The Wayward Isles | Site Index | John Cowper Powys | Home | Memoirs | Letters & Journals | Miscellaneous Pieces |

Part 3 |
To hear a midi file, just click on any organ graphic. To stop the music before it has finished, refresh the page. NB Firefox may refuse to play some tracks or cut them short. Try a different browser!
Here are the three movements of Bach's Organ
Trio Sonata number 3, together with a Two-part Invention. Click on the organ graphics to
hear the midi files. Of the three midi files as first downloaded (from Bryen Travis' page
of Bach midi files - see below for link), the first was sequenced for church organ. The
second and third movements were sequenced for grand piano. Therefore the first movement to
me sounded like the end of an Anglican church service, where the organist plays something
pleasant, whilst the congregation slowly emerge from the nave into the sunshine outside,
lingering to greet the rector and to say hello to one another before dispersing to their
Sunday roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Meanwhile, the organist, in unconscious revenge
for the fact that few are listening, stumbles several times with the keys: it's a piece he
had inadequately rehearsed the day before. |

|

|
The second and third movements,
when presented on grand piano, recall for me a certain person playing reflectively
in his dimly lit book-lined study for his own relaxation in the evening. I am almost
expecting him to hesitate for long intervals, to stumble, to resume, to abandon the piece
halfway through.
All this is really unfair to Bach, but more unfair to myself, a layman when it comes to
music. My ear has not been tuned to appreciate the music for itself, free of these rather
personal associations. What I hear is merely "pleasant".
|
But thanks to some "tweaking", I
can transform the context and give the entire Trio Sonata a new twist. For me it evokes
the ensembles that I would listen to in 1961: The Modern Jazz Quartet, Dave Brubeck,
John Coltrane.The tweaking often consists of little more than altering the
instruments. All that has been done is to assign the parts to soprano sax, vibraphone and
bass.This is not really modern jazz; it's not a real sax, vibes or double bass. But surely
it is Bach.
|

|

|
This is a two-part "invention" by J S
Bach. |
Special thanks to
Lubbert Schenk of Softart Design, for use of the images which are details from his
brilliant digital renderings of organs: Digitale tekeningen van bestaande pijporgels,
en eigen ontwerp. To see these paintings in all their glory, click this logo:

|
Grateful thanks also to Bryen Travis and his site: "A Johann
Sebastian Bach Midi Page", from which all the pieces on this page have been
downloaded and then "tweaked".
For more midi files, orchestrated in various ways, click the Bach portrait alongside. |

|
More like
this:
Cacophonia Part 1
Cacophonia Part 2
Cacophonia Part 4
The Wayward Isles | Site
Index | John Cowper Powys | itSkill | Memoirs | Letters & Journals | Miscellaneous Pieces
|