The Blasphemy Of Talking Song By Susan Mcclary

The main objective of Susan McClary’s article, “The Blasphemy of Talking Politics During Bach Year, is to have her readers reconsider why they think of Bach as a legendary icon in music history. McClary believes that many Bach devotees are naive in their thinking to believe that Bach is a great composer due to the fact that the beauty of his music was “beyond his time and place.” McClary’s article not only proposed an unorthodox statement, but makes very concrete examples out of his Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and Cantata 140 to support it. She accomplished what she wanted by having me, the reader, change the reasons why I believed his music was great. Because of this, I certainly believe this article is worth a read by other self proclaimed

When this principle is brainlessly applied when it comes to Bach and according to McClary this is not a compliment to him. She states that “because non-professional listeners usually do not know how to account intellectually for how music does what it does, they respond either by mystifying it… or by domesticating it.” People of Bach’s time also believed his music was beyond their time simply because it was an easier way to think. In their defense, taking this position was attractive for a couple reasons. One reason is that music enters through the most vulnerable sense organ which is ears. The ears unlike the mouth or nose cannot be closed off completely to stimuli. Therefore one will always experience whatever the music they listen to dictates. The second reason people believed in the autonomy principle when applied to Bach is that music as a whole seems to be non-representational. This is not the case but, music does appear to be created with only the composers unique principles in mind. McClary points out that other people related the autonomy principle to Bach by boldly saying that “it is only when one is dissatisfied with a piece of music and its implicit social agenda… that the music’s ideological constructedness will become an issue: a political issue.” This reaction is opposed to when a person is comfortable and identifies with a piece of music thus making them happy to associate it with

She has created numerous examples that prove it to be true such as in his Brandenburg Concerto No.5. In this piece Bach incorporates the current state/view of social harmony by playing with and against it. The harpsichord, which traditionally is an accompanying instrument, plays a big role in getting his point of view about the topic across. It comes in disruptively and stays for quite a while and then leaves in a submissive way. This symbolized the simultaneous desire for and resistance of conforming to social harmony. Bach was a harpsichordist as well so he was very familiar with rewards and frustrations thus making this the perfect instrument to center a piece like this one around. For all of the critics who believed the way he structured this had nothing to do with the view of social harmony, they are wrong. Bach does conform to social practices but in a different way. The Bach Cantata 140 “Wachet Auf” is another example of how he actually was politically influenced while creating music. In this piece alone, Bach manages to reflect upon three separate/different aspects of his world. The first was national identity. At this point in history the French, Italian, and German styles of writing music were very different and it was very unusual for components of each to be written in one piece. Wachet Auf proved this wrong and showed each style could coexist in only the first movement.