Good afternoon and thanks for tuning in to Little Rock Public Radio and Classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I'm Eric Harrison, I write about arts and culture at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and I’ll be your host for the next two hours.
You're listening to ‘Major and Minor Masterpieces,’ where we will focus each week on a broad range of classical music, from chamber music to choral works to full symphonies and maybe even a touch or two of opera.
In today’s show we focus on keyboard music by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Bach, born 1685, died 1750, was practically the personification of music’s Baroque Era. So much so, that with his death in 1750, musicologists have set that as the era’s end.
He composed an extraordinarily wide variety of music, from instrumental concertos to works for individual instruments — his sonatas for solo cello and sonatas and partitas for solo violin are among the gold standards of the repertoire. (By the way, a partita is a multi-movement work similar to a suite.)
During his career as a church musician he composed a number of sacred works for solo voices, chorus and orchestra (think the Passions according to St. Matthew and St. John, not to mention the at least 200 cantatas).
He also wrote an incredible number of pieces for solo keyboard, which is the focus of today’s show.
Bach’s many organ works are at the center of every organist’s repertoire, and of course his Toccata and Fugue in d minor is a fixture in popular culture, due not least to its appearance in the soundtracks of many movies, from “The Phantom of the Opera” to “Fantasia” to “Rollerball.”
So we’re going to start off today’s show with that piece, played brilliantly by legendary organist E. Power Biggs on the Flentrop Organ in Harvard University’s Busch-Reisinger Museum in a classic 1960 Columbia/CBS Masterworks recording.
(J.S. BACH’S “‘TOCCATA AND FUGUE’ IN D MINOR” )
That was E. Power Biggs performing J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in d minor, BWV 565, in a classic 1960 CBS Masterworks recording.
Now let’s listen to organist Ton Koopman perform Bach’s Fantasy & Fugue in g minor BWV 542.
(J.S. BACH’S “‘FANTASY AND FUGUE’ IN G MINOR” )
That was Ton Koopman performing Bach’s “Great” Fantasy & Fugue in g minor BWV 542.
Great organist Virgil Fox incorporated many of Bach’s organ works on an album he titled “Heavy Organ.” Of course, not all of Bach’s organ works are quite so “heavy.” Let’s tap into some of the shorter ones, again with E. Power Biggs at the keyboard (and the pedals), performing the “Jig” Fugue, BWV 577 (so named because of the extensive use of the pedals to the point where the performer seems to be dancing a jig).
We’ll follow that with Biggs performing the “Little” Fugue in g minor BWV 578, named to differentiate it from the “great” g minor fugue that’s part of the “Fantasy and Fugue” you heard a few minutes ago.
(J.S. BACH’S “‘JIG” )
(J.S. BACH’S “LITTLE” )
E. Power Biggs performed the “Jig” and “Little g minor” fugues on the Flentrop Organ at the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University.
You’re listening to Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.
And we’ll close out the first portion of our program with another pair of short works.
Bach composed organ preludes for many of his cantatas, including some that have become famous themes on their own. Let’s hear E. Power Biggs play two of those: the chorale preludes to “Wachet auf, runft uns die Stimme” (“Sleepers Awake”) and “Ein’ Feste Burg ist unser Gott” (“A Mighty Fortress is Our God”).
(J.S. BACH’S “SLEEPERS AWAKE” )
(J.S. BACH’S “A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD” )
You’ve heard organist E. Power Biggs perform the chorale preludes “Sleepers Awake” and “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” on Major and Minor Masterpieces, here on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I’m your host, Eric Harrison.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
—PROGRAM BREAK—
[EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
SARAH BUFORD, PRODUCER:
Hey listeners, welcome back to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I’m your producer, Sarah Buford, and it's time for our show’s little educational session, in which we break down some of the terminology we use when describing classical music and its history.
We’re hearing some pretty thorny titles for the pieces you have on today’s program. A lot of these titles include words that don’t mean much unless you’re in the music world or speak italian. Maybe you can take a couple of minutes and define for us what a “Toccata” is in reference to Bach’s Tocata and Fugue in d minor.
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Well, Sarah, a “toccata” (and yes, that’s Italian — from “toccare," to touch) is a musical composition, primarily for keyboard, designed to exhibit the performer's touch and technique, and usually features rapid and difficult passages designed to show off the performer’s virtuosity and technical proficiency.
And of course, the primary examples are those Johann Sebastian Bach wrote for organ and for harpsichord.
They are pieces in a style that’s without distinctive or restrictive form, but designed to be free and bold. It is similar to the “fantasia.” That is a free-style form in which the composer and performers can operate basically as the whim takes them. We’ll break down “fugue” in a future show.
SARAH: Well, thanks for touching on that topic for us, Eric.
And fun fact for our listeners, if you are interested in hearing Bach’s tocata & fugue in a less traditional setting, you can actually visit Little Rock’s Museum of Discovery where they actually have a musical tesla coil that performs Toccata and Fugue but instead of seeing a set of musicians playing… you will actually see what appears to be lightning making the music. It creates a very cool effect as the mini indoor lightning bounces and strikes to the music. Anywhooo, thank you for that linguistic breakdown, Eric. We’ll break down fugue, as Eric said, in a later show. Now, let’s get back to more major and minor masterpieces.
[END OF EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC: OK, let’s shift gears here and hear some music on a different kind of keyboard.
We mentioned that Bach wrote a large number of works for the keyboard. The fortepiano, the primary keyboard instrument of the late 18th century, first made its appearance about 1700, while Bach was still alive, but most of his works were designed to be played on the harpsichord.
Wanda Landowska is generally acknowledged as one of the 20th century players who revived the performance of Bach on the harpsichord. And she was the performer who popularized Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” for modern audiences.
The work takes its name from the — possibly apocryphal — story that Bach wrote for a harpsichord player named Goldberg, who served a count in Dresden with chronic insomnia. The count asked Bach to compose something with “a soft and somewhat lively character” that would cheer him during his sleepless nights.”
The resulting piece consists of an opening 32-measure aria (which reappears at the end of the piece) and 30 variations upon it.In the mid-20th century, a movement began toward playing Bach on the modern piano. In 1955, a 22-year-old Canadian pianist named Glenn Gould stepped into a New York studio and made classical music history with his debut recording for Columbia Records of the “Goldberg Variations.” He wasn’t the first pianist to record it, but his recording brought the piece to a new audience.
Let’s hear that 1955 performance — which, by the way, became one of the best-selling classical albums of all time.
(J.S. BACH’S “GOLDBERG VARIATIONS” )
You heard pianist Glenn Gould’s groundbreaking 1955 recording of J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” on Major and Minor Masterpieces, on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM 90.5.
To wrap up this week’s show, let’s go back to organist E. Power Biggs and hear three more of J.S. Bach’s “heaviest” organ works.
To start with, here’s another Toccata and Fugue, this one in F major, BWV 540, recorded in 1964 on the Flentrop Organ at Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum.
(J.S. BACH’S “‘TOCCATA AND FUGUE’ IN F MAJOR” )
You’re heard E. Power Biggs perform J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in F major. Next up: Biggs plays the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564.
(J.S. BACH’S “‘TOCCATA, ADAGIO AND FUGUE’ IN C MAJOR” )
That was E. Power Biggs performing J.S. Bach’s Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major.
And let’s conclude with what is probably the most powerful of Bach’s organ works, the Passacaglia & Fugue in c minor, BWV 582. Once again, legendary organist E. Power Biggs.
(J.S. BACH’S “‘PASSACAGLIA AND FUGUE’ IN C MINOR” )
You’ve been listening to organist E. Power Biggs play Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor on Major and Minor Masterpieces.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
Thanks for tuning in this week to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I've been your host, Eric Harrison, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Our producer is Sarah Buford. And a big thank you to our friend Wojciech Chiselinski for our transition and credit music.
Tune in again next week for Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.