First music, then politics.

As mentioned in last Thursday's Open Thread, the history of music began in 1956 with Little Richard, although perhaps earlier. Some think Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Scott Joplin, Stephen Foster and some others are historical figures and we have reports that they all made music. Foster is an especially amusing figure since I believe he made a total of $41 in songwriting royalties, including $8 for Oh Susanna.

But I wanted to write about way, way before then, to a special class, the class of 1685. That year three of the best composers were born. Or maybe I should say the best music-writers because all music is, no matter how it's couched and expanded, is a bunch of notes. So these three guys did some great note-bunching.

First up, Johnny Bach, born March 31st. This "cat" (musician talk for hip fellow) liked his coffee and had lots of kids, going through two wives to get those twenty young'uns. Since it was the 18th century not all of those kids lived but still...that's a passel!

He went from sponsor to sponsor, cranking out hits. In those days he was famous for his organ playing....hey! Seriously, he was considered a virtuoso on that instrument. "Yeah, he also wrote stuff" was what a lot of people thought. It wasn't until well after he was dead that everyone figured out that stuff was fantastic.

Here's one of my favorite pieces of his, the 3rd Brandenburg Concerto

The harpsichord bit in the middle is made up by the player. There was a rough outline where a musician could improvise a bit. Then it gets back to what Bach wrote.

This thing is pretty swinging. I love how it changes to the minor key at about 2 1/2 minutes. He was so clever! And he has so many moving parts that work. More than anyone, I think, he has the bass parts doing something interesting.

Now let's move to George Handel (March 5th!). He was also a German by birth, like Bach, but moved to England in his later 20s. He got rich, too, writing material for the royals, as well as anyone who'd pay. One thing I find entertaining is that he plagiarized like mad. If you know a lot of baroque music and listen to a lot of Handel you might think "hmm..isn't that Gasparini?" Still, people liked him and he wrote some terrific stuff of his own.

He wrote this choral work that's so linked to him that it's now called "Handel's Messiah". He also wrote this ditty, "Water Music".

Handel was better regarded in his time than Bach was, at least as a composer. There's a story that Bach tried to meet Handel a couple of times but that never came off. The first time Handel had just left town (a likely story!) and the second that he couldn't be bothered to travel.

Ok, moving on now, Domenico Scarlatti (October 26th)! He's my fave. I know a little more about him than the others. He had a famous dad, Alessandro, who was a very well-known composer. Alessandro was one of those overbearing fathers who wanted his son to be a certain type of musician/composer. For the biggest part of his life Domenico wrote in a style that wasn't really what he wanted to do. Finally his dad died and, at the age of 53, Dom began writing his best material. By this time he'd left Italy and gone to work in Spain. You can tell by the tunes, he incorporated that Spanish guitar influence. As you can imagine, having been under his father's thumb for so long he was more of a "write in his room, play for the princess, go back to his room" kind of guy and not ostentatious. While he was in that particular court a famous castrato, Farinelli, showed up and became the favorite of the Infanta (that's what they call the princess there) and Scarlatti was more of a background character.

He hardly published anything in his lifetime but he wrote a ton. Where Bach and Handel were top-flight organists, Scarlatti was the best at harpsichord. In fact he and Handel had a contest, declared a draw, each one "winning" at his specialty. That must have been weird.

This piece is my favorite of his, probably because Wendy Carlos did it so perfectly on that "Well-Tempered Synthesizer" LP. Too bad it's nowhere to be found on youtube!

That's three of the greats, all born in 1685. Interestingly (to me, anyway) two of them, Handel and Scarlatti, were alive when Mozart was born, 71 years later....which is another story.

Ok, politics time. I'm under the impression that some people here care about that con, that scam, that illusion. It seems that some want to believe so much that they make up crazy stories. Bernie cuts himself shaving and it's "Hillary's people beat him up!" Bernie campaigns for Hillary and it's "They threatened Jane!" Bernie completely $^%&s up "Our Revolution", declines to campaign for Canova and it's the Return of 11th Dimensional Chess.

Every one of us has an opinion of what's needed. Mine is this: There are three ways to achieve what we want. One is to buy off those in power. The second is to make it financially not worth the time of those in power (so they'll move on to something else). The third is to ...ahem...uh...use the French solution. I'll be right behind you!