J. S. Bach Playlist

[Alex K]

Here's Joshua Bell playing the Chaconne from the second violin partita in a subway station. One mainly sees people rushing by not paying attention. Some people interpret this as as showing the cultural decline of society blabla, I'd rather think that not paying attention to a random bit of a challenging solo music while trying to get to work is probably the natural thing to do.

[Alex K]

To go with your morbid choice, here's my strong second contender for all time favorite Bach cantata, Aus der Tiefe

I've listened to it many times during the past 2 years when life was getting just too much.

From the deep, I call to you. The beginning is nothing short of magical to me, and it features my favorite German (of eastern European heritage) soloist Dorothee Mields

A lesser-known piece, one that probably wouldn't be on my radar if not for a scene in The Seventh Continent where the Schober family decides to kill themselves (after two years [read: two sections of the film] of living dead-end lives) after the daughter Evi responds to the final aria ("Ich freue mich auf meinen Tod") by saying "Me, too."


Also, apparently, this was performed on Easter, despite clearly being meant for the Presentation at the Temple. In addition, there's a scene from his next movie Benny's Video where the title character sings "Trotz dem alten Drachen." Unfortunately, my library does not have a copy of that film, it's out of print, and thus, I have not seen it.

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Fun fact: Michael Haneke told the producers that he expected that people would be more shocked by the scene where the Schobers flush their money down the toilet (a detail cribbed from a real-life incident that inspired the film) than by their decision to kill themselves. For me, I was most shocked by a scene where the mother destroys a copy of Signs of Life by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. What did the Penguin Cafe Orchestra ever do to them?

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After the emotional atmospheric sound bath of BWV131, one needs something light to cleanse the palate and enter the rational realm again. Much like Beethoven who supposedly started every day playing a Bach fugue, here's the most popular of them all, the "little fugue" in Gm, here in a piano transcription





aand here's a blast from the past, the famous Swingle singers' version

[Alex K]

This is my favorite clavier&violin sonata. They are often considered a de facto trio sonata where the clavier unites two parts.





The first movement is a so-called siciliano which is counted in groups of 12, and a very similar mournful siciliano melody appears again in the St. Matthews Passion (https://youtu.be/nZb7FcP84CM).

The second movement (4:14 https://youtu.be/ltrXpNsNzh0?t=254 ) contains one of Bach's most memorable and strange fugue subjects

[Alex K]

The YT description says it all:

"When it was composed, this violin marvel – the Violin Concerto in D minor, performed here by the Netherlands Bach Society for All of Bach – immediately became such a technical challenge that few soloists were able to tackle it. Too few, probably, as not a shred of it has survived. The concerto played here is a modern reconstruction, based on a harpsichord concerto written much later by Bach, but which is presumed to originate from a violin concerto."






You can see the usually super-confident Bachvereinigig musicians really on their toes to keep up with this challenging composition