Bach, Art of Fugue (Complete --- Netherlands Bach Society, BWV 1080)

[@Richard.Atkinson]

The existence of this video is something I’ve always dreamed of.

[@kneza96BG]

Next up: Full analysis of Art of Fugue on your channel

[@fidelio561]

Good to see you here! also great recent cantata analysis, as usual, many thanks

[@quidestveritas]

Likewise

[@TiwazGoudsnor]

why.... jk i know why

[@guikentaro]

So have I 🙏😆❤️

[@silverstonegg2349]

We live in a Netherlands Bach Society

[@johan2441]

:D

[@Bulborb1]

Bottom Text

[@Cantbuyathrill]

This work by Bach has ruled my life for the last 15 years.

[@amadeus5889]

The Netherlands Bach Society has done humanity a kindness by recording and releasing Bach’s oeuvre for free. And thank you for making this. Such beautiful patterns.

[@Apurion]

That's a big new in my life. Thanks you vey very much Smalin. This gift from NBS was already an huge prensent, and now you add more. We, here, are all lucky to have all of this. Deeply thank you.

[@SAMZ.OFFICIEL]

best visualisation method i’ve ever seen for this masterpiece

[@mysticmouse7261]

Art of the fugue is the pinnacle of everything musical , all its elements counterpoint melody rhythm harmony Exquisitely beautiful.

[@lordchameleon2650]

Human voices are such a great idea to produce a recording in Smalin style, it is like they did this recording exclusively for you!

[@noaha5296]

I'm 19 and have now been a classical pianist for 11 years. I got my first hand-me-down laptop in 2011 when I was a small child and I saw a bunch of your old videos like the Air on G string and Chopin Op. 9 no. 2 and it made me love the music. Haven't seen anything of your channel for over a decade until KZbin recommends it to me. Pleasant surprise. Happy to see you're still at it.

[@smalin]

Wow, that's so gratifying to hear. I'm so happy to have played a role. Thanks for writing. Stephen P.S. www.musanim.com/KZbinHighlights/

[@chuckreeds]

same with me i have forgotten about it all these years and now i see it again and i am very happy

[@gray.crawford]

Thanks for showing the entire pieces at the bottom occasionally… I love the super wide view and would love to see those across more composers. Makes the macro structure really apparent

[@smalin]

I've done a few of those: www.musanim.com/Overview/

[@MrBackflipFail]

Thanks to Bach and these wonderful people (including you Smalin :) for reminding me of the Art of Life throughout these fugues.

[@JaronBlack-nd6xd]

I love how Netherlands Bach Society chose to complete the unfinished fugue (and by implication, Art of Fugue as a whole) by including the subject from Contrapunctus 1, thus completing the circle.

[@stuf159]

Most completions do that.

[@judithwhitehouse2149]

Was hoping you'd animate this performance, and absolutely amazed you've produced it so soon. It will be right at the top of my playlist -THANK YOU!!!

[@smalin]

It went relatively quickly (just a couple of weeks of full-time work) because I'd done a lot of the work previously with another recording (see www.musanim.com/ArtOfFugue/ for the background).

[@FlexingClassicalMusic]

This music is a balm for the soul. Every note feels like a journey through emotions. Simply breathtaking! 🎶✨

[@goodnessadeyemii]

Mr Stephen Malinowski, I have not met you, but I have met your works and I must say that you're a genius. Thanks for all these things that you do, making the music a very visual experience. God bless your heart. ♥️

[@jimhill4725]

You obviously love Bach's music as much as I do. Thank you so much: for showing your own visual interpretation of it in a manner that conforms to my own reverence of it.

[@hanskranz9897]

Wow classic music people express their opinion like robots.

[@DanielSilva-gc4xz]

@@hanskranz9897 In higher intelectual minds it's important to keep the messages formal and free of ambiguity so the meanings and nuances can be delivered properly. And that's much better than the standard "your and you're" confunding people.

[@andreasmotzkus6181]

This is epic. Seeing visually the context and counterpoints between the voices made me recognize a million more genius moves from Bach. The symbols are well thought out and are easy to read, at least for a musician. Maybe we should overthink our current notation using only filled and unfilled dots. This sort of meta - information would make proper phrasing much more easy from the start, since you can understand the context easily.

[@smalin]

The kind of meta-information I've added to these scores could be added to conventional notation, but it wouldn't be as easy to see as here, because there would be other information cluttering up the view (this graphical view omits lots of information that is essential to composers and performers).

[@shaunscm]

Searching for The Art of Fugue visualizations many years ago is how I found your videos. So excited to see this appear in my notifications! Thank you for your great visualizations!

[@alperguc]

Bach's flawless work 1080 with Fibonacci series and golden ratio. One of the greatest perfection group of sounds in human history.

[@allthumbs3792]

These videos are the highlight of my week! Thank you for your industry and genius!

[@henryng0725]

Finally there's a version with the original subject back to have a quadruple fugue ending!!!!!!! So excited about it!!!! Love it so much with reasonable combination of voice and instruments, creating timbre contrast and variety!

[@KKIcons]

What seriously? I'm tempted to skip to the end!

[@Kalkipikaia]

oh wow! Thank you for this! The Netherlands Bach Society's Art of Fugue is a gem, and your rendition absolutely does them justice.

[@Techiastronamo]

This is incredibly impressive, I haven't seen your channel in probably four or five years so this is quite the jump in visualizations from what I'm used to seeing. Glad to rediscover your channel again, loving the new visualization methods!

[@smalin]

You might find this guide (to what I've been doing recently) useful: www.musanim.com/KZbinHighlights/

[@Trowa71]

Man's been at this since the start of KZbin (if not sooner). smalin is an unsung legend of this platform, I hope you get the recognition you deserve one day.

[@smalin]

The project started in the 1970s, got onto computers in the 1980s, onto television in the 1990s, and onto the internet in the 2000s. In 2010, I left my day job to work on it full time. Unfortunately, KZbin has changed their policies, and now my videos get only a fraction of what they got in 2010. Fortunately, I’m able to do the work on my own, without a whole lot of recognition.

[@jeppgd5183]

@@smalin I’m sorry, but what even is this. It seems like somebody decided to sing art of fugue and then somebody made random cool graphic design to it?

[@Trowa71]

@@jeppgd5183 It's a visualization. Doesn't seem random at all. Very intentional, in fact.

[@video_camera]

@@jeppgd5183 Nothing is random

[@fidelio561]

always great to see new interpretations & arrangements of such complex pieces, this one has it's own unique charm Though my favorite will always be the Pittsburgh Symphony Brass version, probably since my general sound preference is brassy 😌

[@Oenloveslife]

Thank you a MILLION times for your wonderful and extraordinary multimedia Bachinizations! Also, thank you for all of the other exquisite videos you have created.

[@2024Warren]

Very nice short and intense completion of the final fugue. Beautifully animated throughout the entire opus - I particularly enjoyed the way the completion of the last fugue emerged as if it was being extemporised or composed on the spot.

[@Ivan_1791]

Omg, this is incredible and totally unexpected. Thank you so much for this gift!

[@johannsebastianbach9829]

Yeah, just a little diddle I was experimenting around with. Got bored with it...sorry I didn't finish it

[@talamioros]

...slacker

[@DanielSilva-gc4xz]

The conterpoint 7 feels much like the paralax phenomenom. It feels like watching the scenery from a seat in a bullet train.

[@PointyTailofSatan]

What I always think about when listening to the AoF, is that it isn't some grand final attempt of a composer to show how great he was. It's a noble, perhaps even desperate attempt by a dying Bach to pass on his skills in counterpoint to future composers. A kind of passing of the musical torch.

[@aurora60505]

This is lovely to hear and to see. Thank you, sir.

[@dr.keithheimann3963]

I've played, studied, and taught this piece for decades. I think this video is brilliant! How on earth is it done? I can't imagine how complicated the software must be.

[@smalin]

This page ... www.musanim.com/Method/ ... describes it in one way, but it might not have the kind of answer you're looking for, in which case, please feel free to ask follow-up questions. I wouldn't say that the software is especially complicated, but there's a lot of it, grown by accumulation (I've been working on the project for decades, and full-time since 2010).

[@frederickmenu3140]

I don’t have enough words to say thank you.

[@Rayenn_19]

1:27:13 RIP BACH

[@dariocaporuscio8701]

This is such a great gift! When I saw NBS video I was amazed, this here is even a better surprise

[@waterlubber]

Thank you for this! What an incredible amount of effort.

[@BigBiff88]

Thank you thank you THANK YOU!!! From one Bach lover to another :-)

[@TiwazGoudsnor]

thnx for the hard work smalin. we love it. gonna be our summer soundtrack for relax bikerides through the dutch countryside for sure.

[@mr.bob4630]

Absolutely magnificent. Very intriguing animation of the canons!

[@smalin]

Thank you. For the fugues, I tried to keep the approach more or less consistent, but for the canons, I treated each one as its own thing, and took a custom approach for each one.

[@Dr_Mel]

The long forgotten HBO Movie Night intro. I can see why they ditched this one, it was a little long.

[@xcaluhbration]

Bruh 🤣

[@peter5.056]

This is exactly how playing from sheet music feels to me.

[@findingtheexit489]

I didn't like Bach... now his organ music and fugues just taked over me

[@catherineden.374]

Wow indeed

[@polszik]

The best video title i've ever read on KZbin, I gonna buy some beers and invite friends to listen

[@AlessandroSimonetto]

Yes, an incredible performance and what a huge work you did too!

[@keyofamajor]

Incredible to see js bach: art of fugue on the left at the start. Just, the whole thing :)

[@DushanTorbjorn]

Beautiful!

[@youngminkwon616]

Thousand thanks for this video.

[@smalin]

My pleasure.

[@CrossbowManD]

What a joy. Thank you for the endless hours you put into this

[@Camze3307]

Comme un rai illuminant l'âme et l'esprit.

[@hectorhernandez215]

A gift from God...thank Jesus...

[@feinberg4625]

The final fugue is a religious experience.

[@kosherre6243]

This is how I would associiate distinct sounds in a song, one type of graphic with its own behaviours per sound. But I never thought it would look this cool as a video.

[@jfidel3943]

beautiful visualizations for beautiful music

[@PaulX41]

Gloria in excelsis ad Netherlands Bach Society

[@SmaroGregoriadou]

A tremendous achievement! Thank you smalin!

[@ssncalligraphy1200]

Fantastic score🎉

[@delrenatoaltoe]

B.A.C.H 1:25:26

[@saula.fantauzzi]

Thanks a lot !! BACH IS GENIUS

[@andredelacerdasantos4439]

This is such a huge deal!! Nice job

[@clementdean5157]

Impressive completion, both musical and graphical, of the the unfinished one...

[@andreajoybelle]

Wow this is amazing! Thank you

[@jesusalconero8447]

Absolutamente maravilloso, NBS no deja de sorprender para bien.

[@thv6880]

In one word: fantastic! I really enjoy the different forms of the music parts with different instruments, so lovely ❣️🌹

[@teacon7]

suggestion for the next video: put into the video description a 'key' to understanding some of the symbols used in the visualization. This might make it more obvious for the trolls in the comment threads what they're looking for.

[@thomante]

Thank you for your vision.

[@Mulvers]

Wonderful, thank you 🙂

[@VergeDee]

Very nice visuals system for Canon alla Decima Contrapunto alla Terza !

[@jennhart485]

As a visual artist, I love this. Thank you!

[@weavehole]

Deserves a like.

[@OrbiliusMagister]

...but only because you cannot give more likes ^___^.

[@JohnSmith-gv1fp]

Fantastic!

[@leonhardeuler6811]

This is amazing

[@teacon7]

This piece is beautiful. Also, the visualizations fit pretty well with the tone of the instrument/voice which they represent. I loved seeing the theme highlighted throughout. The format at 1:02:47 was really neat to see how the instruments chased each other in the same notes. Bravo to the composer (of course), the performers, and the people who put together the visuals here. Thank you! :) PS: if you think Bach's music is beautiful, wait until you hear about the truth and hope that inspired him to write most of his music.

[@johnlewis6880]

This a brilliant presentation. Thank you

[@danbreeden68]

It's like mathematics to the soul

[@wayanthomas969]

It truly is ΑΡΙΘΜΗΤΙΚΗ

[@schrysafis]

​@@wayanthomas969not only; Perfect symmetry there all the way through the work.

[@chuckreeds]

this guys a madman i love it

[@johnlewis6880]

I forgive you for keeping me up way past my bedtime

[@s009kawa]

I'm glad I listened to this song until the end.

[@vadaing394]

*Piece.

[@Joseka]

Yes nice song...

[@waffleman-]

hey smalin, I was wondering do you do the motivic analysis yourself or do you use some kind of reference? I mean, identifying the motifs especially in a modified state is an undertaking in on itself

[@smalin]

I’ve been studying/playing the Art of Fugue for over fifty years, so I’m pretty familiar with it.

[@nitroflap]

​@@smalinFIFTY? But incredible work anyway!

[@smalin]

@@nitroflap Yes, I started playing it when I was a teenager.

[@nitroflap]

​@@smalinBach is contagious that's for sure. Once you get in, there's no coming back. I'm, sadly, only starting out, currently learning BWV 565. Thanks for responding by the way!

[@nitra01]

@@smalin thats insane and awesome

[@123TeeMee]

I've always thought music can have a lot of parallels with graphics, and that it isn't exploited as much as it could be. I'm imagining like some kind of scene with pictures hidden behind covers, with the pictures getting more revealed, colourful and large as the feeling they embody is heightened, then they retreat back. You could also have effects around the border of the video, like how some games visualise low health.

[@fafablablabla]

What a Godsend.

[@thomasc390]

💮 Thank you! 💮

[@junkergeorg]

Simply amazing 😊 A useful visualization tool!!!

[@AaronGlenn88]

some of the visuals look like harmonious bacteria in a petri dish singing their hearts out

[@JoeCavZero]

wtf lol

[@hamm0155]

Love it, love it, love it!

[@slendrmusic]

Thank you

[@johnchessant3012]

Great work! I really like how you emphasized the subjects in the visualization with brackets or different-shaped notes. Is there a reason why some appearances of the subject aren't notated this way? e.g. the blue voice at 1:26:24 or the green voice at 1:26:42

[@hasanmertyilmaz_]

E bu mükemmel bir video.

[@mustafabasar218]

Bach mükemmel çok şey öğretti bana, ama bu video'yu yapan adamlar da mükemmeli anlayanlar

[@avoidbeing]

could this be done with Tatyana Nikolayeva piano version?

[@smalin]

It could be (assuming the necessary permissions), but it's not likely, since I've already done a piano version (with Kimiko Ishizaka's recording): www.musanim.com/ArtOfFugue/

[@avoidbeing]

@@smalin ishizaka’s should made into a complete video like this. makes it very definitive which is excellent (also invites lots of views)

[@AaronGlenn88]

hearing this with vocalization is awesome!!! it could be adapted to a choral work! bach was a singer and very into cantible style

[@Ewr42]

Has your videos been included in any "off the air" official episodes or fanmade videos? They look awesome, they capture quite well how I experience sound under psychedelics. It's marvelous.

[@smalin]

Since I don’t know the answer, it’s probably no. What is an “off the air” official episode?

[@Ewr42]

@@smalin it's a show from Adult Swim based on cool graphics and visualizers, clips, anything abstract to be watched under the effects of psychedelics.

[@PotaraP]

What did you use to make this?

[@smalin]

www.musanim.com/HowTo/

[@florianobonfanti7801]

Does it also work the other way round, turning lines into music like the ANS synthetizer?

[@danbreeden68]

The order In the music is very tranquilizing and uplifting

[@JG_1998]

Incredible. What type of function is controlling the visualization? What parameters are being factored into the movements that the various curves make? How much was done by hand?

[@smalin]

The only thing that's done by hand is recording/editing the click-track that's used to synchronize the score to the recording. The rest is all algorithmic. There are lots of parameters that control the behavior of the note-drawing algorithms. This page answers some of the questions you might have about the method of designing the animation: www.musanim.com/Method/

[@JG_1998]

@@smalin Thanks for such a quick reply, I'm an engineer/CS guy so I was really curious to about exactly what type of logic is actually driving this whole thing lol.

[@smalin]

@@JG_1998 Feel free to ask more questions if there are more details you're curious about.

[@bsku0765]

UwU best music ever

[@MatthewStidham]

Absolute perfection

[@dergeradeweg1413]

Damn, this is a big one

[@sebasluna2689]

Wow, exelent work

[@drinkwater247]

amazing

[@l0lLorenzol0l]

Now this is the good shit right here