Bach

This week, we bring you the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, including some of the composer’s best-loved compositions. Bach is considered the quintessential composer of the High, or Late Baroque period, covering the late 1600s to mid-1700s. Tonight’s pieces also represent the most popular musical forms of the era, such as fugue, solo instrumental suite and orchestral suite.

Opening this week’s concert is an arrangement for bass clarinet duo of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.  This is one of over 80 Bach organ compositions that have survived, with countless others believed to have been lost. Thanks to improvements by 17^th and 18^th Century organ builders, the instrument was perfectly suited for the popular complex polyphonic music of the late Baroque such as the fugue, which Bach elevated to new heights.  The Toccata and Fugue in D minor is one of Bach’s most recognizable organ works thanks to its use in several popular films, including Fantasia and Phantom of the Opera.  

Starting off the second half is Bach’s beloved Cello Suite No. 1. His cello suites might have been lost to us had the young Pablo Casals not discovered a copy of them in a Barcelona junk shop over a hundred years after the composer’s death. Casals spent over a dozen years mastering the suites, and his performances made them instant classics. The prelude from this suite has also appeared in several movie and television productions.

Other Bach favorites this week include the Pastorale in F major, the Bourrée from his Suite in E minor,  and the Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor.  Performances are by area musicians, including several faculty members from ASU’s School of Music, Theater and Dance.