Talk:Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
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Source for quotes
It's good that we have authors given for these quotes, but it would be even better if we could have specific sources for them. Any chance of that? --Camembert
Umm, they are from liner notes from various recordings I have. Would you like me to list the disc numbers, or what - is there a standard WikiWay of identifying recordings? Noel 23:24, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- Ah right. Hm, not sure how to handle liner notes, I must admit. Maybe saying "in liner notes from so-and-so's recording" would be OK (it's true that liner notes change with re-releases and in different parts of the world, but then so do record catalogue numbers, and including catalogue numbers would look a bit odd anyway, I think). Best course of action is probably to pretend I didn't say anything.. --Camembert
- Well, that's certainly easy enough to do! :-) And of course the fact that they are from liner notes is now recorded here! In case anyone *really* cares, though, the Schulze is from E. Power Biggs: Bach - Great Organ Favourites (CBS MK 42644) and the other is from Bach: E. Power Biggs (Sony SBK 46551). Speaking of E. Power Biggs, do we have an entry for him? Hmmm... Noel 00:13, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Provide help for pop culture fans
Isn't this the music in "Phantom of the Opera"? (You know what I mean...) I think it may be helpful if we provide a clue as to what musical piece we're talking about, since the opening is widely known but the name of the piece is not. -- furrykef
- Your suggestion is helpful, furrykef. It's indeed true that many Wikipedia readers are likely to know about works of classical music only through their appearances in popular culture. However, the change that I made is incomplete, because we need to clarify what particular version of Phantom of the Opera is meant (there are many). I can't help here, but perhaps you could clarify the links a bit? --Opus33 21:24, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- Hmm...perhaps in addition to mentioning places that the piece appears, we should find a MIDI and post that. Then everybody will know the piece we're talking about. :) -- furrykef
More on Williams's Theory
Thanks, Camembert, for your sensible revert. In hopes of getting this on more solid ground I went to the original article and summarized it. Opus33 16:44, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
- Thanks, Op33, looks good. --Camembert
Sources needed for some assertions
Hmm, we've got some assertions now that strike me as perhaps controversial.
- Can Busoni's work be considered to have been an actual "Bach revival"? To show this, one would have to document an actual decline in public interest in Bach's music between Mendelssohn's and Busoni's day. Is there some published material that documents such a decline?
- Is it really true that Fantasia induced yet another third Bach revival, or was Bach's music simply continuously popular during the first half of the 20th century?
If people can come up with published references to back up these claims, then I think it would be ok to retain them, but otherwise I think they should be removed.
Thanks,
Opus33 16:22, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hi Opus33, thanks for asking. Both "claims" were put in the article by me. As a preliminary thought please consider that I listen to classical radio on a daily basis, and that my favourite radio station scarcely broadcasts any music without giving a piece of information about the music they broadcast. So, much of my knowledge on classical music could be referenced as "assertion by Radio Klara (or its predecessors) (http://www.klara.be) in the period (roughly) 1975-2005. Surely, this is an "untouchable" type of reference, I'm sure you'd like something more precise.
- I thought I'd found something about Busoni pushing some kind of Bach revival in the wikipedia Busoni article. Anyway, the "type" of revival is about making the "grand" pieces of Bach (not the A.M.B. notebook, the inventions, the well-tempered clavier and the like), that up till then could generally only be heard in concert halls (or churches for the organ pieces), available as salon entertainment. 19th century was famous for producing all kinds of sheet music piano reductions, for example Liszt producing the full cycle of Beethoven symphonies in that format. What I understood is that Bach escaped that "piano reduction frenzy" until late romantic era, when it was pushed by, most notably, Busoni.
- The "Fantasia"-linked revival: I think a minor indication about that is also in the wikipedia Fantasia (movie) article. What I know about this particular Bach revival wave is that (1) Elgar and Richard Strauss were discussing in the early 20th century whether or not it was a good idea to make orchestrations of Bach's music for a full-blown Romantic orchestra, which they discussed in terms of "novelty" (Bach did not compose much non-solistic/non-sung orchestral pieces of music, and these pieces - 3 out of the 4 suites for orchestra - were for the reduced kind of Baroque orchestra). Elgar orchestrated the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor (with some time elapsing between the two halves of the work. Although relatively "successful" in the UK, this was hardly a Bach revival. (2) Alban Berg's "Klangfarbenmelodie" experiment with one of Bach's Ricercar's from the Musical Offering is later, and was not so much the start of a "Bach revival", as a "promotion article" for the 2nd Viennese school. (3) But then, Leopold Stokowski heard the Elgar orchestration, and decided to make such an orchestration too (this time BWV 565). No Bach revival resulted, the three orchestration "experiments" were more or less isolated events - until Disney heard the Stokowsky orchestration, and still many years later incorporated that music in Fantasia. Then it was an instant world hit: only then the record sales of this Stokowsky orchestration went soaring. Any record sold at that time including orchestrations of Bach's organ music needed no promotion to fly of the shelves. I happen to own one of such records of this wave of Bach revival (that was about Bach played by a full blown romantic orchestra): the record I own is, not so surprisingly, directed by Eugene Ormandy, one of Stokowsky's immediate collegues, and my parents must have bought it somewhere in the 1950s (no BWV numbers on the record sleeve yet). This wave of Bach revival was completely battered down 2 decades later when the "authentic interpretation" wave, led by Nicolaus Harnoncourt came along.
Note that I don't speak about "revivals" so much in the sense of that Bach was completely "forgotten", but in the sense, that Bach's popularity went by waves, each wave attaining a new "target audience" (to put it in modern commercial jargon). Often people seem to think that the Mendelssohn revival with the St. Matthew passion in the early 19th century was the only of such waves. Nothing is less true. There had already been a previous wave, the Baron Von Swieten wave, that had effectively attained Beethoven (and the "encore" he always had to play at Von Swieten's: the chromatic P&F); Mozart (his "adagio and fuga" would not have been thinkable without) and Haydn (had a copy of the Wohltemperirte Klavier permanently near his piano). The Mendelssohn revival was only about reviving the Passionen and the Great organ works in public concert practice.
Now, anyway, if needed, I'll turn the text I typed above out of my head into nice wikipedia-style thorough references, just let me know if you think this really necessary, and then allow me some time to produce them!
Thanks, --Francis Schonken 17:37, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Possible subjective POV
The last edit by 84.185.205.99 (08:29, 6 May 2005) sounds my POV alarm to some extent. It does state that musicology is not an exact science, and that Williams' theories are theories, but I don't consider that a very necessary statement to make, and the rest of it seems to be biased counter-arguments. Calling Williams' arguments "shaky" does not agree with my ideas of NPOV and objectivity. I'm not dead sure of my instincts (or indeed objectivity) here, so I decided not to be bold and edit, but I encourage others to give it a look. EldKatt 13:53, 7 May 2005 (UTC)