AN AWARENESS OF THE WONDERS OF LIFE
ALM No.90, June 2026
ESSAYS
I read that Pablo Casals played a Bach composition, a Prelude or a Fugue, every day. Although he is widely known as one of the greatest cellists of all time, he frequently played his daily Bach on a piano. Or so I read.
He called it a benediction on the house.
He said that doing so kept him in balance.
He said it was a rediscovery of the world.
He said it filled him with an awareness of the wonders of life.
This is the guy, you may remember, who at the age of thirteen, discovered the long-lost sheet music to Bach’s Suites for Solo Violoncello, hidden away in a box in a second-hand store in Barcelona. He practiced them every day in private for twelve years before finally performing them before an audience.
Similarly, I read that the composer Samuel Barber also played a Bach piece every day. You may be familiar with Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” (perhaps from the movies, Platoon or The Elephant Man.) The Adagio has been called the saddest piece of music ever composed. And perhaps it is. I also read that Robert Schumann played Bach every day. Well, I figured, if it’s good enough for Pablo and good enough for Samuel and Robert, it’s good enough for me. So, I set about deciding on which Bach piece I would play every day.
I play classical guitar.
Johann Sebastian Bach. I knew the name but I didn’t really know much about either the man or his music. My discovery of Bach came through listening to Christopher Parkening. Parkening is an American classical guitarist. The classical guitar is a refined instrument with a tone that is full and rich, earthy and round. It produces a sound that has been described as mellow yet bell-like, warm yet crisp, woody yet shimmery. Andres Segovia, who is referred to as the father of modern classical guitar, likened the classical guitar to a small orchestra. He said that each string has a different color. Julian Bream, another famous classical guitarist, said that it would take a lifetime and a half to master it.
I knew I could never master the guitar but I thought it would be nice to rediscover the world through it. My first thought was to learn Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”, from the “Cantata, BWV 147.” This piece is widely known. I’m sure you’ve heard it. I was familiar with it from the record, Parkening Plays Bach. It is a beautiful piece. One of those quintessential Bach pieces. Musically, it is very lyrical. It is frequently performed with full orchestra. I was pretty much ready to make the decision but I thought, why not consider a few more. I have always been fond of the “Prelude to the Solo Cello Suites, #1 in G Major, BWV 1007.” It is one of the pieces found by Casals in that dusty box in Barcelona. You would probably recognize this one, too. Cellist, Yo-Yo Ma does an exquisite version. I also considered learning a piece known as “Sheep May Safely Graze”, from “Cantata BWV 208”. This one, too, is on Parkening’s record and I liked it and thought it might bless the house nicely if played on a daily basis. There are also several Lute Suites that I contemplated learning.
Parkening’s record, however, does not just have Bach compositions on it and listening to it led me to consider several other pieces. Notably, the “Passacaglia” by another Baroque era composer, Sylvius Leopold Weiss. A Passacaglia is a slow dance piece with variations built around a bass theme. Elson’s Music Dictionary calls the “Passacaglia”, bombastic in character. I didn’t care about it being bombastic, but I did, and still do, particularly like how the piece progresses through the variations. I also thought about playing “Les Barricades Mysterieuses” by Francois Couperin. This piece was originally written for the harpsichord and is quite haunting. It has been described as shimmering and kaleidoscopic. It is frequently played on the piano and it translates quite well to the sonority of the classical guitar. A music educator friend of mine once called this piece, “guitaristic.” That description alone pretty much did it for me, and I did end up learning it.
I decided, in the end, that I would play the “Prelude #1 in C Major from the Well-Tempered Clavier.”
You may know the one I mean. Bobby McFerrin, vocalist extraordinaire, sings it a-cappella and asks his audience to sing Gounod’s “Ave Maria”, a well-known piece in itself, along with him. Charles Gounod was a French Romantic composer. His “Ave Maria” is often played over the top of Bach’s Prelude. Together, they are lovely. I once went to see McFerrin in concert in Seattle.,
He started softly, his voice hitting the notes in a rising cadence, like climbing stairs. It moves up the arpeggio of a basic C Triad chord. Starting on the “Boo”, the C below Middle C. Look down the page a little for where to start.
Di”
Doo
Doo
Di
Doo
Doo
Doo
Start Here -> “Boo
Can you hear it? Try it again.
Di”
Doo
Doo
Di
Doo
Doo
Doo
Start Here -> “Boo
Ah, there it is.
All of a sudden, right on cue, as McFerrin was ascending the vocal stairway, two women in an upper balcony section of the auditorium, began intoning the Gounod part, in high soprano voices.
“Aaaaaaa-veeeee Mariiiiiii-iiiaaaa.”
I know it was part of the show. Planned. Practiced. Rehearsed. But it seemed extemporaneous. It seemed like the two women, who harmonized perfectly, not only with each other, but with McFerrin, were suddenly overcome with enough emotion to spontaneously lift their voices together. It resonated through the hall like the singing of angels. Wow. It has become a staple of many McFerrin concerts with the audience singing the Gounod part along with him.
Anyway, that is what I decided to play every day. The Bach part.
I had been listening to the Prelude on the Parkening record for many years and it always struck me as a wonderful, flowing piece of music. He also does a version that has the Gounod part sung by the great soprano, Kathleen Battle, which is very nice, but, as a guitarist I am partial to the solo guitar version. Bach originally composed the music for solo harpsichord or clavichord. Clavier, from the title, means keyboard. Well-Tempered means that it was composed using the 12-note system. Bach said that the piece was written, “for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning.” A Prelude is usually a short, introductory piece that opens for a larger, more complex series of movements. It is frequently free-form in nature. The Prelude was often used as a way for the musician to tune up and warm up and allow him move smoothly into the longer sections. This particular Prelude is beautiful and I figured if I was going to fill myself, on a daily basis, with an awareness of the wonders of life through music, playing this piece was a good way to do so.
So, I went in search of the sheet music. I went to several music stores in the Seattle area. Most of these stores sold sheet music for high school marching bands or teenagers wanting the chord diagrams to the latest stuff on the radio. None of them had the piece I was searching for. I rummaged through the yellow pages and finally found a store called The Rosewood Guitar, that specialized in classical guitars. Walking into the Rosewood Guitar is an event for the senses. Especially if you like guitars. There are rows and rows of guitars hanging from hooks on velvet lined walls. You can hear quiet guitar music, sometimes Bach, hovering in the air. You can smell the wood of the instruments and the paper-smell of the sheet music on the shelves. The sunlight, through the windows, shines and glimmers on the guitar finishes. I asked Matthew, the guy working there, if they had what I was looking for. He quickly found the sheet music for me and then he grabbed a guitar off the wall. He sat down in a chair by the front window and placed his foot on a wooden foot stool. He took a moment to tune the guitar and then began playing the piece. He demonstrated for me how to get through the fingerings of one particular, difficult section. Matthew, by the way, is the person who told me that “Les Barricades Mysterieuses” was “guitaristic.” Matthew showed me that the “Prelude” from the Well-Tempered Clavier is also quite guitaristic. (Isn’t that a great term? Guitaristic.) Even though it was composed for keyboard and many outstanding pianists from Glenn Gould to Simone Dinnerstein to Keith Jarrett have recorded it, I consider it to be more musically legato when played on classical guitar, silky smooth and flowing like liquid amber. If you listen to Glenn
Gould’s piano version, then listen to Parkening’s guitar version, you’ll see, or hear, what I mean.
It was also used in the movie, Tar, in the scene where Cate Blanchett, as the title character, plays it on a piano while describing the music to a young student as a series of musical questions and answers. Listen to it again with an ear for the questions and the answers. You’ll hear them.
It is not an extremely difficult piece to play on the guitar but it is not necessarily undemanding. I struggled with a specific section and Matthew helped me figure out a different fingering. I was to later learn how to play several more Bach pieces; “Joy of Man’s Desiring”, the “Prelude from the Solo Cello Suites”, “Sheep May Safely Graze” and even the “Chaconne”, the final movement from the “Solo Violin Partita in D Minor” (now, that one is difficult), among others. But the Prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier became my piece. I learned it. I memorized it. I picked up my guitar and played it every day. If, for some reason, I was unable to play it on my guitar, I would listen to the Parkening version on my Walkman or at least, intone it in my head. Sometimes, if I can’t fall asleep, I play it in my head. I envision my fingers on the strings and hear the voicings and I work through the passages and soon enough, sleep comes on.
I have heard people say that Bach’s music is confusing and difficult to listen to. People have said that there is too much going on, too many scales ascending and descending and running together. People have said that his music is too intellectual, too academic, too complex. Some say that Bach is too pretentious and high-brow. Too bombastic. Why listen to Bach’s music, I have heard people ask, when there are so many other composers who wrote simpler, more musical music?
Bach’s music can be complicated at times, yes, but it is most definitely musical. It is said that Bach achieved the supreme pinnacle of Baroque music. To me, his music is comforting and calming. I listen to Parkening’s recording as a way of relaxing after a hectic day. I listen to it in the morning as a way of welcoming and sliding calmly into the day. I listen to it whether I need to or not. Bach’s music is genuine and passionate. I read that Bach’s music is mixture of the meta-physical and the emotional. Albert Schweitzer, famous theologian, philosopher, humanitarian, musician and Bach scholar said that nothing comes from Bach, rather, everything leads to him. William Kanengizer, classical guitarist with The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, once said in a master class, “Bach must be approached with fear and respect.” I read somewhere that listening to Bach can fill you with respect, forgiveness and grace. Hey, nothing wrong with a little respect, forgiveness and grace. Why else would Pablo Casals play a Bach piece every day as a rediscovery of the world? Why else would Samuel Barber play Bach every day?
I signed up for lessons with Matthew. I figured he could help me delve further into the world of Bach and classical guitar. I asked him to help me learn “Prelude #1” from the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, among many others. I decided that I would play it on a daily basis as a way to help me rediscover the world and fill myself with an awareness of the wonders of life.
Jeff Beyl writes about nature, music, fly-fishing, the ocean, travel. He has been published in several national magazines such as Snowy Egret Nature Journal, Moonlit Getaway Literary Journal, Big Sky Journal, Literary Hatchet and biostories Magazine among others. His book, A Conversation With the Earth, was published in 2020. He is a fly-fisherman, scuba-diver, photographer and guitar player. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
