Why was Bach considered the father of all music???

I'm not an expert but his Well Tempered Clavier qualifies him to be "Big Daddy" in my mind.

The Well-Tempered Clavier

The best known of Bach's clavier works is the famous set of preludes and fugues called The Well-Tempered Clavier. Part I was completed at Cöthen in 1722, and Part II was completed at Leipzig around 1740.

Each part consists of twenty-four preludes and fugues, one prelude and one fugue in each of the twelve major and minor keys. Part I is more unified in style and purpose than Part II, which includes compositions from many different periods of Bach's life.

In addition to demonstrating the possibility, with the then novel tempered tuning, of using all the keys, Bach had particular intentions to teach in Part I. In most of the preludes a single specific technical task is given the player; thus they might be called, in the terminology of a later age, études, for which some of Bach's little preludes (BWV 933-943) as well as all the two-part inventions and the three-part sinfonias may be regarded as preliminary studies.

The teaching aims of The Well-Tempered Clavier go beyond mere technique, however, for the preludes exemplify different types of keyboard composition of the late Baroque.
The fugues, wonderfully varied in subjects, texture, form, and treatment, constitute a compendium of all the possibilities of concentrated, monothematic fugal writing. The ancient ricercare is represented (Book I, No. 4 in C sharp minor), as well as the use of inversion, canon, and augmentation (No. 8, E flat minor), virtuosity in a fugue with a da capo ending (No. 3, C sharp major), and many other styles.

In Part II, the Fugue in D major (No. 5) may be mentioned as a superlative example of concentrated abstract musical structure using the simplest materials, while the Prelude and Fugue in F sharp minor (No. 14) is outstanding for beauty of themes and proportions.

As in the organ fugues, each subject in Bach's clavier figures is a clearly defined musical personality, of which the entire fugue is to be a logical development and projection.

Nonsense--despite the importance of the Bach clan in German music, it is ridiculous to call him the father of modern music.

Maybe this will calm Setanta:

J.S. BACH: FATHER OF HARMONY

I agree with "Father of Harmony", but "Father or Western Music" would maybe be a bit too much!
"Father of Harmony" just because he was the fisrt to really work on that. He almost invented it!
He proved that it was possible to make music with the tonalities we nowadays know. As a matter of fact, as panzade just said, his "Well Temperd Clavier" proved that the "limits" of the new claviers of his time were no longer limits, but would permit to write and play music differently, and it placed this instrument in the center of music. Indeed, the Clavier, because of the fact that it was "tempered", had less possibilities than a violin, for example (violin can modulate around a note, whereas the piano can not). He wrote in different tonalities, developped differetn harmonies, in order to prove the enormous potential of the clavier.
That's why it's possible to call him "father of harmony", in a way.

Agreed.

And as to a suggestion to 'calm Setanta' ... how about Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' or, perhaps, 'Fur Elise'?

Too pedestrain...has to be Claire de lune...

emkay ... I might be pedestrian, but I always land on my feet. :wink: Do you ever take your nose out of the clouds long enough to see us mere mortals down here?

Someone didn't eat their Vitabix this morning...

I'm sorry. I thought we were comfortable enough with each other that I could josh around with you. It seems I was wrong. Forgive me.

I'm not too keen on eye-rolling either...but that's my problem.

I thought Slim Whitman was the Father of Western Music....

Ummmm...you mean Box-Car Willie?

Slim came first..and sold more records than Elvis or the Beatles....but not as many as the master of the pan flute Roger somebody or another.....

You're forgiven, but I don't understand the reference to being comfortable with each other. My turn to be sorry.

Oh, and I'm not too keen on eye-rolling either...but, when I don't eat my Vitabix, I have been known to resort to such lengths.

:wink:

I'm so sick of fur Elise, i could scream whenever i hear it . . . i prefer ol' Frankie Joe Haydn . . . sonata #53, now that's the ticket . . .

Haydn? Oh, good grief, Setanta, I hardly knew ye' ... :wink:

Inventor of the string quartet, father of the modern symphony . . . what more could one ask . . . listen to sonata #53 sometime . . . i always think of it as "sneaky" music . . .

Papa Haydn's dead and gone,
But his music lingers on.
When his heart was full of bliss,
He played jolly tunes like this.

And speaking of Roger--whatever happened to Roger Whittaker?

The Last Farewell






Roger Whittaker
» The Last Farewell

There's a ship lies rigged and ready in the harbour
Tomorrow for old England she sails
Far away from your land of endless sunshine
To my land full of rainy skies and gales
And I shall be on board that ship tomorrow
Though my heart is full of tears at this farewell
For you are beautiful and I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
For you are beautiful and I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell.
I heard there's a wicked war ablazing
And the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag araising
Their guns on fire as we sailed into hell
I have no fear of death it brings no sorrow
But how bitter will be this last farewell
For you are beautiful and I have loved you dearly .
Though death and darkness gather all about me
And my ship be torn apart upon the sea
I shall smell again the fragrance of these islands
In the heaving waves that brought me once to thee
And should I return safe home again to England
I shall watch the English mist roll through the dell
For you are beautiful and I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell.

As for Bach being the father of modern music in the West, it all depends on what one calls modern.

All's right with the world and I shall pull out #53 ...posthaste

play bach and then ask urself. if u don't find urself better and more technically flexible,,, but u have to master bachs music to tell the difference... no mere words only action,,, then perhaps u will find the new Avenue open for u.