Word: clavier
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Some 2 1/2 centuries after Bach welded the twelve major and minor keys into a harmonious whole in The Well-Tempered Clavier, 185 years after Beethoven stretched the boundaries of the symphony with the "Eroica," and 65 years after Arnold Schoenberg exploded the tonal universe by unleashing the power of the twelve-tone system, classical music can still be a vital, potent art. But it needs a kind of panoramic energy, one that explores and prizes its past, frankly assesses its present and enthusiastically prepares for its future...
...Bach was not acclaimed as a genius composer in his own time. "If you look at Bach's obituary notice in 1750, they praised him as the greatest organist and clavier player of all times, but they had very little understanding of him as a composer," Wolff explained. Marvin added that in Bach's time, other composers, like Handel and Telemann were more acclaimed...
...movement actually has old and honorable antecedents. In the first of the 48 preludes and fugues that make up The Well-Tempered Clavier, Bach unfolded a serene meditation in the key of C over a placid, unchanging rhythmic pattern. To set the proper bardic tone for his mythological Ring of the Nibelung operatic saga, Wagner spun the entire Prelude of Das Rheingold from a single E-flat major triad, embellishing a bass note into a torrent of arpeggios to depict the primal nature of the Rhine. Ravel built Bolero around a sinuous, reiterated melody, clad in shifting orchestral colors, which...