ComeLeVent (October 12, 2008 at 7:31 am)

4 planes: physical, psychological, spiritual, divine.

ComeLeVent (October 12, 2008 at 7:29 am)

Fair enough :)Bach's music is abstract. His music being universal is tied to that. Bach never evokes transitory feelings such as sadness, happiness, or peace only, it always comes with a sense of dignity, order and balance. That you can't have with romantics, for instance.Bottom line: When i say bach touches me, he does so on a spiritual level, if that means something to you, rather than a merely emotional which is, according to medieval 4 plane philosophy, below.

TintedReasoning (October 12, 2008 at 6:58 am)

Okay, stop doing what religious has being doing for so long. Don't avoid the question. As you reply to this comment, you're listening to a music and I ask you with no pretense out of merely a curiosity and humble want to learn to describe to me the emotional response to the music you're listening to right now and why. Good day.

ComeLeVent (October 12, 2008 at 6:32 am)

"Secondly, I didn't ask you to comment on the emotions the first contrapunctus generally conveys"You didn't? Really? ;)

ComeLeVent (October 12, 2008 at 6:25 am)

:DThat doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Both your statements about the performer being baroque and bach using harmony for musical reasons. The first thing i described is a common phenomenon, the second is the same for romantic or baroque composers. In fact, i'll put it like this: Bach is often emotionally much more convincing than chopin, liszt, schumann & the like.

TintedReasoning (October 11, 2008 at 10:50 pm)

Secondly, I didn't ask you to comment on the emotions the first contrapunctus generally conveys; I asked you to define to me the emotion you feel here and now. Surely the instrument nor performer change within the confines of this one performance....

TintedReasoning (October 11, 2008 at 10:48 pm)

So the emotionist (allow me the liberty to coin the word for the sake of argument) is indeed the performer, or the instrument.Now what part of a modern performer or modern instrument is Baroque? What part of that is Bach?Think long and hard about that one. Romantics used harmony and chromaticism to convey emotion and Bach used it for?Purely musical reasons that make a godly music that is so infinitely perfect that rush of adrenaline we feel compensates for any specific emotion we don't feel,wee?

ComeLeVent (October 11, 2008 at 2:48 pm)

"technical aspects with the Romantics doesn't automatically make it emotionally expressive."His use of harmony and chromaticism anticipates what's to come in music. And that, in combination with the baroque style, is what i appreciate about his music. "Say, what emotion does this piece convey?"No particular emotion, it's rather muli-faceted. Peace may be the bottom line in this recording, but on another instrument with another performer it's different.

TintedReasoning (October 11, 2008 at 1:50 pm)

Reverse the argument and you'd be closer to, what I believe to be,is true. Baroque is intellectual music, its adherence to the Florentine Doctrine of Affection is the cherry on top. Gosh, do I use that phrase derogatorily. Oh, and just because Bach's music share certain technical aspects with the Romantics doesn't automatically make it emotionally expressive.Without the almost subliminal intellectualism in Baroque music it would be, just, blech, horrible.Say, what emotion does this piece convey?

ComeLeVent (October 11, 2008 at 9:50 am)

You don't say ;)He is, for me, both intellectually and emotionally expressive. That's what makes bach bach, the balance between the emotional quality of his rather romantic harmonies and their succession and the intellectual quality of the architecture and the recurring patterns of the lines such as inversions, retrograde, mirroring and the like. But i enjoy the emotional aspect much more and think of the intellectual as the cherry on the sundae, not more.