Today is the birthday ---or the birth anniversary--- of the composer whose works I like the best: Johann Sebastian Bach.
The reason Bach's name is usually given with all three of his names is because the name Johann was very common in his family, which was based around a part of Germany that once belonged to Thuringia, in Saxony. (Or vice versa; I'm not sure of the historical geography of those parts). So Johann Bach's abounded there, and in fact it was Sebastian, his middle name, that identified him more uniquely. (Subsequently, of course, there would have been a lot of younger Bach's named Sebastian, I assume, but he was The Sebastian in his lifetime, and for a while afterwards.)
While I certainly admire the man, Bach, I admire his compositions more. The Catalog of his works contain opuses numbered as high as 1090, but on the one hand, a number of items in this list have turned out to be by others, attributed to Bach by accident, and it is believed that a number of his works have been lost. So we have an approximate estimate of around 1000 compositions, some of which were compound compositions, such as the Well-Tempered Clavier, which has some 48 preludes and fugues, two each in every major and minor key, including very unusual ones.
I have written about practically every sort of composition by Bach: the Concertos, the Orchestral Suites, the Brandenburg Concertos, the Passions, the Oratorios (at least the Christmas Oratorio), and I believe a chorale-prelude or two, and a Cantata or two, at least a couple of movements from them, and the Trio Sonatas.
Some of the most well-loved of Bach's compositions are very simple pieces for keyboard; today we would play them on a piano: I'm talking about the so-called Two Part Inventions. There are fifteen (not 22, as I mistakenly wrote before), and they can all be found at the International Music Score Library Project, also called the Petrucci Library. (Ironically, though the composition is certainly in the Public Domain, various printers and publishers continue to claim copyright, which each individual must decide whether or not to honor.)
In the time leading up to that of Bach's, collections of pieces were often made with one in each "common" key, starting with C major. The Inventions are like that:
C major,
C minor,
D major,
D minor,
E♭ major,
E major,
E minor,
F major,
F minor,
G major,
G minor,
A major,
A minor,
B♭ major,
B minor.
These are the keys in which any fair musician can play a scale. (I would have trouble with a few of these, and I can do a couple more on a good day. The Well-Tempered Clavier was one of the first collections to use every scale. Some black notes, such as A Flat, have two names: A Flat and G Sharp. Bach picked the easier one to use, and so there are twelve preludes and fugues in all twelve major keys, and so on, and another whole set.)
Not everyone is familiar with every one of even these fifteen Inventions, but they are well worth getting to know. The C major one is an unpretentious piece, with a very sedate feel. It is easy to learn, and worth the effort. The last several bars are a neat and clever ending to the piece.
The two-part invention in D minor was made famous by Walter Carlos in the original Switched-On-Bach album released around 1970, played on the Moog Synthesizer, one of the earliest synthesizers built.
I know the F major 2-part Invention particularly well, because I used it as my telephone ring tone for five years. It is a jolly piece, especially if it is played at a brisk speed. This, too, was in Switched-On Bach by Walter Carlos. As you have learned already, Walter Carlos underwent a transgender operation, and took the name Wendy Carlos, and she had a big celebratory album released in 2000 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Switched-On Bach, using more sophisticated synthesizers, and different settings, which she felt to be better choices for her musical selections. I believe the F major invention was one of those.
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