JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach’s compositions include The Brandenburg Concertos, The Goldberg Variations, The Mass in B Minor, two Passions, and over three hundred cantatas of which around two hundred survive. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. Bach’s abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. (More from Wikipedia)
What Rev. Nicholas T. Freund found there was a revelation, and did he show up on a good night that first time: The performers were Cream, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother and the Holding Company. He recounts in the CD’s liner notes: “Eric Clapton’s guitar playing amazed me. . . . Janis Joplin . . . blew me away. The next day, the kids said: ‘Get your records out! Nick's been to the Fillmore!’ I became interested in adapting the San Francisco sound to church music.”
As Nick Freund puts it: “I enjoy Bach and Gregorian chant. But I don’t see it as an expression of today. It’s like a beautiful old painting in a museum – you admire and appreciate it, but it has no relevance to ‘Now’. We should express our worship of God in terms we use today.” Also: “I could spend years writing a classical concert, and nobody would ever hear it.”
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“Side 2” is subtitled Mass for the Secular City and is, I suppose, a proper Mass set to popular rhythms.
The performance also tells the story of a musician named Johnny Lamb who comes to the city in search of fulfillment. The choir is accompanied by a full band, and the same powerful organ on the Search Party’s Montgomery Chapel is in evidence on this music. There are a few bonus tracks at the end of this CD that include Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue in G Minor” – over which the history of St. Pius X Seminary is told – and “Hail Mary”.
(September 2014)
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Wikipedia states: “The band [Eleven] cites their major influences as Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Beatles, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Sergei Prokofiev. With Chris Cornell [of Soundgarden and Audioslave], they recorded [Natasha] Shneider’s arrangement of Franz Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’, which appears on the album, A Very Special Christmas 3 [1997], in the liner notes of which they state they deliberately chose a classical work to help interest young people in classical music."
(April 2015/1)
