Bach and the Boys

ISSUE #232

I am about to be fulfilled—Laura Ann got me tickets to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra this weekend, the final part of my birthday present come to fruition and proof that Lydia Tár’s influence still leaks through our world like spilled ink.

The performance tomorrow will highlight Bach and two of his contemporaries, Handel and Vivaldi, in honor of Johann’s birthday which is March 21. But also, maybe March 31? Who cares—guy’s old! He was around way back in 1685—a year that was to pre-Mozart classical what 1986 was to comic books. He was born about 100 miles from Handel, both in Germany, while Vivaldi was learning violin as a young boy some 600 miles south.

Funny that he now signifies cultural elitism and über wealth, because he barely left central Germany in his entire life. He couldn’t even make the trek to meet Handel, though he desperately wanted to. Vivaldi was even farther away, though their connection was also more intimate, as Bach loved his work enough to make keyboard transcriptions of his Italian concertos—transcriptions that may have singlehandedly kept Vivaldi from being forgotten altogether. Vivaldi, in turn, inspired Bach to write concertos of his own—like the MC5 to Iggy Pop, the Meat Puppets to Kurt Cobain.

So it’s interesting to think that Vivaldi was the composer I’d known first of the three, as his Four Seasons absolutely rips and now pops up all over the place, from Looney Tunes to the devastating ending of Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I’d always found Bach to be conceptually compelling but had to be in the right mood to actually listen to—he’s all movement, no vibes—which is fine, because he like single-handedly invented Western music, gotta hand it to him. I knew I’d come around.

I made this Earwyrms to mirror tomorrow’s program, which I’m clearly very stoked to see. I pass beneath the shadow of skyscrapers every day yet can rarely find the energy for the reason I moved to the city in the first place. As a Middle American boy, I always had dreams of Culture: the opera, the symphony, the Shakespeare, The Little Shop of Horrors. But it’s hard to get up and fulfill dreams on your own—it’s why we need those who have our backs, who give us a little push, who bring us places we could never reach alone.

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