8 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16184255

6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22020495

2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38407851

Another recommendation: the recordings by the multigenre saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu. It's insane. I won't give anything away, but in particular set aside some time to listen to the Menuets & Gigue from the first suite without any distractions.

https://yasuaki-shimizu.com/music/cello-suites-2/

I'm a cellist, played all the suites and always start with them when I return to the instrument after a hiatus. They've been analyzed to death, so my goal when playing is to avoid over-intellectualizing ("learn the changes, then forget them") and just try to take a different emotional journey each time (no way to say that without it sounding sappy), physically leading with my breath.

As were the Partitas and Sonatas for unaccompanied violin. It wasn’t until the great 19th century violinist Joachim began playing them in recitals that they came to light again. Even then it was not widely accepted. I believe it may have been George Bernard Shaw who had pretty harsh words to say about the very idea of treating these works seriously. My daughter is preparing for her conservatory auditions; and these works are now compulsory literally everywhere!

Not exactly.

Bach died in 1750. At this time the "market" for music was going through big changes. In Bach's time the main customers for music were courts of barons and kings and municipalities. That's the career he had, a musikmeister.

But look deeper and you'll see an economic landscape changing: the rise of cities, merchants, financial capitalism, etc. A bourgeoisie was rising and consuming music in concert rooms, opera houses and for private playing. But this bourgeoisie had different tastes. They didn't have a deep musical instruction so they preferred more "pop" music: easy to listen, easy to play, easy to follow. Bach's music is the opposite of it. It was out of fashion.

Bach's sons followed this simplified style. Most of all, Carl Philip Emanuel Bach was big into it. He got so good at this that he became an instructor and mentor to both Mozart and Haydn.

But Carl never stopped adoring his father music and used Johan Sebastian Bach (his dad) material for teaching. So J.S. Bach was widely known and venerated among musicians, including Beethoven.

However, the public recognition of Bach's worth only began when Mendelssohn made public presentations of his masses, in 1829. But this was 37 years before Pablo Casals was born.

Comparing various recordings is a rabbit hole I like falling into.

I'm pretty sure I learned about this project from HN many, many years ago.

I've been listening to Scarlatti keyboard sonatas recently. They're great. He was born the same year as Bach.

I'm probably a dinosaur but I have yet to find a version better than the very old Fischer-Dieskau/Gerald Moore combo.

The exception, for me, is the Goldberg Variations which I find have a stately and refined beauty. It's one of very few in the classical canon that I find myself returning to over the years.

That being said, I find his six sonatas and partitas for solo violin to be absolutely lumninous. The famous chaconne being truly sublime.

Don't fall into that trap. You like what you like. Bach wrote hundreds of pieces. There's no reason for anyone to "get" or "like" them all, or indeed any single one of them.

Personally, I like some of the piano and cello pieces but they only get played once or twice a year. Whereas his vocal works like the St John Passion and Ich habe genug from cantata BWV82 get played a lot. Everyone is different!