[LAU] Some new Bach

James Harkins jamshark70 at gmail.com
Thu Feb 14 15:15:21 UTC 2013


Paul Davis <paul at ...> writes:

> even i have read that (even) bach rarely departs from a fairly monotonous 
grid, even on those odd occasions when things are not in 4.

I'm about to turn in for the night after a few glasses of Malbec (vacation is 
wonderful and necessary, no?) so I'm not up for a full treatise. But I do want 
to point out that vast amounts of Bach's output derive from the rhythms of 
Baroque court dances (same for most late Baroque composers, actually), and a 
good many of those dances are not in 4.

Triple divisions of the beat and triple meters are not "odd occasions" in Bach, 
by any means.

It is true that syncopation appears in baroque music in ways that are less 
flexible than 20th-century classical music, or jazz, not to mention the great 
breakbeat wizards from d'n'b and its offshoots.

hjh



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