Last month I recommended an exciting new recording of Bach violin concertos, just released by Anne Akiko Meyers. Now, let’s listen to a much older performance of the Bach Double Concerto featuring two of the twentieth century’s greatest violinists, Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrakh. This music was written around 1730 when Bach was working in Leipzig. Bach’s main instrument was the organ, but he was also a fine violinist and he was …
On Valentine’s Day this past February, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers released her newest CD, “Air” The Bach Album, featuring Bach’s A minor and E major Concertos, as well as the “Double” Concerto, accompanied by Steven Mercurio and the English Chamber Orchestra. This recording, which I highly recommend, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Charts and has been a best seller on iTunes and Amazon. It follows on the heels of other excellent …
My last post featured music constructed around a repeating bass line, or ostinato. We listened to Johann Pachelbel’s famous Canon in D as well as passacaglias by Handel and Bach. Now, let’s return to the ostinato with another type of musical composition that was popular in the Baroque period, the chaconne. Like the passacaglia, the repeating bass line of the chaconne gave Baroque composers a great opportunity to write endlessly inventive variations. …
An ostinato is a musical motif or phrase that is persistently repeated. Here are three pieces from the Baroque period that are constructed around a repeating bass line known as a basso ostinato, or ground bass. In each case, the bass line provides the framework for a set of increasingly complex and thrilling variations. It’s as if the composer is saying, “Listen to how clever and inventive I can be!” Canon in D…Johann …