Johann Sebastian Bach,
the corridor of cadenced choral he did proudly walk.
Baroque musician, virtuoso organist, he created conglomerate of style;
the harmony of intertwined melodies made him a composer versatile.
German composer Johann Sebastian Bach -
Emotive depth and his “blue notes” were his music’s bedrock.
Having fathered twenty children and always on his toes,
how did he ever find time to compose?
In the first Orchestra rehearsal of the semester,
I see the composer's name on the sheets of music handed to me
And I know this is going to be immensely fun
Playing something by a brilliant composer
Who lived hundreds of years ago, yet still thrills
Musicians and listeners so many years later
Is beyond amazing, it is inspiring!
My words in print seem so lame in comparison,
Yet I can't stop the words from flowing,
And I suspect that the music emerged from Bach,
Just as inevitable, and I feel a kindred closeness
To a musical genius from the distant past
Johann Sebastian Bach
composed concertos that rock
Ludwig von Beethoven
gave us music for roamin' and rovin'
Austrian composer Johann Strauss
the popularity of waltzes widened
An Amadeus Mozart violin solo
sparkles with a glass of bordeaux
When on these composers folks take a pass
~ they miss out on a classical gas
Johann Sebastian Bach,
the sounds that clear my mind
a river of memories
... flowing
With every
breath,
filling "Air"
into my soul
Johann Sebastian Bach
Found that bread gave him creative spark
He would eat a whole ciabatta
Then knock off a fugue and toccata
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Mist covers the landscape, whitewashed in moonlight
It seems I've been taken on a heavenly flight
The music surrounds me, envelops my soul
I'm lost in a dream-world where I can let go
I cannot distinguish, what's real or what's myth
There are no lyrics, to leave me bereft
Just sweet gentle heartstrings to sweep me aloft
The sound is so gentle, it takes all my breath
With fragile vignettes, and moments to rest
There are bittersweet edges on the tip of each note
Taking me forward, and backwards in time
Rapture I know like the back of my hand
Touches new places where I've longed to go
It calls me to sleepwalk through dreams in a fog
I'm free-falling backwards, releasing my breath,
as something releases white doves from above.
The pent-up emotions that cling to my breast
exhale with the notion that music is love
*________________________________________________________*
Poem Based on the music by Johann Sebastian Bach "Air on a G String"
2/5/16
So it’s onward I go through the wind and the rain.
Where I stop who will know in my traveling refrain?
Wide the world to be seen; high the mountains to climb,
In the green of my roving time.
Cloudy skies, glowing sun, moon and stars overhead,
Waterfall, river run, grassy mattress for my bed—
From the summer to spring, autumn leaves turning gold,
I shall sing till my story’s told.
Winter chill in the air, hard a landlord to bear,
For the cost of the frost— it can bite.
Still the splendors abound— angel fields, virgin ground,
When the snow paints the pastures white.
Solitude for a friend till the long journey’s end,
When my heart isn’t ever so lonely.
Can there be someone there, with a life I can share,
Who will find me the one and only?
~ Harley White
[Song lyrics to music of “Bouree” in E Minor, by Johann Sebastian Bach]
I crave the timeless peace and joy
This music often brings
To souls with whom the world would toy
And run around in rings.
Careless of mood, the master speaks
With string and pipe and voice;
No other strain my spirit seeks,
My Desert Island choice.
His counterpoint and melody
Shine through when days are dark;
None brings such solace yet, but he :
Johann Sebastian Bach.
NOT do I remember
the lyrical poems and Renoir paintings
that sang of the beauty of March.
Cold wet and muddy
to the cadence of a funeral dirge
I march along the road to April.
Passing a slimy pond
Pisces the fish greets me with a flick of his tail,
the murky water dripping from my soggy coat.
The sound of crashing horns!
My head jerks around to see
Aries the ram butting heads with a rival.
Is March the bleakest month of the year?
But how can this be when March is the month
when Johann Sebastian Bach was born
and the whole world is green on Saint Patty’s Day.
Now, NOW I feel
a gentle breeze with floating fragrance of lilac shrub,
for just around the corner is SPRING.
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