J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047 (Synthesized)

[@CareyRMeltz]

Please check out my updated version: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g3S0np6kftd4Y8k

[@Geopholus]

Carey , such a brilliant realization ! One of my favorites for sure !

[@xmariner]

This is literally God talking to us.

[@adamkrueger4463]

Please tell me more!

[@xmariner]

@@adamkrueger4463 When I was 4 years old my Dad used to play Bach. Sometimes Carlos Williams (Wendy Williams - Switched On Bach) and sometimes just orchestral. And I was mesmerized. No one told me - "Hey, this is good, you should like this" - it was absolute JOY. I danced around like a maniac to this. But it is so rigid and exacting to the point where my brain just overloads on the mechanics (yes instead of being a minister like my Dad, I became a ship's mechanic). This music never left me. Ever. What explains this? Answer: GOD. But my favorite is Brandenburg #3. #5 is awesome. There's not a bad piece in this whole body of work. Thank God for the Germans!

[@unknownkingdom]

All religion is a toxic hoax. There is no god.

[@adamkrueger4463]

@@xmariner Thank you for the response! Have a beautiful day!

[@christophedevos3760]

Great lesson in sound synthesis. It still amazes me that this is produced with an analog synthesizer.

[@robertpfeiffer8836]

Concerto No. 2 - one of my all time favorite pieces of music. And what you did with it here - FANTASTIC. Unfortunately, having to listen this on my cheap laptop right now. I CAN'T WAIT to get home and pipe this through my Carver/B&W stereo system! Thanks for posting. Keep it up....

[@CareyRMeltz]

Thanks Robert. I urge you to check out my updated version: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g3S0np6kftd4Y8k

[@mkworkman]

3-21-1685: birth of Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer (d. 1750). 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 organization, 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 recognized as a great composer until a revival of interest 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.

[@farisasmith7109]

My older sister used to play this album when I was a little kid. Always loved it.

[@floragutierrez538]

Muy bueno!! Es Bach en otra dimensión!!.Me gustó la elección de los timbres y el diseño y colores del video. Gracias!

[@CareyRMeltz]

No, Gracias Flora por sus amables words.This es el primer concierto completo que he hecho y mientras yo conservaba los timbres de instrumentos en todo, quería traer algo Differnt visualmente a cada movimiento. Estoy muy satisfecho con el trabajo y también que te haya gustado lo suficiente como para tomar el tiempo para comentar. Mis timbres no son bastante "Wendy Carlos" (aunque recuerda) pero yo estaba buscando para crear más "natural" (pero no demasiado realista) sonando timbres para hacer ritmos y articulaciones suenan menos mecánico. Al final, he añadido 4 presets a mi arsenal de instrumentos: una flauta híbrido / grabador, oboe, trompeta piccolo y violín solista. No, thank YOU Flora for your kind words.This is the first complete concerto I've done and while I retained the instrument timbres throughout, I wanted to bring something differnt visually to each movement. I'm quite pleased with the work and also that you enjoyed it enough to take the time to comment. My timbres aren't quite "Wendy Carlos" (although reminiscent) but I was looking to create more "natural" (but not too realistic) sounding timbres to make tempos and articulations sound less mechanical. In the end, I have added 4 presets to my instrument arsenal: a hybrid flute/recorder, oboe, piccolo trumpet and solo violin.

[@SpudGirl]

Sooo beautiful

[@CareyRMeltz]

Thanks for listening and taking the time to comment. :)

[@tyroneepps4854]

This album is on 🔥!

[@albertosejas]

The combination with the visualization is very creative.

[@CareyRMeltz]

Thank you very kindly. I hope you continue to enjoy my channel. :)

[@LanceBuckley]

I wore out the groove in my Carlos LPs, I loved them so much. Kudos to the late great Kenny Everett for turning me onto to classitronic music back in the 70s, for Wendy for being so awe inspiring, and to you, for keeping the tradition alive.

[@CareyRMeltz]

I can't remember how many copies of "Switched-On" Bach I went through from over-playing them... I know I had both releases with the changed album covers. Thank you very much for your comment and appreciation of the genre and my humble offerings. :)

[@Renshen1957]

+Carey R. Meltz Great version. I had a copy of the Quadraphonic Version of SOB (my first), several LP versions (after the Quad warped!), a tape version from Columbia House monthly club, the LP for By request, Well Tempered Synthesizer, Switched On Brandenburgs, and SOB II. the purchased the Carlos remaster, of SOB, WTS SOB II on CD. The Carlos re-issued CDs in a box contains some interesting out takes, however, the remaster of WTS in some parts showed that the master tape had "aged" (slight deterioration of sound quality) in places. I look forward to your releasing works that Wendy Carlos never attempted. She never recorded any of the Three Part Sinfonia (Inventions) or any of the Organ works (not even the Duo's which are two part inventions on Steroids). With the current technology, it's possible to produce some of the larger works. In my Freshman year of College (concurrently with my last year of High School), I enrolled in an Electronic Composition Class which had a Moog III P (portable), a Mini Moog, however the 4 track was always out for repairs. My attempts of Strapping together two to track recorder were poor substitute for the 4 track, but I received for the course A for my violin and string sound that was very realistic which the instructor had said was impossible.

[@CareyRMeltz]

+Renshen1957 Great comment Renshen! I had (and still have) all of the album versions and now most on CD. If you take a look at my videos, you'll see more music I've done in Carlos' style. I've also done one of the Sinfonias as an orchestral arrangement: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rHWamoyin8lliZI. There's lots in the works but I've not had the time lately to focus on them. One is a redo of the opening allegro from Brandenburg #3. Due to an extremely minor issue, the company that owns the rights to Carlos' music had KZbin take down the video. I've been reworking it for some time now and am getting closer to finishing the complete concerto. Since I'm not recording the music note by note and doing things completely digitally, to get away from a straight tempo (rather mechanical in sound and pace), I'm taking my work to new levels by making micro tempo adjustments to enhance the clarity of my timbres. The pacing gives more of a natural feel to the music as well as lets me articulate or accent sounds such as bowing effects. Carlos employed a special pedal filter while playing to achieve this sound. I've not done a total count but I've made over 500 such adjustments in the allegro thus far but keep going back and tweaking the piece. Once done, I'll export the individual tracks and then begin work on the emphasis tracks to add and mix the whole piece down. The 2nd movement is already done (and even though I have the sheet music for the adagio Carlos did for the 1979 release of the concerto, I don't want to risk another copyright infringement). I've used a largo from one of Bach's violin concertos which is sometimes used, although the scoring is somewhat expanded but very much in Carlos' style and sound. The 3rd movement has been experimented with and I need to finalize the timbres and produce two versions of the piece due to the repetition of the material... then comes developing all the individual emphasis tracks. I'm not trying to duplicate Carlos' original but create something similar in my own style. BTW, according to Carlos (from some interview I read), the sound she produced were "all they could do at the time with the equipment they had." I found that odd as I too, have been able to create some incredibly realistic violin, flute/recorder and reed sounds... so close that I often have to tweak my timbres to sound more kitschy to give that 70s analogue synth sound that we all know and love.

[@Renshen1957]

+Carey R. Meltz Almost any reproduction of an orchestral instrument on any analog sound synthesizer does not normally produce even a quasi-realistic effect, unlike digital synthesis which has some basis in sampling. The constraints of time (time=money) worked against such efforts. Even digital synthesis has far to progress to make a convincing sound to my ears; digital instruments are light years ahead of the analog synths. The digital is cheaper to produce than the hire of a symphonic orchestra, and is the bottom line, dollar driven world you rarely hear live musicians for the soundtrack of a movie. To produce a harpsichord tone on a Moog, one has to take into consideration of the attack (including the brief ictus of the pluck which can be simulated filtered white noise and a extremely brief raise in pitch) the tone (nasal for the front 8' + 4' choirs or more sine wave (flute like) with the back 8' choir or a combination of all three) overtones, inharmonicity, and decay. To produce this instrument's voice with several or more analog oscillators (each with a selection sine, square, triangle, and square wave), envelope generators, filters, etc., the old maxim is you can control every parameter of sound, but for every parameter you can control, you must control. To produce the violin tone, I went through the mixer in the IIIP Moog and used the better part of an afternoon to produce it. I had less resources than Carlos, but I had a different approach. However, realistic orchestral voices wasn't the attraction to Carlos's work. One of the reasons that Carlos, Kazdin & Shepard (Everything you wanted.....), Wurman (Moog Strikes Bach), Tomita (Snowflakes Are Dancing), et al, used non-traditional timbres was that it was a long and arduous process to produce a realistic tone signature of an actual instrument. This is why Carlos went to an expedient non-Moog source for the harpsichord continuou parts as pressure of time and money in more elaborate orchestral work required such. In my opinion the result sounded like a short cut, and frankly musically unsatisfactory as any electronic (analog and digital) harpsichord simulation. By comparison the Harpsichord Sonata by Scarlatti on Well Tempered Synthesizer worked as each was not attempting to be a harpsichord. Gershon Kingsley, Music to Moog By's Popcorn worked for the same reason. In the better "Switched On" records (regardless of the artists involved) the most successful electronic orchestrations were the ones that attempt to be realistic, but instead were new tone colors and tones. One of the frequent comments (and referenced by Carlos) was that the Moog sounded very much like an electronic organ (Carlos, "a primitive synthesizer") and part of the time to many individuals were right. And indeed it did at that time. On the other hand the Moog String Bass sounds as I have mentioned previously the "rubber band bass," worked as it was novel, different and instantly a classic sound. The Door's sophomore album, contained synthesizer parts. The Moog played by Paul Beaver on Horse Latitudes (sound effects) and When the Music's Over Turn off the Light represents the first appearance of Moog in rock 'n' roll (1967) 2 years before the Beatles Abbey Road. However, the Beatles use of a Moog two years later was more more of the new melodic use of the Moog as pioneered by Carlos, rather than the experimental music that electronic instruments had been associated (back to the days of Forbidden Planet). Keep working on those pieces, your renditions of the music of Bach in electronic garb are very beautiful.

[@CareyRMeltz]

Renshen1957 I don’t know what happened to your reply comments but they were so thoughtfully expressed. I appreciate your comment about going for realistic sounds was not the attraction to Carlos’ work… yet she claimed in an interview that the timbres created were “all [they] could do with the equipment at the time.” That’s what led me to state that I was able to get closer to real sounds using basically the same synthesizer (albeit VST), than she did (not meaning to sound snobbish either) ^_^ With respect to your details on digital sampling/synthesis are spot on. After Carlos’ analog recordings, I quickly grew weary of her new digital “orchestra” and although having it all either on vinyl or CD, I didn’t like most of it. I appreciate the experimental components of developing the genre but only enjoyed a very few compositions (my favourite being “Intergalactic Communications” from 1974’s “Digital Moonscapes”). Her re-imagined “S-OB 2000” was so over done with hammered “wood” sounds and other percussive tubes/gongs/bells - it was completely off-putting to my ear. These timbres were heavily used in 1986’s “Beauty in the Beast” where the pieces were more ethnic in sound and utilized alternate scales. Your historical notes are enjoyable to me as, I too, am familiar with the other artists and recordings you mentioned - in fact, I still have most on vinyl and have been trying to find and/or convert such rarities as MP3 for my collection. Although my short response doesn’t touch on every aspect of your note, I wanted to give something back, if nothing more than an acknowledgement of your time and efforts. Thank you again and I hope I can keep producing more interesting Classitronic choices.

[@positivegradient]

Great work. The tempi are very good.

[@CareyRMeltz]

Shantanu Goyal Thank you very much for listening and taking the time to comment.

[@ameliawright6947]

Lovely Work ! Wendy Carlos is a huge hero to me as both a trans woman myself and an artist.

[@CareyRMeltz]

Thank you SG. I appreciate your comment very much. She certainly was a pioneer in more ways than many realize or even appreciate. I was first introduced to her work when she went by her birth name, "Watler" and never really knew anything about her transition until recent times. I still have my old vinyl recordings with both of her identities. I do know that she was living her true self as a female when "Switched-On Bach" was produced but she used "Walter" instead of "Wendy" because this was a new, developing genre of music and she felt that the recording would be taken more seriously had it been created by a man. It's incredible how the world has changed! Cheers to you from Canada. :D

[@akirubamiru6700]

Well, Wendy Carlos is like those geniuses that went under the radar, yet it's impact is greater than those on the surface.

[@CareyRMeltz]

Couldn't have said it better. Her pioneering work continues to influence music! FYI, I've updated this work here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g3S0np6kftd4Y8k

[@joeroganofficial5433]

@@CareyRMeltz “her”

[@silviospera]

Magnífico!

[@CareyRMeltz]

Gracias! :)

[@suzannelebizarre5705]

OF curse...LOVED IT...

[@kiokokoffin]

You deserve WAY more subscribers! (im one XD) Amazing work! Love them! Wendy Carlos is like AMAZE I love her music so much, too!

[@CareyRMeltz]

WOW! Thank you so much for the great comment. Really appreciate it!

[@kiokokoffin]

Carey R. Meltz :D

[@cristoffry1122]

Great Courses opening music 😭

[@etankohcz1842]

Wendy, ROCKS!!

[@CareyRMeltz]

She does indeed, regardless if this is my own attempt at in creating a piece in her genre.

[@youtuuba]

It is both astounding and disappointing that so many of these commenters seem to think this recording was done by Wendy Carlos.

[@axs203]

This music lends itself so well to computers. I wonder what sequencer Bach would be using today :) Really like your music. It would be good to hear something new from Wendy Carlos ( or some news ). I wonder what she makes of new technology and vsts.

[@CareyRMeltz]

Thanks for listening and for taking the time to comment. I too am curious as to what she would do with the equipment of today... but she did make a grand departure from her "Switched-On" sound when she started dabbling with digital ("Digital Moonscapes," "Switched-On Bach 2000"). From what I've been led to believe, she seems to have broken ties with her former self doesn't seem to want anything to do with her music. I have it on good authority from someone (with whom I collaborating to bring a series of semi "Switched-On" performances to life via a hybrid ensemble of 10 strings, a Moog modular performer and myself both with backing instruments and live MIDI through my DAW) who has been trying to get in touch with her for a number of years - the only communication has come from her most recent producer (she did a live concert in Boston a number of years ago) and she remains in the dark. There also seems to be a push to remove her music or anything to do with it... none of her work has ever been made available to iTunes and her music publishing company is taking heavy action to remove images from site such as eBay when people are trying to sell recorded media. My "Switched-On Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 - 1 Allegro" was removed by KZbin at their request due to the tiniest of copyright infringements because I used an image of the original "S-OB" album cover in my tribute. One would think that any kind of homage would be welcomed but that does not seem to be the case. It would appear that hearing anything new is not going to happen and any news is simply conjecture. The only way we can honour her is to keep making music in her style, trying and developing sounds and techniques for pieces that she never approached or completed. Admittedly, my style is broader than her minimalistic works of Bach and his contemporaries and I have accepted that I will never be able to duplicate her creativity. I can only hope that I can continue to be inspired by what she started and to keep improving. As an aside, this piece seemed like it would be much simpler to realize but once I got into it, it was quite a challenge to find a way to isolate the 4 "solo violins" from the 4 "ensemble violins." I feel that I accomplished what I set out to do but would love to hear how she would have done it.

[@axs203]

I really like the stuff on 'Tron'. It would be nice to see Wendy playing with some new analogue synths of today as well as vsts and Ipad stuff! Also look forward to some more brilliant tracks from you!

[@ВладимирЧесс]

Good!

[@ReinaldoRafaelMarvalHernandez]

I have always thought that, if Johann Sebastian Bach had played a synthesizing moog, Mendelson would be the happiest musician arranger genius of his work

[@CareyRMeltz]

Thanks for listening and commenting. You know, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I'm not at all familiar with Mendelssohn's work. I should check him out as there's probably something really interesting to try and do in my style. Any suggestions?

[@ReinaldoRafaelMarvalHernandez]

Yes, it would be wonderful because Mendelssohn rescued the work of J. S. Bach and made the symphonic and philharmonic arrangements that we enjoy today thanks to him. To Bach, I consider him a genius, due to the brilliant idea of simplifying the keyboard layout in octaves and semitones, for which he developed different types of keyboard instruments perfecting the clavichord and the piano that we know today. So, I imagine, if Bach had had a synthesizer moog in his hands, perhaps, his work would be much more extensive and wonderful. Regards

[@CareyRMeltz]

I found sheet music for Mendelssohn's "On Wings of Song" and I liked it so much that I've started working on it in a style reminiscent of Isao Tomita's work... almost ready to mix it down actually. (It's going to be a lot of work though because I've taken the arpeggio of the piano LH and made it for "Strings" as well as for "Harp." I'm experimenting with panning them from the centre of the sound field both out to left and right fields but swapping the channels with each set of notes so they'll both be heard at the same time but alternating in stereo. I'm layering the RH to a synthetic "singing voice" which is joined by "Choir" and "Flutes" at the 2nd stating of the melody and then changing things up harmoniously (haven't found the right sound yet) for the final repeat. So far, it's light, ethereal and glorious to my ears. I love discovering new music (that my muses haven't done) and trying to create them in their styles.

[@johnstaf]

@@ReinaldoRafaelMarvalHernandez Bach had nothing to do with the development of the modern keyboard layout which predated him by centuries.

[@andrew23947]

can you imagine playing this it would take a lot of practise

[@CareyRMeltz]

I can't imagine playing any of the virtuoso parts for any of the works... the recorders or violins of the 4th; the harpsichord of the 5th! I've tried playing the modern trumpet just for the sake of attempting to create some notes... for the 2nd Brandenburg, the trumpeter played in the highest range of the instrument, and used quickly-changing lip pressure to change the pitch of the instrument. According to Wikipedia, "The trumpet part is still considered one of the most difficult in the entire repertoire, and was originally written for a clarino specialist, almost certainly the court trumpeter in Köthen, Johann Ludwig Schreiber. After clarino skills were lost in the eighteenth century and before the rise of the historically informed performance movement of the late twentieth century, the part was usually played on the valved trumpet."

[@pbrower2a1]

I am surprised that the clarinet, which can be played loud and aggressively as if a brass instrument, has not been used in Brandenburg #2.

[@CareyRMeltz]

Perhaps Bach didn't have any virtuoso clarinet players in his ensemble but I believe he wrote the part specifically for his clarino (the valveless, "piccolo trumpet" of the period) player, who's name escapes me at the moment.

[@spencerlin9530]

I love how well this piece goes with the audio visualizer. What program did you use to make the visuals?

[@qquark99]

Carey, I am so glad I discovered your channel. One question: Can you do this Brandenburg #2 in the same visual style as you did "Where sheep may safely graze"? That style helped me trace the different parts very nicely!

[@CareyRMeltz]

Thank you very kindly qquark99. I'm actually in the process of redoing both BB#2 and 4 and will be using the visualization you requested. I've been experimenting with new sounds and hope to bring these to life in the coming months.

[@jenniferfields5655]

my mom had this released in quadrophonic

[@andrew23947]

this featured on walter carlos by request album

[@CareyRMeltz]

Indeed it is. Since he/she did the 3rd on SOB, the 4th on WTS, and the 5th on SOB 2, this 2nd was a bit of fun... but it also prompted S-O Brandenburgs as all that was needed was the realizations of the 1st and the 6th to complete the work. That was a fun album, especially her take on Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance." Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment. :)

[@youtubeviewer7030]

@@CareyRMeltz was this track meant for the well tempered syntherziser or switched on bach 2

[@goscott444]

_Anybody around here remember Walter Carlos?_ 😋

[@CareyRMeltz]

Did you know that she was already transitioning to Wendy and living as a woman when "Switched-On Bach" was released? She used her former male name because she was concerned no one would take a female electronic music pioneer seriously. I have both the 1st and 2nd releases of "S-OB" with the original and replaced artist name.

[@goscott444]

@@CareyRMeltz _WOW!_ 😮

[@danbreeden68]

A drug for depressed spirits

[@frankymadrid3724]

Wendy Carlos

[@CareyRMeltz]

Well, no, It's actually my version in Wendy Carlos' style. It must be clear that I am not posting any of her work as my own. The company that owns her music is very strict in this regard. To be clear, there is no original Wendy Carlos material to be found on my channel.. Thank you for listening/watching though. :)