The Holy Trinity
The other morning I heard Caitlin Moran tell an interviewer that anyone who didn’t have the Beatles in their top ten was to be viewed with suspicion. I don’t go in for this kind of categorization. Think about it; Charles Manson had a thing for the Beatles and we all know how that ended up. Having said that, anyone who can’t at least recognize the genius in Bach’s Prelude no.1 is simply not paying attention. And from something as seemingly straightforward as the piece in C major, he lays it on with a trowel. He adds voices, he inverts themes, he changes gear between major, minor, melodic, he strips it back to a singular tune —and that’s just in the key of C. And then he’ll push it right out with orchestra, voice, keyboard, solo instrument—it boggles the mind.
And that’s just Bach. If you want things a tad more sensuous, just a little more Italian and most definitely more theatrical than our Calvinist friend, we have Georg Frederick Handel for your listening pleasure. Before he reached England and became George the First’s deejay and general go-to guy for coronation gigs etc, he learnt a thing or two about oratorio from the Italians. And proceeded to play around with the form for decades. He wasn’t interested in the academics of composing if it meant ditching melody. But equally, he can yuck it up with his Weimar contemporary without sacrificing the technicalities of form. Interestingly, they can sometimes sound the same. I defy anyone to listen to Handel’s harpsichord suites and not wonder for a moment if it’s Bach they’re hearing. If this is plagiarism, then bring it on I say. I’m with Stravinsky who said that it’s talent that borrows but it’s genius that steals. Surely Bach couldn’t not be flattered if he heard GFH’s suites. Aurally, they’re two utterly distinct sounds but absolutely based on the same rigor of form and technicality.
Scarlatti. Probably the lesser known of the three and these days mainly known for his keyboard pieces. He’s included in my holy trinity because I’ve been obsessively listening to his sonatas on repeat for years. I’ve also plink plonked my way through some of these sonatas in an effort to keep my playing chops alive. This is not always the best choice because his work requires a dexterity and nimbleness that I absolutely lack. Within these relatively short pieces is an ebullience of melody, an exuberance of form that maddeningly requires years of piano practice. My excuse is I don’t have a piano in my current abode and even if I did, it would take some time to master such effortless sparkle. At least with Scarlatti, many of his sonatas are in bite-sized form. This allows me the delusion that if it’s only two pages long, surely I can wrap my fingers around the arpeggios, the chord progressions from bass to treble eventually? In comparison, Bach’s fugues alone are like playing twister with your hands and fingers. Notes are put on hold with a few fingers while the remaining must pick up the various voices still on the go. Bach demands a technical mastery that kinda shits me on some days.
The unholy miracle of these three is not that they happened to be born in the same year but, unlike organized religion, I believe in their miraculous powers of transformation.