Today is the 339th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach, the composer who just gets more appreciated every year. Yes, ok, his actual birthday, after the Gregorian calendar reform, is actually March 31st, but I'm afraid if I wait I will forget to post anything. So let's lift a glass today. Apparently Bach liked to compose while drinking beer and brandy, according to a tavern bill, but raise the glass of your choice. Bach wrote a couple of secular cantatas alongside the religious ones. Here is a particularly jolly one, the "Coffee Cantata":
And while we are on joyous music, here is one of the most exuberant that Bach ever wrote, the Magnificat BWV 243:
One of my favorite pieces by Bach, the Canon per Augmentationem in Contrario Motu in which the answer to the theme is upside down, in double note values and down a fifth. Then, when all that is worked out, the voices simply switch, meaning that the whole thing was also in invertible counterpoint. I'm not sure we have a sufficiently robust expostulation for that! Shpadoinkle!
And finally, something really sublime, the Brandenburg Concerto no. 2, beloved by every listener and every trumpet player's nightmare:
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