John Smyth:

>What I miss in Bach, (and it's not his fault), is orchestral
>color, and changes in meter and dynamics within single movements.  His
>music, *within movements,* is infused with what I would call a sort of
>"mono-emotionalism".  There is no sense of ambiguity and mystery.  The
>Baroque is characterized by logic, restraint, and understatement; and while
>one can always find exceptions, the era as a whole just doesn't turn me on.

and adds

>Could I be missing the emotional depths?

Let me suggest something.  You are listening for emotional ambiguity *in
terms of* changes of color, meter, and dynamics.  Bach does indeed change
color for emotional expressivity - witness the oft-cited "halo" of strings
when Jesus sings in the St. Matthew (and the absence of the halo when
Jesus suffers "as a man").  To me, the Magnificat is highly expressive in
its instrumental color.  In the cantatas you will find lots of dynamic and
tempo changes for the purposes you describe.  However, Bach also achieves
emotional ambiguity in other ways - especially contrapuntal ones.  In
Cantata 106 (Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit), the also solo begins
with a line "Into your hands I commend my spirit.  You have saved me, Lord,
etc") to a fairly subdued melody, low in the register and it heads lower.
The bass solo enters at the top of his range, to a descending musical line
- "Today you will be with me in Paradise" - Jesus as ardent bridegroom.
Those two descending lines nevertheless have far different effect - one
submissive, the other electrifying.  In the background, the *choral* altos
intone the chorale "With peace and joy, I come to Thee." There's an awful
lot going on here, musically, symbolically, and emotionally, but it is an
approach that seems to me fundamentally different from those of composers
from Beethoven on.

Handel is just as amazing - probably a more brilliant orchestrator than
Bach and with a more directly communicative approach to setting text.
I don't prefer one to the other, but there seems to me that difference.
Ambiguity comes out in contrast and in melodic turns and riffs.  Much of
it is good old-fashioned word-painting - "the crooked straight," with the
crooked represented by a wavering phrase, and the straight by a single held
note.  Other parts are tempo, color, and dynamic changes as in Bach, but
not as in Beethoven, Berlioz, or Brahms.

Steve Schwartz