WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.800 You know, there's this really comforting idea 00:00:01.800 --> 00:00:06.620 that classical music is somehow fixed, carved 00:00:06.620 --> 00:00:09.460 in marble. Right. You go to a concert, you open 00:00:09.460 --> 00:00:12.480 the program and it says Bach, orchestral suite 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:15.560 number three. And you just assume that's it. 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:16.899 That's exactly what he wrote, what he called 00:00:16.899 --> 00:00:18.940 it. It's a very stabilizing thought, isn't it? 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:20.940 Yeah. That there's a definitive version of these 00:00:20.940 --> 00:00:23.320 masterpieces just sitting in a vault somewhere. 00:00:23.539 --> 00:00:25.820 Yeah. But when it comes to Johann Sebastian Bach. 00:00:26.350 --> 00:00:29.530 and specifically these famous orchestral suites, 00:00:29.629 --> 00:00:34.070 that marble is actually, well, it's more like 00:00:34.070 --> 00:00:36.689 wet clay. That is exactly what we're unpacking 00:00:36.689 --> 00:00:38.850 today. We're looking at four of the most famous 00:00:38.850 --> 00:00:41.090 works in the Baroque repertoire. I mean, we're 00:00:41.090 --> 00:00:42.969 talking about music that includes the air on 00:00:42.969 --> 00:00:45.210 the G string and the batonry. Household names, 00:00:45.329 --> 00:00:46.829 really. And we're going to find out that almost 00:00:46.829 --> 00:00:48.630 everything we think we know about them might 00:00:48.630 --> 00:00:51.630 just be wrong. Oh, absolutely. Wrong names, quite 00:00:51.630 --> 00:00:54.770 possibly the wrong instruments, and in some cases... 00:00:55.510 --> 00:00:57.369 entirely different purposes than what we hear 00:00:57.369 --> 00:00:59.969 today. So for this deep dive, we've got a stack 00:00:59.969 --> 00:01:02.329 of research here. We're talking manuscript analysis 00:01:02.329 --> 00:01:05.170 from scholars like Joshua Rifkin, historical 00:01:05.170 --> 00:01:08.250 context, all of it. We're going to peel back 00:01:08.250 --> 00:01:10.290 those layers. And I think the very first layer 00:01:10.290 --> 00:01:12.730 we have to chip away at is the name itself. Okay. 00:01:13.420 --> 00:01:15.799 Because if you had walked up to Bach in Leipzig, 00:01:15.879 --> 00:01:19.659 say around 1730, and asked to hear his orchestral 00:01:19.659 --> 00:01:21.579 suite, he probably would have just looked at 00:01:21.579 --> 00:01:23.599 you with total confusion. He didn't use the word 00:01:23.599 --> 00:01:27.000 suite at all. No, not for these. Yeah. In the 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:30.000 manuscripts, Bach labeled these works as overtures. 00:01:30.120 --> 00:01:32.680 Which is confusing for a modern listener, because 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:34.939 when I think overture, I think of, you know, 00:01:34.939 --> 00:01:37.819 the intro to an opera, the curtain raiser. Exactly. 00:01:38.099 --> 00:01:41.439 And that's one meaning. But in Baroque Germany... 00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:44.299 The word had this kind of dual meaning. It was 00:01:44.299 --> 00:01:47.060 almost like a part that stands for the whole. 00:01:47.340 --> 00:01:49.459 So how does one movement end up being the name 00:01:49.459 --> 00:01:51.280 for the whole collection? Well, the first movement 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:53.859 of all these pieces was in a very specific style 00:01:53.859 --> 00:01:56.799 called a French overture. It has a really rigid 00:01:56.799 --> 00:02:00.620 form. It always starts with a slow, majestic 00:02:00.620 --> 00:02:03.859 section. Lots of dotted rhythms. You know that 00:02:03.859 --> 00:02:06.079 sound. It's very jagged and regal. Right. Very 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:09.979 precise. Almost jerky. Yes. Then it just bursts 00:02:09.979 --> 00:02:12.860 into this. fast fugal section where all the instruments 00:02:12.860 --> 00:02:15.280 are kind of chasing each other. And then finally 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:17.539 it comes back to that slow majesty at the end. 00:02:17.620 --> 00:02:20.939 So that first huge movement is the ouverture. 00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:23.580 Right. But because that opening movement was 00:02:23.580 --> 00:02:26.259 so massive, I mean, it's usually the longest 00:02:26.259 --> 00:02:29.139 and most complex piece by far, the Germans just 00:02:29.139 --> 00:02:31.280 started calling the entire collection of dances 00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:34.240 that followed it an ouverture as well. Huh. So 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:36.919 it's like calling an entire album track one just 00:02:36.919 --> 00:02:39.240 because the first song is 10 minutes long. That's 00:02:39.240 --> 00:02:40.800 a great way to put it. It was shorthand, really. 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:43.060 It signaled to the audience, this is a big collection 00:02:43.060 --> 00:02:45.460 of dances in the prestigious French style. And 00:02:45.460 --> 00:02:47.639 that French label was a big deal at the time. 00:02:47.659 --> 00:02:51.080 Oh, huge. French culture was the absolute height 00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:53.719 of sophistication in Germany. If you were writing 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:55.759 music in the French style, you were signaling 00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:58.000 that you were cosmopolitan, that you were elite. 00:02:58.199 --> 00:03:00.860 So Bach was being trendy. He was definitely tapping 00:03:00.860 --> 00:03:03.560 into a very popular genre. But here's the thing 00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:05.319 that really jumped out at me from the research. 00:03:05.659 --> 00:03:08.900 We only have four of these from Bach. Just four. 00:03:09.199 --> 00:03:12.159 That feels surprisingly low. We always think 00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:14.800 of Bach as this machine who wrote a cantata every 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:18.919 week for years. He was prolific, for sure. But 00:03:18.919 --> 00:03:22.360 in this specific genre, he's a statistical anomaly. 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:25.800 I mean, look at his contemporary, Georg Philip 00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:28.120 Tellemann. Who was arguably more famous than 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:30.840 Bach back then. Absolutely. And Tellemann left 00:03:30.840 --> 00:03:35.340 us about 135 of these suites. 135. And scholars 00:03:35.340 --> 00:03:37.460 think he wrote vastly more that have been lost. 00:03:38.259 --> 00:03:41.020 Christoph Graupner left 85. Johann Friedrich 00:03:41.020 --> 00:03:44.199 Fasch left nearly 100. So Bach's four. They're 00:03:44.199 --> 00:03:46.900 rare birds. Do we have any idea why? Was he just 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:49.699 not that into them? Well, Bach was almost always 00:03:49.699 --> 00:03:52.199 writing for a specific job. He wrote church music 00:03:52.199 --> 00:03:54.039 for the church, keyboard music for teaching. 00:03:54.419 --> 00:03:56.919 These suites likely didn't fit his day -to -day 00:03:56.919 --> 00:03:59.159 work as neatly as they did for someone like Telemann, 00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:01.460 who was running public concerts. So they weren't 00:04:01.460 --> 00:04:03.860 written as a set then. Right. That's a big misconception, 00:04:04.060 --> 00:04:06.960 isn't it? We buy the CD, the orchestral suites. 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:09.259 And assume he wrote them one through four, like 00:04:09.259 --> 00:04:11.240 he did with the Brandenburg Concerto. Exactly. 00:04:11.659 --> 00:04:13.840 But the Brandenburgs were a single collection, 00:04:14.039 --> 00:04:17.259 basically a job application. These four suites 00:04:17.259 --> 00:04:19.600 are from completely different years, roughly 00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:23.699 1724 to 1731. Different instruments, probably 00:04:23.699 --> 00:04:25.300 for different groups. We just lump them together 00:04:25.300 --> 00:04:27.040 because, you know, it's convenient for recording. 00:04:27.339 --> 00:04:29.420 Okay, so let's zoom in on the most famous one, 00:04:29.560 --> 00:04:31.879 suite number three in D major. This is the big 00:04:31.879 --> 00:04:36.569 one. Trumpets, drums. It's got that huge celebratory 00:04:36.569 --> 00:04:38.930 energy. And of course, it contains the second 00:04:38.930 --> 00:04:41.009 movement that literally everyone on the planet 00:04:41.009 --> 00:04:43.470 knows. The air. The air and the G string. Right. 00:04:43.589 --> 00:04:46.329 And this is a classic deep dive fact, but it's 00:04:46.329 --> 00:04:48.930 so important. Bach never, ever called it that. 00:04:49.129 --> 00:04:51.610 No, that title is a ghost from the future. It 00:04:51.610 --> 00:04:54.370 comes from the late 19th century, well over 100 00:04:54.370 --> 00:04:57.930 years after Bach died. A German violinist named 00:04:57.930 --> 00:05:01.029 August Wilhelm decided to arrange the movement. 00:05:01.480 --> 00:05:03.519 And just to show off, he transposed it down a 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:05.899 step so he could play the entire melody on just 00:05:05.899 --> 00:05:08.220 one string of the violin. The lowest string, 00:05:08.339 --> 00:05:11.180 the G string. It gives it this incredibly rich, 00:05:11.379 --> 00:05:15.199 throaty, romantic sound. And that, well, that 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:18.060 remix, if you want to call it that, became so 00:05:18.060 --> 00:05:20.500 famous it totally eclipsed the original. It's 00:05:20.500 --> 00:05:23.079 wild because in Bach's version... The melody 00:05:23.079 --> 00:05:25.740 is woven into the first violins. It's much lighter. 00:05:25.800 --> 00:05:28.680 It floats. It's far more transparent. But, you 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:30.699 know, there's actually a bigger controversy with 00:05:30.699 --> 00:05:33.160 suite number three than just the name of the 00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:35.279 slow movement. This is where we get into the 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:36.779 heavy scholarship. This is where we get into 00:05:36.779 --> 00:05:39.519 Joshua Rifkin's theory. Right. So Rifkin is a 00:05:39.519 --> 00:05:42.980 brilliant and sometimes controversial musicologist. 00:05:43.459 --> 00:05:45.779 And he looked at the original sources for suite 00:05:45.779 --> 00:05:49.300 number three and noticed something odd. The physical 00:05:49.300 --> 00:05:52.569 paper. The parts from the 1730s, they're a patchwork. 00:05:52.670 --> 00:05:54.569 A patchwork? How? Well, you have some parts there 00:05:54.569 --> 00:05:56.970 in Bach's own handwriting, specifically the first 00:05:56.970 --> 00:05:59.269 violin and the continuo. And the continuo is 00:05:59.269 --> 00:06:01.470 the bass line, right? Cello and harpsichord, 00:06:01.490 --> 00:06:04.290 usually. Exactly. The rhythm section. So Bach 00:06:04.290 --> 00:06:06.490 wrote those parts himself. But then the trumpet, 00:06:06.629 --> 00:06:09.410 the timpani, and the oboe parts, they were copied 00:06:09.410 --> 00:06:12.889 out by his son, C .P .E. Bach. And the other 00:06:12.889 --> 00:06:15.029 string parts were copied by a student. Okay. 00:06:15.449 --> 00:06:18.600 So what does that suggest? Rifkin argues that 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:21.379 this separation means the piece wasn't originally 00:06:21.379 --> 00:06:24.660 for a full orchestra at all. So what was it then? 00:06:24.759 --> 00:06:26.540 He thinks the original version was for strings 00:06:26.540 --> 00:06:30.699 only. No trumpets, no drums. That completely 00:06:30.699 --> 00:06:33.439 changes the feeling of the piece. We think of 00:06:33.439 --> 00:06:36.160 number three as this pompous military entrance 00:06:36.160 --> 00:06:38.360 of the king kind of music. And Rifkin is saying 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:41.060 that entire layer might just be an afterthought. 00:06:41.139 --> 00:06:43.639 That Bach took an existing string piece and just 00:06:43.639 --> 00:06:46.339 dressed it up later for a special occasion. If 00:06:46.339 --> 00:06:48.500 you strip it back, It becomes much more intimate. 00:06:48.680 --> 00:06:50.839 It's like finding out a heavy metal song started 00:06:50.839 --> 00:06:53.819 its life as an acoustic ballad. That is a perfect 00:06:53.819 --> 00:06:57.199 analogy. And we see this pattern of retrofitting 00:06:57.199 --> 00:06:59.699 music even more clearly in the other D major 00:06:59.699 --> 00:07:01.680 suite, number four. The other big one with the 00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:04.579 trumpets. Yes. And in this case, the evidence 00:07:04.579 --> 00:07:07.740 for him recycling the music is undeniable. Bach 00:07:07.740 --> 00:07:09.839 actually took the first movement of suite number 00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:12.939 four. and turned it into the opening chorus of 00:07:12.939 --> 00:07:16.300 Christmas cantata. Cantata 110. Unser Mund sei 00:07:16.300 --> 00:07:19.120 voll Lachens. Our mouths be full of laughter. 00:07:19.319 --> 00:07:22.259 A fitting text for Christmas. It's incredibly 00:07:22.259 --> 00:07:25.779 joyous. And to match that text, Bach added a 00:07:25.779 --> 00:07:29.740 full choir, trumpets, and drums. So Rifkin argues 00:07:29.740 --> 00:07:31.899 that the orchestral suite version we know today 00:07:31.899 --> 00:07:34.500 might actually be what we'd call a backport. 00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:38.500 Bach liked the Christmas version so much, he 00:07:38.500 --> 00:07:41.000 decided to update the instrumental suite to match 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:42.980 it. So the original might have been strings, 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:44.920 then he makes the cantata with drums, and then 00:07:44.920 --> 00:07:46.819 he goes back and adds the drums to the suite. 00:07:46.980 --> 00:07:49.079 Very likely. And it just shows that for Bach, 00:07:49.220 --> 00:07:51.379 a piece of music wasn't some finished monument. 00:07:51.459 --> 00:07:53.639 It was. It was functional material. You could 00:07:53.639 --> 00:07:55.500 expand it, contract it, repaint it, depending 00:07:55.500 --> 00:07:57.379 on the occasion. Which brings us to the biggest 00:07:57.379 --> 00:08:00.250 mystery of all. Suite number two in B minor. 00:08:00.449 --> 00:08:03.449 Ah, the flute suite. Or so we think. This is 00:08:03.449 --> 00:08:05.430 the one that ends with the Badenery. Which I 00:08:05.430 --> 00:08:07.189 should say for any of our listeners in the UK 00:08:07.189 --> 00:08:10.050 might trigger some deep -seated nostalgia. Right. 00:08:10.189 --> 00:08:12.990 It was the theme music for ITV school's morning 00:08:12.990 --> 00:08:16.610 programs in the 80s and 90s. Instantly recognizable. 00:08:17.009 --> 00:08:19.870 Nothing says Baroque masterpiece like waiting 00:08:19.870 --> 00:08:22.009 for a science documentary to start in middle 00:08:22.009 --> 00:08:25.170 school. But The Badinery is famous for being 00:08:25.170 --> 00:08:28.290 a flute showpiece. It's incredibly fast. It is. 00:08:28.350 --> 00:08:31.310 The word itself means jesting or joking. It's 00:08:31.310 --> 00:08:34.070 a sprint. But here's the twist. There's a very 00:08:34.070 --> 00:08:36.190 strong school of thought that says this music 00:08:36.190 --> 00:08:38.450 was not written for the flute at all. This is 00:08:38.450 --> 00:08:40.690 one of my favorite debates in all of musicology. 00:08:41.129 --> 00:08:43.470 It's like musical forensics. Okay, lay it out 00:08:43.470 --> 00:08:45.490 for us. The manuscript we have is from around 00:08:45.490 --> 00:08:49.730 1738. But there are clues on the page, literal 00:08:49.730 --> 00:08:53.230 graphical clues, that suggest Bach was copying 00:08:53.230 --> 00:08:55.730 from an older document. And the smoking gun is 00:08:55.730 --> 00:08:58.710 a typo? A typo, or maybe a correction. On the 00:08:58.710 --> 00:09:01.330 title page, where Bach writes the word traversier, 00:09:01.509 --> 00:09:04.470 which means transverse flute, it looks suspiciously 00:09:04.470 --> 00:09:07.190 like he wrote the letter T over an existing letter 00:09:07.190 --> 00:09:11.409 V. V4 violin. That's the theory. That he started 00:09:11.409 --> 00:09:13.929 to write violino, realized he was making a flute 00:09:13.929 --> 00:09:16.330 version this time, and corrected himself. Okay, 00:09:16.370 --> 00:09:18.870 but a typo is one thing. Is there any actual 00:09:18.870 --> 00:09:21.990 musical evidence? There is. A lot of it. First, 00:09:22.190 --> 00:09:25.809 the key. The suite is in B minor, which is a 00:09:25.809 --> 00:09:28.750 bit awkward for a broke flute. But if you transpose 00:09:28.750 --> 00:09:32.169 it down to A minor, it fits the violin perfectly. 00:09:32.529 --> 00:09:34.919 And more importantly... There are techniques 00:09:34.919 --> 00:09:37.240 in the music that just scream violin. You're 00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:40.120 talking about bariolage. Exactly. Bariolage is 00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:43.159 a French term for a bowing technique, where you 00:09:43.159 --> 00:09:45.759 rapidly alternate between a static note on an 00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:48.740 open string and a moving melody on another string. 00:09:48.980 --> 00:09:51.379 For a violinist, it's a very natural rocking 00:09:51.379 --> 00:09:53.320 motion. Like patting your head and rubbing your 00:09:53.320 --> 00:09:56.000 stomach, but with a bow? Yes. And on a violin, 00:09:56.179 --> 00:09:58.039 it sounds brilliant because that open string 00:09:58.039 --> 00:10:00.399 rings out with a lot of resonance. On a flute? 00:10:00.990 --> 00:10:02.970 It's incredibly awkward. You have to jump these 00:10:02.970 --> 00:10:04.850 wide intervals with your breath and it just, 00:10:04.870 --> 00:10:07.990 it sounds breathless, not resonant. So Rifkin's 00:10:07.990 --> 00:10:10.289 theory is that this was originally a lost violin 00:10:10.289 --> 00:10:12.950 concerto in A minor. That's the leading theory, 00:10:13.029 --> 00:10:16.809 yes. But the plot thickens. Because another musician, 00:10:17.029 --> 00:10:21.289 the brilliant oboist, Gonzalo X Ruiz, has looked 00:10:21.289 --> 00:10:23.289 at all the same evidence and said, I don't think 00:10:23.289 --> 00:10:26.210 it's violin either. I think it's oboe. Oboe! 00:10:26.509 --> 00:10:29.210 Why oboe? Ruiz points out the range. If this 00:10:29.210 --> 00:10:31.470 were a violin piece, you would absolutely expect 00:10:31.470 --> 00:10:33.669 the soloist to use the G string, the lowest, 00:10:33.710 --> 00:10:37.669 richest string. But the music, it curiously avoids 00:10:37.669 --> 00:10:40.429 that entire low register. I see. It stays in 00:10:40.429 --> 00:10:42.750 a range that perfectly matches the Baroque oboe. 00:10:42.850 --> 00:10:45.409 And Ruiz argues that the figuration, the specific 00:10:45.409 --> 00:10:48.070 shape of the fast notes, looks exactly like the 00:10:48.070 --> 00:10:51.389 writing in Bach's other oboe works. This is amazing. 00:10:51.549 --> 00:10:53.470 So when we hear a flautist struggling through 00:10:53.470 --> 00:10:55.870 the botanury, we might be watching them play 00:10:55.870 --> 00:10:58.690 a translation of a translation. And yet it works. 00:10:58.870 --> 00:11:01.389 That's the genius of it. Even if it was originally 00:11:01.389 --> 00:11:04.230 for violin or oboe, the flute version is spectacular. 00:11:04.570 --> 00:11:07.210 It has this fragile, breathless quality that 00:11:07.210 --> 00:11:09.870 really suits that jesting character. There is 00:11:09.870 --> 00:11:11.529 a middle ground here, too, isn't there? The flautist 00:11:11.529 --> 00:11:14.070 Stephen Zahn has an idea. Right. He's the diplomat 00:11:14.070 --> 00:11:16.570 in this argument. He suggests that the original 00:11:16.570 --> 00:11:19.870 A minor version might have been... generic enough 00:11:19.870 --> 00:11:22.070 to be played by either a violin or a flute from 00:11:22.070 --> 00:11:24.409 the very beginning. A sort of choose -your -own 00:11:24.409 --> 00:11:27.070 -adventure solo part. You've covered suites two, 00:11:27.250 --> 00:11:30.990 three, and four. What about number one in C major? 00:11:31.230 --> 00:11:34.049 Is it just as controversial? It's actually the 00:11:34.049 --> 00:11:36.549 most stable of the bunch. It's scored for woodwinds 00:11:36.549 --> 00:11:39.009 and strings, no trumpets, and it feels the most 00:11:39.009 --> 00:11:41.830 authentically French. It's like a sampler platter 00:11:41.830 --> 00:11:44.570 of French dances. You get a four -lane, a javotte, 00:11:44.690 --> 00:11:46.549 a passe -pie. So it's the most straightforward. 00:11:47.210 --> 00:11:48.710 If you want to know what this overture genre 00:11:48.710 --> 00:11:50.669 was supposed to sound like to a German audience 00:11:50.669 --> 00:11:53.149 in the 1720s, I'd say start with number one. 00:11:53.309 --> 00:11:55.950 But even if the original is stable, the life 00:11:55.950 --> 00:11:58.809 of these pieces after Bach died was anything 00:11:58.809 --> 00:12:02.409 but. We mentioned Wilhelm Schur and his air on 00:12:02.409 --> 00:12:04.909 the G string, but it wasn't just him. No, not 00:12:04.909 --> 00:12:07.610 at all. The Romantics loved this music, but they 00:12:07.610 --> 00:12:09.789 felt the orchestration was too thin for their 00:12:09.789 --> 00:12:12.850 huge concert halls. Gustav Mahler, of all people, 00:12:12.970 --> 00:12:15.690 arranged suites two and three. Mahler editing 00:12:15.690 --> 00:12:18.299 Bach. That feels a bit sacrilegious to modern 00:12:18.299 --> 00:12:21.679 ears. To us, maybe. But to him, he was bringing 00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:24.720 Bach into the modern age. He even combined movements 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:27.379 from the different suites to create a new super 00:12:27.379 --> 00:12:31.299 suite. And here's my favorite image. When Mahler 00:12:31.299 --> 00:12:33.740 toured with the New York Philharmonic, he would 00:12:33.740 --> 00:12:35.220 conduct these arrangements from the keyboard. 00:12:35.500 --> 00:12:39.480 Mahler on a harpsichord. Yes. But in true Mahler 00:12:39.480 --> 00:12:42.419 fashion, he reportedly played the continual part 00:12:42.419 --> 00:12:45.419 with such ferocity that he was basically conducting 00:12:45.419 --> 00:12:48.379 the entire orchestra with his chords. Wow. And 00:12:48.379 --> 00:12:50.440 then you have composers like Giuseppe Martucci 00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:53.240 in Italy turning them into solo piano pieces. 00:12:53.539 --> 00:12:55.679 Which just proves the durability of the musical 00:12:55.679 --> 00:12:57.700 ideas, right? You can play them with a massive 00:12:57.700 --> 00:12:59.500 Mahler orchestra, strip them down to a single 00:12:59.500 --> 00:13:02.700 piano, play the flute part on an oboe. The core 00:13:02.700 --> 00:13:04.980 logic of the music holds up. It really challenges 00:13:04.980 --> 00:13:07.700 this modern idea of the definitive recording. 00:13:08.019 --> 00:13:09.679 Completely. We're obsessed with authenticity 00:13:09.679 --> 00:13:12.360 today. We want to hear exactly what Bach heard. 00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:14.799 But what this deep dive really shows is that 00:13:14.799 --> 00:13:17.600 even Bach didn't just hear one thing. He heard 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:20.379 strings. Then he heard trumpets. He heard a violin. 00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:23.720 Then he heard a flute. The music was alive. It's 00:13:23.720 --> 00:13:26.419 like these manuscripts are just snapshots of 00:13:26.419 --> 00:13:28.740 a moving target. That's a beautiful way to put 00:13:28.740 --> 00:13:31.440 it. They're freeze frames of a process. So here's 00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:33.759 a thought to leave you with. We revere these 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:36.480 four suites as these great pillars of the orchestral 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:40.639 repertoire. But if Bach was an outlier who only 00:13:40.639 --> 00:13:42.720 wrote four while Telemann was writing over 100, 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:45.700 and if the most famous flute solo might have 00:13:45.700 --> 00:13:48.399 been for a violin, and the most famous orchestral 00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:50.659 error was originally for a chamber group. Then 00:13:50.659 --> 00:13:54.139 you have to ask yourself, are we loving Bach? 00:13:54.539 --> 00:13:57.440 Or are we loving the specific accidents of history 00:13:57.440 --> 00:14:00.000 that allowed these particular versions to survive 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:02.480 on paper? If a fire had happened in a different 00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:05.960 library in 1750, our entire concept of the perfect 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:08.600 orchestral suite could be completely different. 00:14:08.740 --> 00:14:10.600 It almost certainly would be. Thanks for listening 00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:12.659 to this deep dive. Go listen to the suites again 00:14:12.659 --> 00:14:14.840 and see if you can hear the ghost of the violin 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:16.679 in that flute solo. Enjoy the music.