Music Post, #4: Contrapunctus 9, and what makes Bach work

11/2/2014

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The Music Post is now in the iTunes store for subscription! Click here to subscribe (and please rate, as well!). Coming to Stitcher very soon too.

For those who want to subscribe not through iTunes, I've finally figured out how to get a good, reliable RSS feed, which you can find here (or on the left) to subscribe through basically any RSS app that exists. Woohoo!

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In this episode, we look at Contrapunctus 9 as a microcosm for Bach's compositions more generally, and begin to see how he perfectly balances repetition with unpredictability in his music. You'll hear it both on piano, and at the end of the show, on organ! For some comparison, for anyone who's interested, below is Glenn Gould's organ recording. Click here for a pretty awesome 16 year old playing it on youtube

3 Comments

The Music Post

The Music Post is a blog / podcast for reflecting on all things musical, informed by years of writing, playing, and teaching music.

11/4/2014 09:41:40 pm

Great series! Could you please post a link to subscribe to the series without itunes? I use a random app on my phone and the itunes link won't work for that.

Sam Post

11/5/2014 02:39:14 am

Hi DJ,

Thanks! Yes, it's been a rough time for me sorting out the whole RSS thing, but here is the reliable feed, just created yesterday... I'll post it in the body of the post as well:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/themusicpostwithsampost

Using that link you should be able to subscribe through virtually any RSS feed. Feedburner is pretty great! Wish I'd figured that out a couple of weeks ago....

11/5/2014 05:04:55 am

Perfect, thanks. Now we just need your recording of the Art of the Fugue. It was great to be there at Levine the other night for the concert, but I felt dissatisfied coming home to my various CDs. Kocsis is my favorite, but the engineering isn't very good, alas.