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The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude – Gigue from Partita No. 2, BWV 1004
June 26, 2026 in Music | Tags: Bach, Baroque Music, BWV 1004, Classical Guitar, Guitar Transcription, Jakob Lebisch | by The Arbourist | Leave a comment
Bach’s Gigue from Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 is fleet, poised, and quietly relentless — a dance movement full of forward motion, but shadowed by the darker gravity of the larger partita. On guitar, the piece loses some of the violin’s biting edge and gains warmth, intimacy, and a more lute-like clarity. The result is Bach as elegant architecture in motion: precise, dancing, inward, and beautifully restrained. 🎸
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The DWR Baroque Interlude – Bach – Erbarme dich, mein Gott from St Matthew Passion BWV 244
May 22, 2026 in Music | Tags: Bach, Baroque Music, Classical Music, Early Music, mein Gott from St Matthew Passion BWV 244, Netherlands Bach Society, St Matthew Passion, The DWR Baroque Interlude - Bach - Erbarme dich | by The Arbourist | Leave a comment
“Have mercy, my God,
for the sake of my tears!
See here, before you
heart and eyes weep bitterly.
Have mercy, my God.”
One of the most quietly devastating pieces ever written.
“Erbarme Dich” (“Have mercy”) comes from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, arriving just after Peter denies Christ three times and breaks down in shame. The aria does not rage or collapse into theatrical grief. Instead, it moves with exhausted sorrow, as though the music itself already knows the failure cannot be undone.
The famous violin line circles above the singer almost like memory or conscience: tender, grieving, and impossibly patient. Beneath it, the steady pulse keeps moving forward anyway. That tension is what gives the piece its emotional weight.
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The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude – Cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden BWV 4
March 20, 2026 in Music | Tags: Bach, The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude - Cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden BWV 4 | by The Arbourist | Leave a comment
Bach’s Christ lag in Todesbanden (BWV 4) is one of his earliest surviving church cantatas, likely written when he was still a very young man, and it already shows the seriousness and intensity that would define his sacred music. Based on Martin Luther’s Easter hymn of the same name, the work moves through the drama at the heart of the Christian story: death, struggle, and resurrection. What makes it so striking is the way Bach treats the music almost like a meditation rather than a display piece. Each verse unfolds with a grave, concentrated power, and yet the whole cantata gradually opens toward victory and release. It is Easter music, yes, but not shallowly triumphant. It remembers the weight of death before it proclaims its defeat.
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The DWR Sunday Easter Musical Interlude: Bach – Easter Oratorio: Kommt, eilet und laufet BWV 249 –
April 12, 2020 in Music | Tags: Bach, Easter, Musical Interlude | by The Arbourist | Comments closed
Well, we certainly don’t have to believe in the grand ooga-booga, but we can appreciate some of the by products of the holiday. Amazing music by Bach happens to be one of them.
Happy Easter Holiday my good friends, stay safe and be kind to another. :)
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The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude – Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod) – A Personal Note
July 27, 2018 in Music, personal | Tags: A Sorrowful Day, Ave Maria, Bach, Duet, Gounod, Memorial to a Partnership, Singing, The DWR Baroque Interlude | by The Arbourist | 2 comments
Hey Folks. This is a sad day for me. It is a day of mourning, a day of grief, a day of loss. Intransigentia as she is known here, my partner in life, crime, and marriage for the last 15 years and I are parting ways today. The house is sold, the belongings divvyed, the transition… moving… only forward now.
Way back when, in a different time, we were neophyte singers and we really enjoyed singing together. This was the first duet we ever sang together, it was extra special because she to arranged the counter-melody and scored the music for us to make it a duet. Her mother, a master pianist and accompanist played with us. The Bach Gounod arrangement of Ave Maria is staggeringly beautiful, and I shall always remember singing it with her as one of the most treasured shared moments of our existence together.
If nothing else, we are the memories we make with the people we love. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to share this musical experience with her, it means so much more now that things have changed so much.
So, I’m sharing this with all of you now, as a quasi memorial to what once was and the beauty and happiness that was once found there.
Life is change, whether we like it or not. Our life transition has been in the works since the beginning of the year, and I’ve been slowly digesting and processing the new context of what life is going to look like. Ultimately we’re both going to be okay and stuff so don’t worry about us.
Thank you for listening. We’ll see you tomorrow.
The Arbourist
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The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude – Passacaglia BWV 582
June 15, 2018 in Canada, Music | Tags: Bach, Passacaglia BWV 582, The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude | by The Arbourist | Comments closed
Around 250 organ works by Bach have been handed down, the most intriguing of which are works thought to have originated early on, but of which there is no surviving autograph. The speculations of Bach researchers all boil down to a single question: how early on can we determine signs of genius in his work?
In the Passacaglia in C minor, in any case, his genius is as clear as day. As a variation work, it surpasses anything Bach could have heard in his younger years. The ostinato, the repetitive bass line that forms the foundation of a passacaglia, is made up of eight bars, rather than the usual four. The work consists of twenty variations, rather than the usual five or six. And on top of its initial function, the bass line is then split up and treated as two separate themes that, accompanied by a third theme, form the material for an ingenious fugue.
The earliest copy of the Passacaglia was made between 1706 and 1713 by Bach’s elder brother Johann Christoph. In 1705, Bach paid an extended visit to Buxtehude, the man who undoubtedly had the greatest influence on his variation work, so it would be logical to conclude that Bach composed the Passacaglia shortly after returning from his journey.
Canadian Luc Beausejour’s rendition of BWV 582
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The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude – Two Part Invention No 14 Bach BWV 785
March 2, 2018 in Music | Tags: Bach, The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude, Two Part Invention No 14 Bach BWV 785 | by The Arbourist | Comments closed
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