Wes Crone wrote:

>I would like to comment on the
>Crucifixus.  This pieces is a ground on a bass essentially very similar to
>the ground used by Purcell in Dido's Lament from Dido and Aeneas.  I think
>Bach does a superb job with the ground.  Truthfully, I don;t think there was
>ever a composer as good with working on a ground as Purcell (he is my #2
>composer), not even Bach himself.

For a totally untrained listener to music like me, who might otherwise have
trouble recognizing a modulation from, I recommend the conclusion of the
Crucifixus from the Credo (which was one of our assigned listenings in my
freshman music 101 course in college).  Hear that modulation to major and
you'll never again wonder what a modulation is.

Walter Meyer, who shares Wes' and others' admiration for J.S.  Bach but
refuses, by singling out a "best", to enter into a monogamous marriage with
any composer, whether Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Purcell, or some
other titan I have omitted.