Writings about Music

Upon Being Asked For A Tribute To Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Two roads manifested in your spiritual, corporeal, and intellectual imagination, and we are indebted to you, Johann Sebastian Bach, for leading us onto the well-tempered tuning pathway towards immeasurable musical riches, including the classical composers who followed you, jazz (including the songs that became jazz standards), rock, and myriad continuously evolving forms of pop, too. And the other road continued upon by India (and other great cultures) using forms of Just Intonation is at least equally splendid. And now composers may chose from a wealth of tunings known and unknown with music technology.

During a momentous year I lived in Maui prior to moving to Los Angeles, I began using the second Meruvina incarnation, and gave two concerts at a Hawaiian cultural center in Lahaina, three concerts at St. John's Episcopal Church in Keokea, three concerts at Seabury Hall in Makawao, one concert at Saint Anthony's Roman Catholic Church in Wailuku, and one concert at an art gallery in Makawao. At St. John's Episcopal Church, in addition to the three concerts featuring my own music, I gave a Sunday church performance, preparing an arrangement combining Bach's Two-Part Invention No. 14 together with Reverend Heather Mueller's choice of the hymn “How Great Thou Art,” taking advantage of their sharing the same key of B flat.

I also spent time that year in Maui with George Harrison.

- Michael Robinson, June 2021, Los Angeles

 

© 2021 Michael Robinson All rights reserved

 

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer and musicologist who has been a lecturer at UCLA, Bard College and California State University.