Looks like it would be a bitch to play.
Good question Blackhorse, Johann Sebastien Bach, Old Bach.
Igoldberg, I play a couple of other Bach pieces arranged for the guitar from the Goldberg Variations, are you a Glenn Gould fan? Cheers.
Nope, I'll have to Google that!
"BWV" indicates it would be JS Bach.
Very nice playing! I could see JSB writing a set of variations on this ala Goldberg.View attachment 9048
Here is a recording of me playing "Tabaksrauchers." The 301 year old piece is set to a poem, a translation of which is here below. They smoked their clay pipes back then
View attachment 9049
Each time I take my pipe ’n tobacco
English Translation © Z. Philip Ambrose
Each time I take my pipe ’n tobacco
With goodly wad filled to the brim
For fun and passing time with pleasure,
It brings to me a thought so grim
And adds as well this doctrine fair:
That I’m to it quite similar.
The pipe is born of clay terrestrial,
Of this I am as well conceived.
Ah, one day I’ll become earth also –
It falls and breaks, before ye know’t,
And often cracks within my hand:
My destiny is much the same.
The pipe our wont is not to color,
It’s always white. And thus I think
That I as well one day while dying
In flesh at least shall grow as pale.
But in the tomb my body will
Be black like it when used at length.
When now the pipe is lit and burning,
We witness how within a trice
The smoke into thin air doth vanish,
Nought but the ashes then are left.
And thus is mankind’s fame consumed,
Its body, too, in dust assumed.
How oft it happens when we’re smoking
That, when the tamper’s not at hand,
We use our finger for this service.
Me thinks, then, when I have been burned:
Oh, if these cinders cause such pain,
How hot indeed will hell yet be?
I can amidst such formulations
With my tobacco ev’rytime
Such practical ideas ponder.
I’ll smoke therefore contentedly
On land, at sea and in my house
My little pipe adoringly.
Translations by Z. Philip Ambrose are published in J.S. Bach: The Extant Texts of the Vocal Works in English Translations with Commentary Volume 1: BWV 1-200; Volume 2: BWV 201- (Philadelphia: XLibris, 2005) and online at www.uvm.edu/~classics/faculty
D'addario J45 normal tension, no wound G, lol.
Thanks for sharing your lovely playing, Charley. I have not read that poem before. Lofty thoughts indeed.View attachment 9048
Here is a recording of me playing "Tabaksrauchers." The 301 year old piece is set to a poem, a translation of which is here below. They smoked their clay pipes back then
View attachment 9049
Each time I take my pipe ’n tobacco
English Translation © Z. Philip Ambrose
Each time I take my pipe ’n tobacco
With goodly wad filled to the brim
For fun and passing time with pleasure,
It brings to me a thought so grim
And adds as well this doctrine fair:
That I’m to it quite similar.
The pipe is born of clay terrestrial,
Of this I am as well conceived.
Ah, one day I’ll become earth also –
It falls and breaks, before ye know’t,
And often cracks within my hand:
My destiny is much the same.
The pipe our wont is not to color,
It’s always white. And thus I think
That I as well one day while dying
In flesh at least shall grow as pale.
But in the tomb my body will
Be black like it when used at length.
When now the pipe is lit and burning,
We witness how within a trice
The smoke into thin air doth vanish,
Nought but the ashes then are left.
And thus is mankind’s fame consumed,
Its body, too, in dust assumed.
How oft it happens when we’re smoking
That, when the tamper’s not at hand,
We use our finger for this service.
Me thinks, then, when I have been burned:
Oh, if these cinders cause such pain,
How hot indeed will hell yet be?
I can amidst such formulations
With my tobacco ev’rytime
Such practical ideas ponder.
I’ll smoke therefore contentedly
On land, at sea and in my house
My little pipe adoringly.
Translations by Z. Philip Ambrose are published in J.S. Bach: The Extant Texts of the Vocal Works in English Translations with Commentary Volume 1: BWV 1-200; Volume 2: BWV 201- (Philadelphia: XLibris, 2005) and online at www.uvm.edu/~classics/faculty