Looking Bach

Today is Bach's birthday, and I was surprised to realize I've never done a post about my posts on Bach. (MMmusing is very meta, and what's more meta than posts about posts?) I've given Stravinsky the retrospective treatment, but the truth is that I've probably written about Bach even more than The Rite of Spring. So, for this first day of spring, here's a collection of ways in which I've mused about Bach, from the sublime to the truly ridiculous:

[See also: YouTube playlist of Bach videos.]

First, my two most popular YouTube videos.

• Bach's Neverending Canon
• Bach's Crab Canon

Next, a series of posts exploring Bach's magnificent Cantata No. 4, including four annotated score videos.

• Good Friday Bach
• Und singen Halleluja!

Sometimes, I sit down and play Bach on the piano:

•  Piano Blogging and the Art of Impossibility
• video, with score 
• Allemande from Partita in D Major
•  blogged about here

Here, an imagined combination of two closely related Bach movements into a single duet:

•  Bach Doubled
• (and a perverse combo of a Bach gigue played at two wildly different tempi)

I've spent a good bit of time engraving Bach's music, which has led to:

• This discussion of my piano transcription of a chorale prelude
• The Joy of Engraving, re-setting Bach from C-sharp major to D-flat
• This just popped up, featuring a computer program which animates a Bach fugue with popping kernels and offers the possibility to play with the music in various ways.

I've also done a little bit of composing using Bach as source material:

•  My Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring
• performed live with trio in recital
• The Good, the Shred, and the Ugly (Bach + Pop Goes the Weasel)
• This also features my attempt to imitate the sound of a viola by playing the cello as badly as possible at half-tempo and then doubling the speed.

Finally, a couple of examples of visual manipulations of Bach's face and name:

• Unlikely Doppelgänger
• Ambigramania

And there's something new in the works! But that will likely appear on a day that isn't Bach's birthday...

UPDATE (still on Bach's birthday): Here's one new thing for today, about which I'll have much more to say: The Bach Chaconne on One Page