Is Bach considered a music genious, is so, how does his music compare to composers of his own time and modern music?
Has anyone been able to surpass Bach in creative qualitative ability or mathematical precision?
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I think he’s a genius.
His three, four, even five part fugues are simply astonishing.
I’ve played all the 48 Preludes and Fugues, and quite a bit of the organ music, and the complexity of them is amazing.
His harmonic landscapes still sound fresh today, and it wasn’t really until Debussy, Ravel, Durufle, Howells, Stravinsky, and Wagner that the harmonies changed.
I don’t know of any other composer who wrote a three part fugue that could be played backwards, and upside down, and the music was still the same.
A true genius.
I love Bach.
I’ve never understood this identification with mathematics and Bach. I suppose some people look at Bach’s use of polyphonic technique and spot thematic retrograde, inversion and other counterpoint tricks of the trade and say, “Gee, isn’t that such mathematical genius?”
What makes Bach’s music set apart from other composers is that he wrote beautiful, poetic music. It wasn’t because he was an engineer or that he could pull off a fugue in four voices with a thematic “upside-down and backwards” treatment of material.
Yes he knew the craft very well. But ultimately, it was his musical sense, not his technique which distinguishes him as one of the greatest.