Bach is good medicine

[merchimerch]

When I was doing research on organ playing in Russia, a well respected organist named Alexander Fiseisky told me in an interview that playing Bach is what brought him to God during the staunchly athiestic Soviet period - there are others I've talked to who called Bach "dangerous" during that era because of his associations with the divine. Bach holds such a powerful place in the canon, and is ascribed with all kinds of cultural values (although it's Mozart that gets credit for making babies smart).

Also, when I was in UZ, the physicist/musical phenom Rustam Rahimov would always tell me that maqom is good medicine and if I feel ill or depressed then I need to play my dutar.

So tonight I decided to learn a new fugue. Today has been a remarkably stressful day for a variety of reasons - complications seem to be flying at my from many directions, most of which I wasn't expecting.

Even though I have aural knowledge of the 2nd fugue from Bach's preludes and fugues (the one in C minor), I never actually played it when I was actively trying to be a pianist. So after dinner and seeing Casino Royale with my mom (about which I'll have a lot to say, but not in this post), I sat down to that fugue and played it through really slow. Then I started to actually practice (e.g. take the piece apart and work on the tricky bits). Slowly my neck muscles began to unclench and my head felt clearer (even though I was working pretty hard - I haven't played the piano seriously in years).

The best part was listening to my dad occasionally whistle along (or try to) as he wrote out Christmas cards from across the room. It is so curious the way people's brains treat motivic figures when they almost know where they go, but not quite.

I think I'll round out the evening with some maqom just to make sure that I keep myself healthy - hopefully Rustam aka knows I'm thinking of him.

Comments

[thunderbox.livejournal.com]

Have you considered playing Bach on a dutar? From the above analysis this would seem to promise unparalleled therapeutic effects…

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

Heh - actually in the Soviet era the reconstructed various traditional instruments to do just that - those instruments are now considered "academic" as opposed to "traditional."

I tend to like my Bach on Western classical instruments and my maqom on the dutar and like instruments. This post was mere me noticing (and commenting on) the different ways that musical value is constructed.