The Spring Equinox, and Johann Sebastian Bach's Birthday!

People probably wonder why Bach has such a long name, and especially today it is appropriate to be a little more curious about it than on other days.  Well, in the Bach family, many, if not most, of the boys were called Johann.  So if you did a search on the name "Johann Bach", which was essentially John Brook, in German, you would turn up thousands.  Sebastian was his true given name, so in his family, they called him Sebastian.  (Today you have to use the whole thing, or his initials.  He even had a son, Johann Christian Bach.  But we digress.)

Why are there Leap Years?  In earlier posts I have written about this at length, but the older you get, the more effort it takes to even click on a link, so I summarize the facts for my senior readers whose memories are short, whose arthritis is acute, and who are incorrigibly lazy.  (I realize that I'm not likely to make any friends by insulting my readers, but most of them should be able to take a joke.)

I myself didn't know the answer to this question, until I found myself chatting with the professor who taught astronomy at my school.  Why Leap Years? I asked him.  Oh, he said, because farmers want the growing season to start roughly on the same date every year, and they get awful mad if spring begins a little earlier in the year each year.  And we know what happened when farmers got mad: food got expensive.  So initially, back in the days of Julius Ceasar (or someone else whose name was Julius), they introduced the idea of an extra day at the end of February every four years.  But if you live long enough, you know that some years that are numbered a multiple of 4, we do not take an extra day in February.  (This was the invention of astronomers of the time of Pope Gregory.  At one time I knew their names, but mercifully I have forgotten.)  And then, more recent astronomers decided to be even more exact, and put the extra day back every some thousand years, and it started getting completely silly.  I'm willing to humor farmers to some degree, but this is getting out of hand.

Because it was the Catholics, namely Pope G, who instituted this calendric adjustment (which most of us agree is an improvement), the protestants in the land of Martin Luther dug in their heels and just said no.  After several centuries, when the Baptismal Record of little Sebastian's church showed that he was born on March 21st, it was quite a different day of the year in Italy, and other countries that were using the much more accurate new calendar.  (Apparently the historical texts that recorded the events that took place when the Lutherans finally, reluctantly, adopted the Gregorian Calendar, make interesting reading.)  So, going by from what direction the sun rose when Sebastian was born, as an observer in Stonehenge would have said, it was probably early June.  But for various reasons, I celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach's birthday on March 21st, today.  If Bach were to be notified of the facts, who knows whether he would prefer to celebrate his birthday in June, or stick to March 21st, though the weather would be considerably colder than he was accustomed to feeling when they lit the candles on his birthday?  Does it still make a sound?  Know, we do not.

The music of J. S. Bach is full of variety.  Some of it is sober, some of it is light and even mischievous, though even the silliness of Bach comes through as just mildly amused.  Some of his melodies are romantic, even in his serious church music; romance in music is an intangible thing.  (I'm not talking about the Romantic Movement, which is a phenomenon of the 1800s, and ultimately had little intrinsic relationship to the concept of a romantic melody.)  I'm going to suggest some pieces that you might try to find and listen to, to try and become aware of J. S. Bach's music.

If melody is your thing, the slow movement from any of Bach's concertos are a good bet.  For instance, the slow movement of the Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin, BWV 1060, is a lovely, epigrammatic tune.

Bach's genius was counterpoint, a style of writing in which every part (or voice) had an interesting melody.  To get a taste of Bach's counterpoint, I suggest two pieces.  Firstly, the aria "My Heart Ever Faithful," (Mein gläubiges Herze) from Cantata 68, BWV 68.  There is a track on the beautiful recording Voices of Angels, by Teldec, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting various boy's choirs.  Listen all the way to the end, where the accompaniment closes with a trio for violin, oboe, and cello.  The second piece I suggest is Contrapunctus 1 from The Art of Fugue.  The link takes you to a file in which the fugue is played by a Flute, English Horn, Cello, and Bassoon.  (The original piece had no designated instruments.)

Depending on the year, Bach's birthday falls either in Lent, or sometimes shortly after Easter.  Even if you're not religious, you will find Bach's religious music strangely moving.  One chorus in the St. Matthew Passion is O Mensch, bewein dein' Sündre gross, or "O Man, bewail thy grievous sin".  This number is sobering to anyone, and to a believer, it is heartbreaking.  The words are almost like a creed, summarizing the life of Jesus, and it is sung by a choir in four parts, as well as a dozen boy trebles (or, these days, any old trebles).  It is fully accompanied by flutes, oboes, string orchestra and organ.

Finally, I draw your attention to yet another slow movement from a concerto, a piece that I fell in love with in my grad school days: the slow movement from the Triple Concerto in A minor, BWV 1044.  The soloists are a Flute, a Violin, and the Harpsichord, and it is like a slow dance where each instrument takes turn being the featured soloist.

Let's stop there.  Too many suggestions would result in none of them being followed up on!

Happy first day of Spring, and Bach's Birthday!

Arch