The Bach Experience

[Michael]

BBC Radio 3 are repeating their round-the-clock experiment with a whole nine days of Bach this Christmas. One of the presenters is John Eliot Gardiner who has spent a year recording and researching the cantatas.
In an article in BBC Music he states that Bach is the only composer with whom one could have spent a whole year. "The good manners of Mozart's style would grate with solitary confinement for a year (while) Beethoven would drive you round the twist."
I thought this was a rather strange remark from a man who has himself recorded an acclaimed set of the symphonies and once described them as the raison d'etre of all musicians.
If a year of Beethoven drives one "round the twist" then I (and most members of this website) must be certifiable.

Michael

[Rod]

Originally posted by Michael:
BBC Radio 3 are repeating their round-the-clock experiment with a whole nine days of Bach this Christmas. One of the presenters is John Eliot Gardiner who has spent a year recording and researching the cantatas.
In an article in BBC Music he states that Bach is the only composer with whom one could have spent a whole year. "The good manners of Mozart's style would grate with solitary confinement for a year (while) Beethoven would drive you round the twist."
I thought this was a rather strange remark from a man who has himself recorded an acclaimed set of the symphonies and once described them as the raison d'etre of all musicians.
If a year of Beethoven drives one "round the twist" then I (and most members of this website) must be certifiable.

Michael

A year listening to Bach cantatas would drive me round the twist.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:
A year listening to Bach cantatas would drive me round the twist.

By coincidence, I have been listening to Bach cantatas and to his Orgel-Buchlein steadily for a week or more now, and am not around the twist. Wanting more, actually.