bach was probably lousy at timetrialling

All week this week I've been obsessed with a certain piece of music.

I've been kind of musically focussed for a couple of weeks now, I think that side of my brain needed something new to chew on.

I should preface this, before I start sounding like a music snob, by admitting that I have extremely eclectic musical tastes. I like my techno, I like my progressive house, I love my Jamiroquai. I've been hooked on Crystal Method for months. Basement Jaxx has not made it out of my I-pod shuffle queue for months.

I've recently become re-acquainted with Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life.

Don't get me started on my love affair with the Chemical Brothers.

I have an excellent collection of Argentine Tango with a techno twist that I can recommend by the way. It's lousy for running, excellent for working.

There's sort of an ebb and flow to my music thing. Months will go by with no change, and then I binge. To support my habit, 2 or 3 discs will be purchased at once. Or singles will be downloaded on i-Tunes. Sometimes I'll just get a song in my head and purchase it because I HAVE to. Like that Justin Timberlake moment...

Mostly, I don't get tired of my music. It gets re-circulated when it gets not-so-fresh.

I went in an old direction a couple weeks ago when a double boxed set of Ella Fitzgerald landed on my desk. The first disc, called "Love, Ella" is all Ella originals - some of the stuff she did best: A Tisket a Tasket, Lady be Good, etc.. The second, called "We all Love Ella" is re-recordings of the same tunes done by other artists - Natalie Cole, Queen Latifah, KD Lang, etc. (I will not bore you with the details because I now think this is an essential recording which everyone should own, so go buy your own already!). I never knew how much I loved Ella Fitzgerald until I had these, and I'll be darned if "Lullaby of Birdland" didn't get totally stuck in my head for an entire week.

And then, somewhere in my week I happened to listen to Performance Today on my way into work and caught the very best recording of the Brandenberg Concerto #3 in G Major, Ever.

How do I know it's the best ever? I don't. I just know that for those minutes, I hung on every note for the entire piece and wanted a lot more immediately.

Waaaay back about a million skillion years ago, I used to play piano. And I remember the tiny bit of Bach that I learned (and it wasn't even J.S., it was C.P.E - the allegedly easy Son Of Bach). It was one of those "simple" pieces written to torture piano students with lots of arpeggios. The complexity of the piece was dazzling, the execution was tricky. It took me weeks to master the inter-connectedness of the upper and lower hands. Bach had this tricky habit of repeating the same melody at the same rhythm, in both hands, interconnected but not identical (counterpoint). Plus the pace is relentlessly metronomic.

I was 11, OK? It was hard!

Listening to this recording of the 3rd Concerto brought all that back (it starts at about 18 minutes into the 2nd hour). I could discern every note, I could feel the intertwining melodies. That man was just brilliant. It just amazes me how the 3rd is still so crisp and simple and so catchy - out here, 286 years later...

It's my understanding that Bach gave the Brandenburg Concerti to the noble family of Prussia as a sort of freebie sampler "hey look at me, here's what I can do", and they were promptly put into the royal library and forgotten. Then sold. Then they languished un-played for a century. I imagine he never got to hear them played.

So since then I've been on a quest to find the perfect recording of the Brandenburgs. I have the one by the Academy of St. Martins in the Fields, but I think it's mushy. I like my Bach punchy and crisp - not willowy and watery.

Today I was out for a 40+ mile fast ride with my beloved, and we took turns pulling each other as fast as we could go. Would you believe that channelling the Brandenburg concerti in my head made for a perfect timetrialling cadence?

Well it did. You should try it.

I bet Greyhound has tried it...