If not for 1968’s Switched-On Bach, I’m not sure I’d ever have paid much attention to classical music. I don’t know why I bought the album, unless in fascination with the sheer weirdness of the concept. As far as I knew then, no one within shouting distance of my life listened to classical music. I didn’t read record reviews. I played no instruments. I knew even less about electronics than I did about music.
The album cover certainly caught the eye. That’s it at the right (click to enlarge), with slightly altered text, as originally approved by Walter (now Wendy) Carlos, the album’s creator. Bach stands before an unmistakably non-contemporaneous keyboard, which itself stands before an array of electronic boxes bedecked with switches, lights, meters, and input/output jacks. In his right hand he holds a pair of stereo headphones; on his face, a look of surpassing confidence which seems to say, Surprised? Don’t be. This makes so much sense, and I’m quite proud of it.
For this Midweek Music Break, I’ve selected not one or two, but three numbers from the album:
- “Sinfonia to Cantata BWV 29”: The very first track on the album announces, from its first dizzying avalanche of notes through the nearly symphonic conclusion a few minutes later, If you think electronic music sounds like atonal, unmelodic, disharmonious beeps and squawks, think again.
- “Air on a G String from Orchestral Suite No. 3, BWV 1068”: If the “Sinfonia” swept listeners up in the sheer exuberant joy of the Moog synthesizer’s (remixed, and re-remixed) multi-tracked sound, this piece (track #2) calmed them down, reassured them, with what sounds like a lullaby of light woodwinds.
- “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”: If you had to choose Bach’s “greatest hit” for modern listeners, this might be it. At latter-day weddings it’s often played at a stately, formal, almost dirge-like pace. Carlos’s interpretation is more sprightly — not coincidentally, as Bach himself apparently preferred.
For those of you who might want to listen to the three selections back-to-back, I’ve set up the audio-player thingum that way first. If you just want to hear an individual piece, I’ve added separate, er, thingums below the playlist version.
[Below, click Play button to begin selections from Switched-On Bach. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. These pieces, taken together, are about nine minutes long.]
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[Below, click Play button to begin Sinfonia to Cantata BWV 29. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 3:27 long.]
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[Below, click Play button to begin Air on a G String from Orchestral Suite No. 3, BWV 1068. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:33 long.]
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[Below, click Play button to begin Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:58 long.]
Not only a musician and musical technician, Carlos also demonstrates great skill as a photographer of solar eclipses (she’s a self-confessed “coronaphile”) — and holds a deep and abiding interest in maps, especially as projected to or from a sphere. Her Web site is a favorite of mine just to wander around in, on all these (and other) topics.
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Note: About the album cover… You may have noticed the weasel-wording, “as originally approved by its creator.” The cover shown above was not the very first one, though. 
In that one, as you can see over there at the left, Bach was seated, not standing. Click on that image for a blow-up, and you’ll see why Carlos didn’t like it. Yeah. Bach’s got his lips pursed and eyes a-goggle — apparently bemused in the extreme, if not outright horrified. Remember “Look What They’ve Done to My Song”? (If not, see here; scroll to the video at the bottom.) Yeah. That.
Furthermore, the headphones he’s wearing? They’re plugged into the synthesizer… specifically, to an input jack. Carlos, an electronics wizard as well as a musician, must’ve about keeled over.
Jayne says
But wait– what about Saturday morning cartoons ? You weren’t watching Bugs Bunny or any of the Looney Tunes productions when you were a boy? They were rife with classical music!
Bach, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert. And opera, too! In those formative years, I think many of us got in education in classical works without realizing we’d been exposed! I wonder how that music could not have had some influence on us.
I vaguely remember friends of mine playing this album. One middle school aged kid, in particular, who was really into classical and electronic/synthesized music (which was a little weird back then).
I’ve never cared to listen to over-produced, over-synthesized music (I’m thinking Mannheim Steamroller), but, hearing this once again, Switched-Onis interesting. Especially its history. And those photos! Very funny. I like Jesu best. The electronics sort of add to its, well, to its happiness factor. :)
John says
Jayne: Looney Tunes, oboy. Don’t get me started. Loved ’em (along with their sister Merrie Melodies series). The absolute cream of the crop being What’s Opera, Doc?. :)
BUT I’m afraid — smart though they were about music and a jillion other topics — the cartoons never made a dent in my ignorance of classical music. It was just background music to me. I got that the aforementioned What’s Opera, Doc?, for instance, was poking fun at opera (whatever that was). But it was almost like I had no idea the classical-music genre even existed.
A while back (at the start of this post) I mentioned a collection of educational LPs our parents got for us, covering music of different types. All I remember about the classical album is the conductor’s baton which came with it, and St.-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals. (Now that I’m thinking of it, Peter and the Wolf might’ve been on it too — or maybe I’m just remembering the soundtrack to that TV version with the puppets.)
cynth says
Those Merrie Melodies, well, their songs stuck in my mind for a long, long time. I nearly went crazy looking for a track that went to a cartoon called, “Little Lion Hunter” or some such title. The music crept along hauntingly, the little guy tracking a lion and a large bird following him walking the same way he was. I finally found out the music was called, Fingel’s Cave Overture. I looked and looked for a version I could just hear once more. I even bought a classical CD with that on it, but it never measured up to the cartoon version. And just re-reading that shows my appreciation of classical is probably not what it could be if I had really tried. Oh, well.
John says
cynth: I think I remember reading that the Merrie Melodies series was meant to supplement the WB studio’s actual feature-film releases. So, for instance, WB (and other) stars would be caricatured in some Merrie Melodies cartoons, and “real” scores would be used instead of ad-hoc ones composed just for the storyline.
All of which said, if you remember a cartoon but can’t find its music anywhere, a good source is always YouTube. :)