Bach, Musical Offering, Ricercar a 6

FAQ

Q: What do the shapes signify?
A: The ovals (eggs, ellipses) are the theme; the rhombi (diamonds) are everything else.

Q: What is a ricercar?
A: See:

Q: Is this the most significant piano work of the last millennium?
A: At least one person thinks so:

Q: What instrument is that?
A: It's two instruments, actually: a harpsichord and an organ. The harpsichord is Atema's "Pristine Harpsichord" (with all stops on); the organ is two Ahlborn-Galanti Archiv modules, using the following stops (in order from the top voice):
Prinzipal 8'
Cor Anglais 8'
Quintade 8'
Flauto Mirabilis 8'
Prinzipal 8' + Gedackt 8'
Ophicleide 16' (up an octave so that it's at pitch)

Q: Where can I get the sheet music for this?
A: Here is Bach's autograph ...
... and here is a modern version ...

[DanielSilva-gcxz]

The most mathematically complex but at the same time most emotinal piece of music I have ever seen.

[mariacasemyr]

- ”It’s easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.” (Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750)

[BigBiff]

There are very few humans in existence that can truly understand this piece, and I am not one of them, but I can still listen to it over and over and discover more and more.

[alexanderweisberg]

What I find so amazing about this piece isn't just that each voice is a functional melody, but that if you listen to any two voices together, they sound like they were made for each other, which, of course they were. It's just mind boggling how Bach manages to do this with so many combinations of music for 7 minutes straight.

[Maatdrummer]

JS Bach was a superb mathematician. Whether he did it in a calculated way, or intuitively, it matters not. The piece illustrates exactly what I mean. From arithmatic to calculus, in one easy song. Beautiful!

[PointyTailofSatan]

What I find so interesting about the Ra6 is that if one is not familiar with counterpoint, and tries to listen to the music "vertically", that is to say as melody with linked harmony, it sounds like a wall of random musical noise. But if one can listen to it "horizontally", it's one of the greatest pieces of instrumental music ever written. I don't think there is any other example of counterpoint where this amazing effect is so profound.

[pablovieravignale]

Bach started to learn the organ when he moved with Christoph at the age of 10 and by the time he was 15 he was playing "the most ambitious and complex pieces of the entire organ repertoire" This shows a rare gift in my opinion

[creaturekaspar]

4:49 might be one of my favorite moments in all of music.

[smalin]

My videos are being used in schools all over the world.

[smalin]

These days, this. I used to work as a software engineer. Before that, I worked at a variety of music-related jobs: pianist, music teacher, music manuscript copyist, composer, conductor, etc.

[nicolashrv]

For the non-iniciated, the outsdanding marvellousness of this piece is that the same melody (which was not original from Bach, but given as a task to create something out of it, full of semi-tones) is played fordward, backwards, mirror-image and backwards of mirror-image all the time, over and over, in different tonalities.

If this was those baby games where you have a cube, a rod, a triangle and a circle and their respective holes, Bach managed to put each piece on each of the holes and make them fit perfectly

[therickdoble]

Another masterpiece by Stephen Malinowski. It shows a deep understanding of Bach's music: his harmonies, his structures, his instrumentation. Malinowski's "animated graphical scores" are not just entertaining or beautiful, they open a new way of hearing the music.

[ReubenLL]

I like how each note visually moves into the next. It makes it much easier to keep track of the movement of each of the individual 6 voices, and prevents the complexity from being completely overwhelming.

[pablovieravignale]

Researchers recently found the earliest Bach manuscript, circa 1700 when Bach was 15. It contain two pieces, one by Buxtehude and the other by Reinken. It says in the article: "The significance of this discovery can hardly be overestimated. Technically highly demanding, these organ works document the extraordinary virtuosic skills of the young Bach as well as his efforts to master the most ambitious and complex pieces of the entire organ repertoire". He was clearly a child prodigy as an organist

[siilexmoafex]

Bach: The greatest genius of all time in the whole universe!

[binkymagnus]

There's something else...when I think about the fact that this is not the product of some kind of magic or cheap deus ex machina, but hard work and practice by the composer, the performer, and the visualizer, it's even more impressive.

[adrianoseresi]

I had this theme stuck in my head all day! Couldn’t quite place it, until I started searching through this fugue playlist. Thanks!

[Simsonsimsons]

Now I have understand the piece. It's genial, really genial. Bach was the most fantastic composer in the whole world for everytime. Nobody can beat him. He used the themes like a song, wonderful

[Antsaboy]

This is my favorite version for the simple reason it *nails* the moment sixth voice kicks in. If there's a greater moment in the history of music, it would've also been written by Bach.

[guyhaiku]

Your videos make me very happy, and give me access to a dimension of the music that I would have never known. Thank you.