The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
JS Bach, Re-Imagined
To take our collective mind off of more disturbing news, a recommendation for some new music
My son Sam, as some of you know, is an accomplished pianist and composer here in DC. [his website's here] He and Ralitza Patcheva, a close friend and colleague (and masterful Bach interpreter), have just released an album on Acis Records that is generating (deservedly so, in my opinion) some buzz: The Well-"Tampered" Clavier, in which each of the 24 Preludes and Fugues in Book 1 of JS Bach's magisterial "Well-Tempered Clavier" are rhythmically re-worked and re-imagined.
It's pretty wild: think Bach meets Scott Joplin, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Thelonious Monk.
The CD, and streaming links and other info, are all available here. Have a listen. I realize that a father's recommendation is by its very nature of questionable reliability, and that, ties of blood being what they are, I might urge you to listen even if I didn't think the music was very good. But that doesn't mean that I think this music is not very good - quite the contrary. I am very much a worshipper at the Bach altar, and I think Sam and Ralitza have come up with something that deepens one's engagement with the original while being new and interesting and fun to listen to. See if you agree!
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