Johann Sabastian Bach - Air for G String

Every month it feels like I’m playing catch up. There are lots of good things happening with music lately yet there is an even greater inventory of amazing music from the past that I would like to talk about. So I’ve decided that from now until the end of 2011 Colin Kelly’s music in review is a double feature.

Since it is the vast history of music that creates the greatest mountain of discussion for me to engage in I will start from a very early point this month. Let’s talk about Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Germany in 1685, meaning his music predates the other two titans of classic music Beethoven and Mozart but nearly a hundred years, and that makes sense given his strong influence on music on a whole.

My brother Niall once told me about a study that tested the stimulation music had on your brain, the idea being that music that stimulated you the most caused the greatest positive intellectual influence on you. They tested classical music only, because they were clearly trying to suggest good music had good influences on you and didn’t want something stupid thrown in to muddy the results. Of all the composures they tested on the minds of the listeners Bach’s music blew away his peers by stimulating the brain far more so than anyone else. What does this mean? Probably nothing, but it is an interesting study regardless.

The thing I have always found fascinating about Bach is that he is referenced so often for so many pieces of work that post date his death, from Gound to Tchaikovsky, Bach influenced nearly every classical musician who came afterward, more so than even the great Mozart and Beethoven. He even has influence on music now of days that we completely take for granted, but that is part two of this month’s review.

I have the habit of downloading lots of music and listen to it gradually over time as it pops up on random on my mp3 player at home, and while it was several years ago now, I remember Bach’s “Air For G-String,” playing for the first time on my computer like it was yesterday. I remember making it about one minute into the song and asking myself “is this Mozart?” who I am very fond of, and upon discovering it was Bach I grew a deep appreciate for the man. That is the thing about classical music it is a complicated music of details. There is so much going on in those precious classics between the instruments that it take a keen ear or a learned appreciation for the music to properly enjoy, it’s like fine wine or scotch which may taste strong or unpleasant at first but once you accustom yourself to the taste you feel a full array of flavour with each sip. Classical music works this way, you hear it and your mind slowly picks out the subtle connections each note shares with each other, and each second your ear is filled with an array of beautiful sound.

So enjoy “Air For G-String,” it is a song that gave birth to thousands of songs thereafter.

Keep on rocking in the free world.

- Colin Kelly