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All Episodes

WTF Bach — 157 episodes

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Title
1

147: Is This Cantata Even By Bach?

2

146: Toccata’s Twin! Double Fugue in F

3

145: Der Herr denket an uns, BWV 196

4

144: Why (And How) I Became An Organist

5

143: Special Guest, Emma Smith (University of Oxford)

6

142: Monster Toccata in F, BWV 540

7

Classical Music ...Robots.

8

141: Bach's Orchestral Debut

9

140a: Passacaglia Supplement

10

140: PASSACALIA

11

139: Bach's Second (or Third) Cantata

12

138: Bach's Very First Cantata

13

A Classical Musician's Thoughts at a Party

14

137: Special Guest! Peter Wollny

15

136: Bach's 12-Tone Fugue (WTC Finale!)

16

135: H Major! The Final Major (And Tuning It...)

17

134: 5 Flats, 5 Voices: Bach in B-flat Minor

18

133: ¿Por qué César Vallejo?

19

132: The Other Bach Piece You Probably Played

20

131: Dissecting The Dragon, A Minor Book 1

21

130: A Double Fugue & A Second Manuscript

22

129: I Got Rid Of All My Books (11 Years Ago...)

23

128: Donald Francis Tovey's Well-Tempered

24

Bach's Birthday is NOT March 31st.

25

127: How I Memorize Bach (By Ear)

26

126: What The Instrument Tells You About The Music

27

125: What Is An Ornament?

28

(5 Min. Rant) Customer Support Hero

29

124: Joy is G Major. Book One.

30

123: The Negroni & 'Paradise Lost'

31

122: Was F-Sharp Minor, Golgotha?

32

121: So... What Does 'Well-Tempered' Mean?

33

120: A Double Canon (4 Parts from 2 Lines)

34

119: Special Guest! Paul Jacobs

35

118: How to Practice! (+ Advice for Teens)

36

117: I Forgot C Minor! BWV 847

37

116: Chromatic Finale Of The First Half, BWV 857

38

(5 Min. Rant) How To Twist A Shirt

39

115: F Major Prelude & Fugue, BWV 856

40

Why You Should Listen To This Podcast (Ars Podcastica)

41

Ep. 114: Bach Improvises On His Prelude

42

113: New Bach Works (!) Heard TODAY

43

(5 min. Rant) Self-Inflationary Language!

44

112: E-flat or D-sharp minor?

45

111: The Blind Organist's Improvisations and Registrations

46

110: Bach Put A Fugue Inside A Prelude?

47

109: 'The Swimmer' by John Cheever

48

108: Bach's D Minor Prelude and Fugue, Book One

49

107: D Major Fugue, To Dot... or Not?

50

(6 Min. Rant) Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

51

106: What is Bach's 'Musical Offering?'

52

105: Isak Dinesen, 'The Immortal Story'

53

104: Bach (Almost) Spells His Name in a 5-Voice Triple Fugue

54

103: The 'Covid Etude' Moral + Tureck’s Hallucination (11 min.)

55

102: Bach's Most Famous Prelude (& Fugue...) BWV 846

56

Ep. 101: The Well-Tempered Clavier! Analysis, History, Revisions

57

(4 Min. Rant) Literally Can't Thank You Enough in Advance

58

100th Episode! Special Guest: Ton Koopman

59

Ep. 99: NEW ALBUM - Partitas 1-3

60

98: Borges, Bach, Barthelme.

61

97: Bach as A Minor in a minor.

62

96: Alleluia! Bach's Jubilant Ululation.

63

95: Bach’s St. John Passion, Which Version?

64

94: Baroque Keyboardists Weren’t Specialists—They Played Everything

65

93: The 'Actus Tragicus' BWV 106

66

92: Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. An Audiobook.

67

91: MiniSeries (10/10!) The Final Episode

68

90: MiniSeries (9/10) Revisions Part Two

69

89: MiniSeries (8/10) A Bachian Fractal

70

88: MiniSeries (7/10) Canon at MOVING Intervals

71

87: MiniSeries (6/10) A Sloth Canon

72

86: MiniSeries (5/10) Canonic Revisions Part One

73

85: MiniSeries (4/10) Feet & LH, a 7th Apart

74

Is Pachelbel's Canon Really a Canon?

75

84: MiniSeries (3/10) A Canon At The Fifth

76

83: MiniSeries (2/10) Divine Row Row Row Your Boat

77

82: New MiniSeries! Bach's Christmas Puzzles

78

81: Bach Whips Out His Dagger.

79

80: The Urtext Illusion: Textual Variance in Bach's "Aria Variata" BWV 989

80

79: Passion Music for His Son. F Minor Sinfonia, BWV 795

81

78: Fantasy & Fugue in C minor BWV 537

82

77: Anyone Else Getting Married?

83

76: The 3rd Keyboard Partita (A Crucial Revision)

84

75: Performer's Commentary, Vol. 3

85

74: ‘No One Ever Erected a Statue to a Critic’ (Bach vs. Scheibe)

86

73: ‘Mi Fa, et Fa Mi est tota musica’ (BWV 1078)

87

71: Performer's Commentary, Vol. 2

88

70: Bach's Puzzle Canons (Yes, Please.)

89

69: Performer's Commentary, Vol. 1

90

68: What Did Bach's Business Card Sound Like?

91

67: Doubles at the same time as their simples. (Three Albums on Presale Today!)

92

66: Du Hirte Israel, höre. BWV 104,

93

65: The Neumeister Chorales (Bach at 15 yrs. old)

94

64: Introducing, The Flute!

95

63: Two More Cantatas (1724, Part 3)

96

62: 2024, An Important Bach Year (Part Two)

97

2 minutes: P.D.Q. R.I.P.

98

61: Why Is 2024 An Important Bach Year?

99

60: My Mini Concert for You

100

59: The First Double Fugue in History

101

58: I Play Bach's Table of Ornaments

102

57: Bach and the Golden Ratio.

103

56: Bach's Most Joyful Piece? (Chorale Preludes x2)

104

55: Introducing The Chorale! Chorale Preludes, Four-Part Chorales, &c.

105

54: The Crab Canon Isn’t a Möbius Strip.

106

53: Special Guest: Joshua Rifkin. One Voice Per Part

107

52: Casals, Rostropovich... più allegro

108

50th Episode! A LIVE Lecture Sponsored by Tonebase

109

51: The (Other) Goldberg Canons BWV 1087

110

49: What is Chromaticism? (Albinoni Fugues)

111

48: The (Other) Goldberg Canons BWV 1087

112

47: An Encyclopedia and a Fugue

113

46: What’s a Pythagorean Comma? (Introduction to Temperament)

114

54: The Prelude in C, BWV846 (à la WTF)

115

44: What is Bach’s ‘Longest’ Piece?

116

43: Cantata 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben

117

42: Listener’s Choice, You asked, I talked.

118

41: What Was the Only Non-British Music at the Queen’s Funeral?

119

40: What Did Bach Have for Dinner May 3, 1716?

120

39: Four Chances to Hear Bach Differently

121

38: Can Computers Teach Us About Bach?

122

37: The Brandenburg Fifth, BWV 1050

123

36: Did Bach Compose the 6th Brandenburg to Get Fired? (Nope.)

124

35: The Brandenburg Fifth: A New Way of Hearing

125

¡ SEASON TWO !

126

That‘s a Wrap on The Art of Fugue. (Season one finale 2/2!)

127

The 14th Fugue in The Art of Fugue. (Season one finale 1/2!)

128

Special Guest: Christoph Wolff. What else can we learn about Bach?

129

Bonus: Dictated in Blindness on his Deathbed? The Original Printed Conclusion to The Art of Fugue?

130

The Fourth Canon in The Art of Fugue: Upside Down, Slowed Down... How Much More Down?

131

Bonus: The 13th Contrapunctus - in another way (for TWO harpsichords!)

132

The 13th Fugue in The Art of Fugue: also fugue this mirror a is?

133

Special Guest: Chris Thile. Man in the Mirror (Fugue)

134

The 12th Fugue in The Art of Fugue|euguF fo trA ehT ni euguF ht21 ehT?

135

The Third Canon in The Art of Fugue: Counterpoint at the fifth? Or just a bunch of parallel fifths?

136

Bonus: I Uploaded a Bach Album as an NFT

137

The 11th Fugue in The Art of Fugue: A Triple Fugue &... A Possible Anti-Golden-Section?

138

The Tenth Fugue at the Tenth: Also... What is a Key?

139

The 9th Fugue in The Art of Fugue: Two Subjects Combined at Two Intervals... Too much?

140

Special Guest: Jack Stratton (Vulfpeck). Down in a big way... with Bach?

141

The 8th Fugue in The Art of Fugue: Three Themes, Three voices.

142

How To Detect Bach B.S. (Bad Scholarship)

143

Bonus: A Bach Article from 1985

144

Bonus: Listener’s Choice: You asked, I talked.

145

The Second Canon in The Art of Fugue: A canon functioning at two simultaneous intervals!?

146

The 7th Fugue in The Art of Fugue: One theme at three different speeds?

147

Special Guest: Robert Hill. How does he play Bach?

148

The 6th Fugue in The Art of Fugue: ’In Stylo Francese’

149

The 5th Fugue in The Art of Fugue: Our theme finally overlaps itself!

150

Special Guest: Brad Mehldau. Why does he like Bach?

151

The First Canon in The Art of Fugue: Where do these pieces belong, and how do they get much more complicated than this?!

152

Bonus: Bach in Revision. How does Bach improve upon himself?

153

The 4th Fugue in The Art of Fugue: Where is the golden section? Exchanging the Dux and the Comes

154

The 2nd/3rd Fugues in The Art of Fugue: What is a Clavichord? Our first countersubject!

155

Bonus: Contrapunctus I: all screwed up... 11x

156

The First Fugue in The Art of Fugue: What is a Harpsichord? Eleven entrances?

157

What Is A Fugue? Who Was J.S. Bach?