compassionate art is half an art.
Only such proud restraining purity
Restores the else-betrayed, too-human heart.