Sounds, Colors, Words

There have been many great composers in Classical Western Music, but Bach has a special place in my heart. Mozart is a genius; he is extraordinary. I cannot forget the movie Amadeus, which is his true story. It is admirable that Beethoven has produced groundbreaking works with 9 symphonies. However, the basis of my admiration for Bach lies in the fact that Bach produced magnificent works in a period that coincides with the early Baroque period of Classical Western Music, when music reached its modern forms. Nikolas Forkel and Philipp Spitta's books about Bach are on my reading list. However, before reading these works, I felt like writing something because of what I had read about Bach and the melodies I remembered from his works. In other words, I wanted to express myself without reading a formatted, proper Bach research.

Bach's Matthaus Passion has a special place in my heart. It was the piece that first brought me into contact with Baroque Period pieces. In addition, having performed this piece behind Şamil Gökberk in the youth choir of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet undoubtedly had a great impact on me. Hearing Şamil Gökberk on stage in the section that begins with "Ich will bei meinem Jesu wachen" gave me excitement. I would feel like I was floating on the notes with great enthusiasm. It is a magnificent piece and like many Baroque Period pieces, it has a religious content.

Source: https://filharmonija.si/en/blog-en/johann-sebastian-bach-and-some-interesting-facts-about-the-german-composer/

I also like composers like Handel and Telemann who were among Bach's contemporaries, but what makes Bach different is that Bach's music has also had profound reflections in painting and literature. I think it would not be wrong to say that the most profound effect Bach's work on other arts is the Art of Fugue. Fugue means escape in Latin. In the work, a theme is worked on with notes, and in the continuation of the work, the theme is reworked with a note that is the counterpoint of the note that is the beginning of the theme, and this theme is repeated.

In Nazım’s poem “Sebastian Bach’s Concerto No. 1 in C Minor” the expressions “The miracle of repetition, my rose/The unrepeatability of repetition” show the influences of the Art of Fugue. The subtitle of Enis Batur’s novel Bitter Knowledge is “A Novel Essay on the Art of Fugue”. The influences of the Art of Fugue are present in the formal structure of the novel. The mathematics of notes can affect the content and form of a novel or poem on a mathematical plane. The Art of Fugue was also of interest to writers such as Dürrenmatt, Hildesheimer, and Celan for a period.

In painting, we witness the harmony of the intertwining of notes and colors. It is almost possible to perform a piece by looking at a painting and perceiving the colors as notes. The influences of Fugue Art are obvious in Picasso, Gris, and Braque. Colors and tones of sound intertwine with the tones of notes and colors on the canvases. Space, rhythm, contrapunctual arrangements, and formal constructions describe Fugue Art. We should not ignore the Bach influences in artists such as Veronesi and Weder. Especially Veronesi, after conducting a long period of Bach analysis, transfers Bach to colors. Weder also paints Bach's orchestra suites as a result of a color keyboard study. I do not have much knowledge in sculpture, but I know that Chillida, for example, is Bach through and through.

We see Bach's important influences in the works of the Bauhaus School, which was born in Weimar in 1919. Feininger is the name that makes Bach important in the Bauhaus School. He studies music for a long time. He becomes interested in caricature for a while. At the age of 35, he decides to go to Paris and paint. Artists such as Kandinsky, Klee, Schlemmer, Moholy-Nagy also create their works inspired by Bach's notes in the Bauhaus School atmosphere.

Other artists influenced by Bach also perceived Bach within the framework of concepts such as structure, emphasis, plane, intellectual analysis, etc. and transferred notes to colors and words. In a way, they grasped Bach's mathematics and blended this mathematics with their own spirit and art to create works.

Ironically, Mendelssohn discovered the notes of the Matthaus Passion among the wrapping papers of a butcher's shop. Bach, like many great artists, did not receive the appreciation he deserved during his lifetime.

I will listen to the Matthaus Passion, the Art of Fugue and the Goldberg Variations a lot and take in the Bach reflections in jazz by listening to the Pekinel brothers' album "Take Bach" with J. Loussier. It can't be done without Bach.