Dorothy Smith:

>Strange!  I had thought I was enjoying Bach and Beethoven all these
>years.

You were indeed, Milady. Believe me.

>I'm delighted to be an honorary Italian.

Me too, but prefering melody is not enough, I'm afraid. At the table,
you must enjoy polenta and domestic quarrels more than any other thing.
(I was talking about stereotypes....)

>But I had always thought the essence of Bach was melody.  Isn't that
>what counterpoint is, interweaving melodies?  If they include harmonies
>and rhythms along the way, that's all right, too.

Agree.  Actually, I don't think that there is a real opposition (or
importance degrees) between melody and other elements in a musical work.
That statement of Stravinsky I've criticised (though based on certain
polemical purposes) is unfair to Beethoven.  With the same criterion, one
can say:  "Manet couldn't draw".  A commonplace makes of Bach only the
"father of the fugue", but as we know also, he wrote some of the beautiest
vocal melodies that a composer will ever reach (I think just of "Erbarme
dich", for example).

>I was even PLAYING Bach this very morning and enjoying it.  (Of course,
>it WAS the "Italian" Concerto.)

Were you playing just the right hand part? (just a joke, Dorothy...:-)

Pablo Massa
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