WTF Bach

J.S. Bach explained — music analysis, Baroque history, counterpoint and performance practice. A classical music podcast for listeners who want to understand what they're hearing. Weekly analysis of Bach's music: Well-Tempered Clavier, Brandenburg Concertos, St. Matthew Passion and more. Classical music education for all levels. wtfbach.substack.com

WTF Bach is a music podcast hosted by Evan Shinners, with 153 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Evan Shinners hosts WTF Bach, a music show with 153 episodes published.

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  WTF Bach

  137: Special Guest! Peter Wollny

  Jun 9, 202652 minS0

  <p>Last December, I spoke with Peter Wollny, one of today’s most important Bach scholars. We discuss how one becomes a Bach scholar, what it’s like to be in close proximity with Bach’s handwritten manuscripts, using watermarks within the paper to form a compositional chronology, and forming a ‘personal relationship’ with a figure from the past. Here are some of my favorite quotes from our interview:</p><p>Q: Is there something that surprises you when reading a piece with scholarly intent vs. hearing it?A: What you can’t predict is how deeply it will go to your hear...

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  WTF Bach

  136: Bach's 12-Tone Fugue (WTC Finale!)

  May 28, 20261h 35mS0

  <p>(Fear not the length of this episode: the last 25 minutes or so are three different playings of the piece.) </p><p>Having written a prelude and fugue in every possible key, having created a single temperament for all of those pieces, having stretched the thematic growth from a 6-note fugal subject to one with all 12 possible notes, Bach achieves a victory that would become the very foundations of music. At the very end, in one of his layerings from the 1730s, he adds, S.D.G., Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone: </p><p>While all pieces in...

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  WTF Bach

  135: H Major! The Final Major (And Tuning It...)

  May 20, 202659 minS0

  <p>We reach the last note in The Well-Tempered Clavier, B natural. To this point, Bach has climbed chromatically from C, visiting both minor and major modes in every half step, and before the stunning finale in b minor, Bach writes a somewhat simpler prelude and fugue, BWV 868, in B major. </p><p><p>Thank Bach for God!</p></p><p>There are few revisions between the earliest and latest copies, the most striking is the inner voice at measure 11 in the prelude. Which do you prefer: </p><p>or,</p><p>The two tuning schemes used in today’s ep...

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  WTF Bach

  134: 5 Flats, 5 Voices: Bach in B-flat Minor

  May 12, 20261h 2mS0

  <p>“While the c# minor fugue awakens the conception of a mighty cathedral, the two numbers in b-flat minor may be likened to artistically wrought side-chapel’s vaults, in which things most precious are kept.” —Busoni’s remarks on BWV 867.</p><p>Things most precious, indeed. We might well wrap up this dark pearl of b-flat minor and guard it in the ‘side-chapel vaults’ of our hearts. What noble suffering, what secret anguish, what quiet pain is here! To know this music is to be changed, to expand one’s emotional capacity.</p><p>Notice how, in Bach’s calligraphy, each note in this...

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  WTF Bach

  133: ¿Por qué César Vallejo?

  May 5, 202634 minS0

  <p>César Vallejo (1892-1938) is one of my favorite poets. To define his style is difficult: one doesn’t understand his poems so much as one absorbs them. His words— seemingly impenetrable— have a sense to them which gnaws and tugs at dormant parts of the mind.</p><p>Some 12 years ago I holed up in a little shack near the Canada/USA border with nothing but his poetry to keep me sane— but he began unraveling my mind in a beautiful way that left an indelible mark on me as a reader. Please enjoy my anecdote as well as the pr...

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