Khoros (dance), is ultimately from Indo-European root gher- (to grasp or to enclose), also the source of chorus, carol, choir, choral, chorale, garth, court, and garden.
2008, April 15
Piñon Pine
New growth on the Piñon Pine seedling, sure sign of spring.
2008, April 11
New mp3 files
Thank you, John W. McCoy, now there can be MP3 files of the four part chorales played on an organ.
I have become very tired of the synthesized instrument sounds in QuickTime available for the sound files of my chorales. I long for a great baroque church organ sound, like that used by James Pressler on the Virtual Baroque website. Of course, his files are created with Hauptwerk and it would cost $430 for the most minimal hardware and software to run this on my computer. Add to that, I am not an organist and do not understand the program, and the learning curve would be about a year just to set up some four part chorales.
So I looked around for another program. Windows users have a SourceForge program called MyOrgan, but no Mac version, or even a Linux version. Then I stumbled on Soundfonts.
Thanks to John W. McCoy there is a free organ soundfont, JEUX, available on the web.
As instructed, I loaded the JEUX organ soundfont into the ~/Library/Audio/Sounds/Banks in my Mac, then chose the Advanced tab in QuickTime preferences and chose Jeux as the default synthesizer. Voila, a new set of sounds. I selected a set of voices I liked, saved the .mov file, then converted it to an MP3 in iTunes.
The soundfont with QuickTime is free, and it will give me room to experiment with different stops. The list of organ stops for the Jeux soundfont is here.
Listen to the mp3: BWV 264 Als der gütige Gott vollenden wollt sein Wort
2008, March 31
Twelve years on the Web
Today marks the twelfth anniversary of the chorales on the web.
Twelve years ago today, the four part harmonized chorales were made available on the web for download. There have been years of revisions and corrections, thanks to many readers. At that time there were a few other people involved in Bach websites, Dave Grossman, and Jan Koster and Jan Hanford at JSBach.org. Since then many, many people have contributed to websites with music files, biographical information, discussions of Bach's works and their recordings. There is also much literature pertaining to the theory of the music: fugue, counterpoint, and the practices of harmony.
The web has truly become a great resource, thanks to all the people involved in these seriously important sites.
2008, March 21
Good Friday, Bach's Birthday and a Full Moon
How to celebrate: the return of music to the church after Lent, with the St. Matthew and the St. John Passions.
March 21 marks the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach. This year it is Good Friday, the day for which the Passions were composed and it is a Full Moon.
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 – will be the earliest Easter Sunday since 1913. Easter Sunday is defined as the first Sunday after the “Ecclesiastical Full Moon” (the Church’s approximation of when a Full Moon will occur, generally within a day of the actual Full Moon) after March 20th, which was the date fixed by the Church as Equinox in 325 AD. The earliest possible Easter Sunday is March 22nd, which last occurred in 1818, and will next occur in 2285. Image of the full moon of March 21, 2008 courtesy of Matt Wedel.
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Gustav Leonhardt conducting the St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244.1. |
Jonathan Peter Kenny sings an aria from the St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244.39. |
2008, March 16
For Palm Sunday
Cantata BWV 182, Himmelskönig sei willkommen
An early work by Bach, March 25, 1714, his first cantata as concertmaster in the Weimar court.
Alfred Dürr in The Cantatas of J.S. Bach. says "...we are offered a youthful, tender shaping of even the smallest motive, an instrumental scoring chosen with careful cosideration, and an inexhaustible abundance of inspiration".
BWV 182 notes on Emmanuel Music
BWV 182 notes on Bach Cantatas Website
This performance of BWV 182 is by Pieter Jan Leusink, conductor for Brilliant Classics, available in the Bach Edition. The sample has been prepared for educational purposes only, any other use is strictly forbidden.
BWV 182The "chorale prelude" BWV 182.7 is a wonderful canonic chorus.
2008, March 12
All mankind is of one author
From Devotion 17, by John Donne
...all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
2008, February 23
Quince blossom
A sun break between rain storms.
A little sun yesterday gave me a chance to enjoy the quince that is in bloom on the porch. A very large storm is forecast for today, but it is almost 5:00pm and it has only produced drizzle. The 60 mph gusts of wind may develop tonight, but somehow I don't expect they will.
Click on the image to enlarge.
2008, February 02
BWV 830 Partita Six
Glenn Gould plays Bach
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