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Unlikely as it may seem, humor can also open a pathway to Bach, as has been shown over the past four Christmas seasons by the P.D.Q. Bach concerts organized by Composer Peter Schickele, 33 (TIME, May 31). Through the medium of the fictitious P.D.Q., Schickele has perpetrated such neglected works as the oratorio The Seasonings ("Bide thy thyme, now thy subscription's through"). At this year's concerts, scheduled for this week and next at Manhattan's Philharmonic Hall, he plans to premiere Toot Suite, a piece for three players at the same organ. What makes even his broadest buffoonery so devastating is his obviously knowledgeable, intimate feeling for Bach. "Mine," he says, "is a satire of love."
For those who seek Bach through a more McLuhanesque medium, there is Switched-On Bach, a new LP of ten transcriptions performed on a Moog electronic synthesizer. Partly due to its vogue among the rock generation, the album has sold 50,000 copies since its release five weeks ago, making it the hottest "classical" release in the country. Pianist Gould, reviewing it in the current issue of the Canadian monthly Saturday Night, hears "an inkling of the future" in it, calls it "the record of the year (no, let's go all the way—the decade!)."
Order and Spirit
No matter what Bach derivative initially captivates them, most young listeners eventually turn to the real thing. One result is that Bachanalia is rampant on U.S. campuses. And oddly, in this time of college riots and talk of revolution, it is Bach's granite solidity as much as his uplifting spirit that young people seem to respond to. It is as if he provided a firm ground-bass that stabilizes their improvisatory life style. Explains David Rockefeller Jr., 27, whose Boston-based Cantata Singers are an offshoot of the 1963 Harvard Glee Club:
"Bach just seems to make sense—there is order rather than chaos."
Order and spirit are the twin pillars of Bach's enduring appeal. "He is characteristic of our era in that his music is equally balanced between mathematics and emotion," says Violinist Yehudi Menuhin. "When we go to the moon, we shall need this same mixture: technical precision and deep feeling."
In technique alone, Bach was probably the most accomplished composer in the history of music. His mastery of contrapuntal devices such as fugues and canons, his handling of such particular forms as the concerto and the da capo aria, his uncanny sense of the inner relationships of any large structure, all spring from that rarefied realm where pure science blends into esthetics. "If a listener does anything well himself—makes a fine chair or a beautiful piece of mechanical equipment—he recognizes the same integrity in Bach," says Conductor Robert Shaw. This is what makes Bach's music an inexhaustible challenge and joy for performers. Cellist Pablo Casals, 92, still begins each day with his lifelong custom of playing preludes and fugues from The Well-tempered Clavier on the piano. Says he: "There is always something left to discover in it."