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What do Weird Al and Johann Sebastian have in common? This week, parody is the best way to look Bach to the future!
Howdy, howdy, howdy! I’m Solomon Reynolds, and this is: Saturday Morning Car Tunes! This morning… Is this “White & Nerdy” by Weird Al Yankovic, the parody of “Ridin',” the rap song by Chamillionaire?
What does Bach have to do with parodies? Well… everything. In the Renaissance, reworking existing music into something new was pretty common. A century later, Bach parodied works by the old masters and his peers. Vivaldi, in particular, had a lasting influence. Vivaldi’s concertos taught Bach to think musically and inspired him to write his own Concerto for 2 Violins.
Bach didn’t just parody other people’s music. He also recycled his own. This Sinfonia:
…actually comes from his Violin Partita No. 3.
The cycle of parody goes on and on. Bach’s music has been borrowed, arranged, reworked, and retold countless times. This is Rachmaninoff’s piano arrangement of another movement from that very partita.
Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 inspired August Wilhelmj. He arranged the melody of the second movement for the lowest string on the violin. Doesn’t it sound dreamy and delicious?
One of the coolest arrangements of Bach’s music comes from Wendy Carlos, a pioneer in electronic music. She synthesized the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and won three Grammys for it.
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Parody is the best way to look Bach to the future.
I’m Solomon Reynolds. I write and produce Saturday Morning Car Tunes, with research assistant Carolina Correa and audio engineer Stephen Page, only on Classical California. Tune in—or out of your car—next Saturday morning!
