Friday Firesmith – Missing Barbara Bach

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I’m not a musician, can’t read music, but play the radio proficiently. I pretty much can’t speak intelligently about the subject of music except I know what I like, and I feel it.

Years ago, I bought classical music CDs because they were cheap, and I was destitute. I also discovered I wrote better when writing under the influence of classical music.

I bought a boxed set of three CDs that had a wide variety of classical music on them for three bucks. This is how I met Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004, by Johann Sebastian Bach. Now, the listing on the CD was “Partita No.2” and I had no idea it was a solo violin piece, and one of the most difficult, and well written pieces, ever created by humankind.

I could, of course, tell it was beautiful, and as I would listen to it on my cheap CD player,I felt this piece of music deep inside my soul. Forgive me my inabilities in music, but I thought it was a duet. I could identify a violin, easily, but that was as far as my talents went.

One day, many years after falling in love with this piece of music, I heard it on NPR and they played the entire piece, all eighteen minutes or so, and then the announcer spoke as to how some thought Bach had written part of it, especially the last part, in memory of his wife, Barbara, who had died while he was composing the piece.

Monday, I took my truck to the shop for a minor adjustment they had failed to make while repairing it and was listening to this song and pulled over. The connection was finally made in my heart and mind. I originally thought this song was a duet, and perchance, I heard it this way because the composer had written it while missing his wife, the person who was the other half of his duet in life. It would be something masterfully done, expertly, exquisitely, and painfully beautiful.

Three hundred years later, I can still feel a man’s heart breaking, as he grieved for his wife through music.

Is there a song, or a piece of music out there that hits you hard?

Take Care,

Mike

18 thoughts on “Friday Firesmith – Missing Barbara Bach”

  1. I love Bach, his music is so perfect. What moves me is act III of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. The story is heart-breaking and when she takes her life, all her misery is there for everyone to hear.

  2. I gotta admit, when I got this in the email I went down a rabbit hole with “the spy who loved me” thinking it was THAT Barbara Bach you were referring to. Three hours later, I’m scheduling this to post.

  4. This is incredibly beautiful–thanks for posting that particular video of it. And I enjoyed watching my cat’s ears twitch and flap listening to it. Every violinist plays so differently. My best knock-me-down classic is Beethoven’s Il Figlio Perduto from his Symphony #7 – perfect for a dark, rainy, cold spring day.

    • Mini, I was hoping someone would guide me to this sort of music. The 7th is an underrated piece of music. The 5th is the most famous, people can usually recognize the 9th, but the 7th flies under the radar.

  5. I’ve always had appreciation for classical music, but it’s never been my go-to choice. But I have learned to greatly appreciate it more through the works and interpretations of others, most notably the symphonic metal band Nightwish. Much of their catalog would more aptly be called compositions, than songs. Look up the song ‘Ghost Love Score’; that’s how I came to appreciate this genre most.

    But, you moved me to break my own rule, Mike, but I won’t delete now. Music is just so personal, if anyone finds what moves them greatly I’m happy to appreciate their joy in it.

    • Scoakat, Classical tends to have longer pieces of music as opposed to the three minute and thirty second songs on the pop scene. This trains your brain to think in segments limited to that length.

      Classical goes longer, and your brain goes deeper. The complexity and skill it takes to produce a full symphony of music isn’t lost on your mind. Processing a song by some half naked woman who can’t perform without autotune and a computer cannot be compared to what you’re getting with classical music.

  6. J. S Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in d Minor does it for me. Apparently, the hardest organ piece to play. I found a CD of a guy who performed it in an old church in Hamburg, Germany (well, I bought at that church); and while it is not quite like being in the church while it is being played, it is still great–all 10 minutes or so of it. It is played today–usually in spooky or horror shows/movies/situations.

    Smetana did one called The Maldau about that river in Europe. It was written during the romantic period (basically, 1820 to about 1920), so very emotive. It follows the river from its headwaters to its ending, so one hears water, a fox hunt, and many other sounds one would hear floating down that river.

    Many Harry Chapin songs can hit one hard–but not usually the ones that get airtime. his way with lyrics can be amazing, like in “Sniper” (about the kook shooting from the bell tower in Texas) where he sings that the guy had questions he want to ask; verse 7:
    The first words he spoke took the town by surprise
    One got Mrs. Gibbons above her right eye
    It blew her through the window, wedged her against the door
    Reality poured from her face, staining the floor

    Or in “Sequel” (a song that takes place about 10 years after “Taxi”) where he rings a doorbell and “the buzzer said someone was home.”

    Chapin had a way with words.

  7. Tim, I knew someone who heard Rick Wakeman play Toccata and Fugue in d Minor at a concert and he said it was life altering. As far as Chaplin goes, I never listened to him at all, except “Me and my Arrow” the animated short that spawned the song. I was traumatized by my father who made me listen to “Cats in the Cradle” over and over.

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