Bach Trumps Schoenberg's 12-Tone Technique in 1722

In this video, I delve into the complexities of Bach's B minor fugue, exploring how Bach's innovative use of all 12 tones of the scale challenges conventional tonal boundaries. Drawing comparisons to Schoenberg's 12-tone technique, I highlight Bach's forward-thinking approach, suggesting that Bach's composition foreshadows musical developments centuries ahead of its time. Join me on a journey through the intricacies of this remarkable fugue and discover how Bach's mastery transcends eras, trumping even modern innovations.
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[@RechtmanDon]

Here's the tonal twelve-tone row I came up with prior to deserting music school in 1970 because I was disenchanted with avant garde: C---B-GABb--AbGb---F-DEEb-Db---.

[@vilhelmhammershoi3871]

Excellent Video! Thank you for posting and taking the time of making it. So much detail and so eloquently explained!

[@jeanpierrecarabas5508]

CPE Bach "Vom Vortrag" Versuch 1 Teil : => §. 25. Bey langen Aushaltungen hat man die Freyheit, die lange gebundene Note dann und wann wieder anzuschlagen.

[@michaelnancyamsden7410]

Thank you for this eye and ear opening analysis.

[@mobtek]

First time hearing this fugue, Bach always with the depth and surprises!

[@achaley4186]

Wow! I had never heard this before, and without you explanation would note have realized that all 12 tones were utilized. Thanks so much, 🙂🙏🏼❤⭐

[@blastomer8264]

Da amante della musica ho sempre avuto la consapevolezza di questa incredibile anticipazione sui tempi. Bellissimo video e complimenti per la serie!

[@crossiqu]

Good video. Thanks! The incredible thing is that Bach begins in the prelude with some greek scales in the bass to end in the fugue with that early dodecaphonic way ;-)

[@josesouza9820]

Great music, thank you for the video

[@CarlosFischerFMA]

AMAZING!!! Thanks for this.

[@surgeeo1406]

While you were musing at the feeling of this fugue, I had a sudden urge to go listen, once again, to Sting's version of "In Darkness Let Me Dwell" by Dowland. I think it has the same feeling overall.

[@dwdei8815]

Shostakovich's 15th Fugue in his 24 Preludes & Fugues uses 11 of the 12 notes (no G natural) and is arguably more melody-like, equally embracing of the harmonic "lostness" of so much chromaticism. (It's ruddy difficult!) (I am sure Beethoven would not mind us talking of great composers that followed him on this 200th birthday of his 9th.)

[@DohcHama]

11:10 Bach is anticipating the wail of an ambulance siren. Wonderful exegesis Sensei Wim. Yet another demonstration of _not_ ~rushing~ the tempo so the tritones can be appreciated. Did Schoenberg write a 4 part fugue in 12 tone? A few centuries later Jazz player found that there was no such thing as a "Wrong" note so long as it resolved- these notes are a strong "spice".

[@danielharris9403]

"A major 3rd is still gonna sound like a major 3rd, even if it's in a different key to everyone else"

[@laggeman1396]

The third entrance shows us that Bach always thought those appoggiaturas as 4-3 or 9-8 (2-1) in a chord. And if your theory teacher said it was wrong, he/she didn't get the Bach style! Because that's what baroque is all about: tension and release. Unprepaired dissonances was what Monteverdi and Frescobaldi explored more than 100 years before Bach! They broke with the renaissance tradition, where every dissonance had to be prepaired (in the suspension), or come in a scale movement. Now they JUMP to dissonances, but, important to notice, that is all within a linear thinking.

[@moogfooger]

Thanks Wim. A fascinating study of Bach's adventure through tonality. B minor seems like a really out there place for Bach in general. Many examples of extreme chromaticism and tension. I am wondering what effect the temperament he used had on this peculiar mode? There are some other odd keys as well, like f minor, which of course is a tri tone to b minor. Numerology may explain some of these mystical interpretations. An amazing journey. Thanks for the sign posts!

[@chuckbosio2924]

Thanks for this analysis. Schoenberg's composition Traumleben describes atonal music well for me. Like a dream, atonal music a evanescent, full of shadows and unclear in meaning.

[@stephanalexanderspahn3068]

cf strangeness: this piece also contains "ghost entries" - entries of the subject where the last few notes are substituted by pauses.

[@guillaumelebbe1760]

If I'm not mistaken, the moment where Schoenberg consciously abandoned tonality was in his 2nd String Quartet, precisely where the soprano starts to sing: 'Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten'...

[@AlbertoSegovia.]

Speaking of beautiful or tasteful 12-tone phrases (ha, I really don’t know if this video is about that), a memorable one, to me, is in Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2, in the outer movements,

[@laggeman1396]

If you play this piece that slow you lose the melody lines, and also some of the expressivity. It becomes static. With a little more flow you can let the tempo fluctuate more, sometimes going a little faster, sometimes slowing down to accentuate the theme or holding on to an expressive dissonance etc. I'm quite sure that they played much more freely back in the 1700:s, and surely with much embellishments that is not written in the score. It shall always sound as if it was invented in the moment! By the way, this was probably written at the organ, so that the long notes are held and he gets the grinding dissonances that he wants. He also designed the music to fit in the 24 different keys, that had different sound and emotional qualities, due to the not equally tuned instruments. That is e.g. described in Matheson's books, how the keys sound and what music are appropriate in the respective key.

[@jeanpierrecarabas5508]

ein grosses Video über eine GROSSE Fuge - man dankt !

[@Khayyam-vg9fw]

Schoenberg's contemporary, Franz Schmidt (1874-1939) wrote a staggeringly complex double fugue with a subject containing all twelve notes of the chromatic scale, viz. the Sixth Seal fugue from his oratorio, "Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln" (there is a vocal score available on IMSLP): kzbin.info/www/bejne/goTQcnuuq62LitEsi=YLrgfLzYni8kBNrU

[@andrescolomarcedeno9952]

I fucking love you. Could u do the prelude no 6 in d minor. I think those harmonies (sry bad engrisch) are crazy

[@ericrakestraw664]

Compare this fugue with the 12th fugue in F minor, the halfway point of Book 1 of the WTC. That fugue also has a subject that uses almost all 12 tones of the chromatic scale.

[@classicgameplay10]

The video is kinda unstable.

[@foljamb]

convincing: "as if you are watching a painting"

[@norafila83]

what about the chromatic theme from the musical offering

[@Tim.Weaver]

7:03 Beethoven: "I'm unsubscribing from your channel!"😀

[@laggeman1396]

Yes, Bach was a highly chromatic composer. He uses chromaticism to get great expressivity. So this theme is of course not a 12-tone row, but clearly tonally thought. It's based on a falling b minor triad ending with a chromatic "Seufzen" motif, developing that in a rising sequence up to the dominant chord and a cadence. The rest of the fugue will reveal many aspects of how Bach harmonize it. In real 12-tone music you never repeat a tone before all 12 has been used. That is of course not the case here, since the theme is clearly tonal. (Bach repeats f sharp and b already in the first bar.)

[@davisatdavis1]

"I'm sorry beethoven if you're *listening*" 💀

[@AkitoMusic]

I’m sorry if this has been asked in your other videos but when I heard the opening I hear E-C-A which sounds to me it’s in A minor. But the score indicates F#-D-B which is the piece’s title: B minor. Are olden day clavichords tuned with a difference of two semitones like some sort of transposing instrument?

[@VallaMusic]

first thumbs up

[@Ziad3195]

Can I please hear Mozart or the Waltz from Symphonie Fantastique played using the whole beat technique? Did people also dance at whole beat? 🤣

[@DohcHama]

Troll ol ol ol olll. This is not Whole beat. It is JS Bach's brilliant dodecaphonic 4 part fugue.

[@Ziad3195]

@@DohcHama Do you understand my comment?

[@DohcHama]

@@Ziad3195 Absurd and irrelevant?

[@DohcHama]

@@dorette-hi4j Sometimes a cigar is just a cigae; when I am good I feel like my sister.

[@Ziad3195]

@@DohcHama what is absurd and irrelevant? I am asking if I can hear Mozart played at whole beat, a composer that Wim says would've been played at whole beat. But of course playing Mozart at whole beat is so unidiomatic, ungraceful and unmozartian, in every way. Imagine hearing one of Mozart operas at whole beat, my god! This is what Mozart wrote to his father Leopold about Clementi "Mozart and Clementi enjoyed a thoroughly cordial relationship, and Clementi wrote, “until then I had never heard anyone play with such spirit and grace.” Mozart on the other hand, was clearly surprised by Clementi’s technical facility as he wrote to his father, “Clementi plays well, as far as execution with the right hand goes. His greatest strength lies in his passages in thirds. Apart from that, he doesn’t have a Kreuzer’s worth of taste or feeling. In short, he is a mere robot.” so it's safe to say Mozart would be very against or even apalled the way Wim Winrers play at whole beat without vibrato like that. What about hearing the Waltz from Berlioz Symphony Fantastique at whole beat? He came 30 years after Beethoven, so the whole beat theory applies to him too. I can tell you confidently that people didn't dance at whole beat.. Please try dancing to the Waltz movement in the Berlioz at whole beat. It's not comfortable or natural at all.

[@pavelbatalov657]

This fugue in 31-tone system: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p2Goep-njtCArqM

[@Ziad3195]

The Bm fugue subject from WTC I gets close to a 12-tone row, but it doesn't employ Schoeneberg's 12-tone technique or serialism and it sure as hell doesn't "trump" Schoenberg's 12-tone technique, by extention. Please enough with the clickbait titles already.

[@Renshen1957]

Arnold Schoenberg referenced J S Bach’s in at least one Bach chorale works progression in Schoenberg’s teaching, and Schoenberg declared to Rosalyn Tureck that this very fugue was the first 12 note composition. And fortunately J S Bach didn’t use Serialism, also called 12 Note System, in compositions. ala Schoenberg, Berg, and Keneck….Otherwise, we would have works by the Great cantor that would sound like shit. Actually J S Bach uses 13 notes, and Schoenberg would have not cited the work due to Schoenberg’s triskaidekaphobia which would cause his death on complicated by Friday the 13th (Friggatriskaidekaphobia) on his Birthday at age 76. If only his student hadn’t mentioned 7+6=13…

[@Renshen1957]

I wouldn’t list this title as clickbait, Nothing is ever new in music, just new applications of what came before. Gesualdo was using chromaticism and experimental music in the Renaissance so was Trabaci which would influence Frescobaldi and possibly Gesuado.

[@Ziad3195]

@@Renshen1957 Do you know and understand what the "Schoenberg's 12-tone technique" is?

[@Renshen1957]

@@Ziad3195 I first encountered it in 1972, had to write a composition in the form circa 1975, and although I admire Schoenberg’s Harmonie Leher-read both the original in German and purchased a copy extracted from the work also in English, and know the revised form Serialism Schoenberg used later, which Berg used in Lulu, (and suffered through a performance when an old friend who had a minor stroke wanted to listen to it. Atonal music leaves me cold, whether prime, retrograde, inverted, retrograde inverted. If you like it fine, you can have my portion, too. Fortunately, no one followed Scott Bradley’s use in Cartoons prior to 1964, subjecting children to prolonged listening even in brief quantities is cruelty to animals. A toddler beating a piano with his fists and then sitting on the keyboard with a bad case of flatulence would sound better. Yes, I know first hand and through study what the serialism 12 Tone system, and other avant-garde “grant-music” is, and you can also include Helikopter- Streichquartett among the Emperor’s New Clothes in music.

[@Ziad3195]

@@Renshen1957 Nice meaningless comment.

[@Ezekiel_Pianist]

fa mi fa mi fa mi etc! 🤣

[@HonoreBalzac-q7m]

cool down.

[@superblondeDotOrg]

Dont use the word 'trumps'

[@hisky.]

why 😮

[@carbonmonoxide5052]

@@hisky.because some people on the internet are deranged

[@DohcHama]

@@carbonmonoxide5052 I guess "Trumpets" would be more apt but Wim's English is better than my Flemish!

[@carbonmonoxide5052]

@@DohcHama nah, “trumps” is right in this scenario, people are just dumb and can’t see that word without thinking of US President Trump.

[@Uniule]

Schoenberg teaches Trump the 12-tone technique while Bach watches