Thomas Schall at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > The "difficulty" could mean many things: technical difficulty or musical > difficulty. Usually the works by Bach were regarded as musically > difficult - difficult to understand, difficult to listen to them etc. > old-fashioned.
"Were regarded" by whom, other than Johann Adolph Scheibe in a couple of paragraphs in a 1737 article that were roundly denounced by Birnbaum and Mizler? BTW, Scheibe wrote that Bach "demands that singers and instrumentalists should be able to do with their throats and instruments whatever he can play on the clavier, but this is impossible." > Bach was more famous for being an exceptional keyboard player during his > lifetime than for his compositions! His keyboard playing would have consisted mostly of his compositions, improvisations and continuo playing, so I think it misses the point to draw a sharp distinction between Bach the player and Bach the composer. In any event, Scheibe's 1739 praise of the Italian Concerto (yes, the same Scheibe), Mizler's 1740 praise of the Clavier-Ubung, Mattheson's 1737 remarks on the A minor sonata for unaccompanies violin, Quantz's 1752 remarks about organ music, Marpurg's 1754 dedication that speaks about Bach's combination of melody and harmony, and others all speak of his skill as a composer. Just cruising through the excerpts in the Bach Reader, I see rather more about Bach's music itself than his execution. Howard
