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WTF Bach

WTF Bach

By: Evan Shinners
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J.S. Bach explained — music analysis, Baroque history, counterpoint and performance practice. A classical music podcast for listeners who want to understand what they're hearing. Weekly analysis of Bach's music: Well-Tempered Clavier, Brandenburg Concertos, St. Matthew Passion and more. Classical music education for all levels.

wtfbach.substack.comEvan Shinners Music
Episodes
  • Inner Monologue: A Classical Musician's Thoughts at a Party

    Inner Monologue: A Classical Musician's Thoughts at a Party
    Jun 16 2026
    Am I the only one who hates when people ask what I ‘do?’ Composed first as a dialogue, I decided to make this more stream of consciousness, as today is Bloomsday (though this is not the least bit Joycean.) With which Evan will you sympathize? I imagine many of my colleagues have experienced similar thoughts… or am I the worst…?Are musicians, ‘artists?’ Or perhaps, are artists that make music, musicians?Is taste merely a matter of class? Where does preference stop and ‘snobbery’ begin? Do you agree with Pierre Bourdieu’s judgment of taste?Do you like Sibelius?Spread Your Fingers:Yeah.Evan.Likewise.What I…? Oh what I do…Right, well, if you ask me what I do, I’m going to tell you: I breathe, I walk, I sit, I sleep, just like you! Just like you. What I do.I might venture that I’m an inventor, or no longer need to work, because, right out of university, you see, I came up with a really clever patent for trampolines that has prevented the paralysis of hundreds of bouncing children— if not thousands.Yes, yes, every month, every month checks. …for all the new trampolines in the world that have my… device somewhere on the side of the, trampo—Yes, it is odd being rich from trampolines. But, I’ll take what I can get.That’s a good line, ‘odd being rich from trampolines.’I’m also a professor of 18th century German religion at an online University in …sssSingapore!Singapore? You ask. Yes, yes, Singapore.Do you, lecture online, what with the time change and all that?Yes, yes, with the, with the time change.Truth hurts: I play the piano and harpsichord and organ. You’ll ask, ‘Is that all you do.’Is that all I do. Is that all I do. Let’s say I were the 17th best flamenco dancer in the world, but I had to supplement this with bus driving.‘Hey! There’s Evan the bus driver’ not ‘Hey, there’s Evan, the 17th best flamenco dancer in the world.’ You might consider me a fairly good dancer, best dancer in the village even— but I’d still be, ‘Hey, there goes Evan the bus driver.’ But if suddenly, suddenly, flamenco paid well enough where I could stop driving the bus,‘Hey! There’s Evan the flamenco dancer.’I wouldn’t have gotten any better or worse at dancing the whole time.I hate these parties where people ask you what you do. I want parties where that’s not allowed, where you lead with, what is your favorite color? The no small talk party. You guys going to the no small talk party? It’s actually going to be enjoyable.Somewhat vibrant green bordering on blueish… what’s yours? Oh did you meet Sheila? She also likes the greenish blues!What’s your main fault? Hey Dave, nice to meet you, what’s your main fault. You ever cheated on someone, Dave? Who is your favorite heroine in fiction?Yes, that’s all I do. All I do is play the piano. Oh, it must be so nice to be able to make a living with your passion.I hate it when people say that. Passion. Overused word.Yes, it is. It’s a good life. I’m healthy I’m happy. I am healthy and I am happy. What did that guy say on Instragram? ‘every day, wake up, sip lemon stare into the sun and say, today is going to be a great day, today is going to be a great day…’Yes, I should say this to myself more often. I am grateful.But sometimes— sometimes!— I wonder if I had given it all up to be the snowplow man, I wouldn’t have to remind myself to remind myself to be grateful. Just— pkcchhhh— plow the roads, up at at ‘em before even the well-employed! Thermos full of coffee, heater blasting, 20 below out, but I’m in a T-Shirt in here… pkchhhhh— plow the snow, plow the roads— what’s on the radio? Not my colleagues and thank god for that. Who’s got time to remind themselves to be grateful now? Snowplow man! Honk Honk!Do you have any idea what it’s like to not be accountable to anybody but yourself, to make your own deadlines, to create your own goals, make your own structure? If suddenly people woke up and had to create their own work, no one would get out of bed! When robots replace everything, no one will know what to do, but I’ll carry on exactly as I always have. I got fugues to learn man! Let the robot sweep my house, do my laundry, but unless the robot’s gonna write in useful fingering, I’m busy! No one will ever pay to hear robot pianists.Oh …my god. Robot Pianists.These parties. These parties. This vapid socializing! Look, if 95% percent of success is showing up, I’ll take 5% of my potential fame, thank you— You’re a pianist? Oh, I heard this fantastic pianist play the most incredible Schumann — or was it Schubert…’Was it me? Oh, wasn’t me?! As if they were any good, I wouldn’t be overcome with jealousy, and if they were mediocre, I wouldn’t abhor them for destroying our profession with mediocrity!Don’t talk to a musician about musicians. Unless you’re drinking buddies with Leo van Doeselaar, I have no interest whatsoever in your ...
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    12 mins
  • 137: Special Guest! Peter Wollny

    137: Special Guest! Peter Wollny
    Jun 9 2026

    Last December, I spoke with Peter Wollny, one of today’s most important Bach scholars. We discuss how one becomes a Bach scholar, what it’s like to be in close proximity with Bach’s handwritten manuscripts, using watermarks within the paper to form a compositional chronology, and forming a ‘personal relationship’ with a figure from the past. Here are some of my favorite quotes from our interview:

    Q: Is there something that surprises you when reading a piece with scholarly intent vs. hearing it?A: What you can’t predict is how deeply it will go to your heart.

    —

    It can easily be said that there is something in the autograph that conveys something about a personality from the past, and it may be true, but it’s very risky because you can end up looking for something that is in your own head but not included in the manuscript.

    —

    This past summer I started a series of photographs trying to figure out the population of wild bees in our garden, and actually I identified a species of bees that was believed to be extinct in Saxony since 1930.

    Chaconne on the Gramophone:

    The two new chaconnes! Available for download:

    BWV 1178, in d minorBWV 1179, in g minor

    (Outro music is a choir of yours truly singing from Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21.)

    We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at WTFBach.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help!

    Concepts Covered:

    ‘Confirmation Bias’ in musicology, J.S. Bach Toccatas BWV 914, BWV 913, the new Johann Martin Schubart sources. The attribution to Johann Christoph Graff in the new discovery of Bach’s early Chaconnes. Independent fascicles sewn into larger books, the process of fascicles copied from page 4, page 1, then pages 2-3. Peter Wollny’s discovery of new works by J.S. Bach. Bach’s early interest in ostinato pieces, Bach’s copies of chaconne’s by Buxtehude.



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    52 mins
  • 136: Bach's 12-Tone Fugue (WTC Finale!)

    136: Bach's 12-Tone Fugue (WTC Finale!)
    May 28 2026

    (Fear not the length of this episode: the last 25 minutes or so are three different playings of the piece.)

    Having written a prelude and fugue in every possible key, having created a single temperament for all of those pieces, having stretched the thematic growth from a 6-note fugal subject to one with all 12 possible notes, Bach achieves a victory that would become the very foundations of music. At the very end, in one of his layerings from the 1730s, he adds, S.D.G., Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone:

    While all pieces in this collection may suggest images, no single piece in the collection is as evocative as this one. For the first and only time in this volume, we get tempo markings for the set: andante and largo.

    The andante is indeed a walk— toward Golgotha. Two voices in imitation trade the weight of dissonances struggling against the fateful steps up to Mount Calvary:

    This prelude is the only binary piece in the collection, divided in half by repeat signs (whereas roughly half of ‘Book Two’ are binary preludes.)

    Finally we get to the fugue. Often called the first 12-tone row in history, the fugue’s subject makes use of every single chromatic note. If C=1 in this diagram (it is usually 0 in Schönbergian theory) you will find all 12 pitches accounted for:

    Sighs in the slurred notes, the theme bursts with musical ‘crosses.’ Those witnessing the crucifixion weep in four voices. Bach’s burden was tone— he carries all twelve of them. Equally striking in the subject is his own name, crossing upon itself dozens of times in this finale. Every other slur spells his name (in transposition.) A twelve-tone row, crosses, weeping, this theme has everything:

    It has been a great joy to work on all these pieces over the past 10 months. Thanks for all your support. ‘Book Two’ will also be studied in depth on the show, but not quite yet. There are guest interviews to be released and I will be turning my attention to Bach’s earliest vocal works in the coming months.

    Soli Deo Gloria!

    We Rely Exclusively on Paid Subscriptions! Help WTF Bach endure:Join at WTFBach.comThis is the only place Evan checks comments regularly.You can also make a one-time donation here:https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbachThank you for your help!

    Concepts Covered:

    A long discussion on religion in 18th and 17th century Germany, re: the seriousness of Bach’s own faith. The Well-Tempered Clavier finale, in h moll is today’s subject, conjuring images of Golgotha, crucifixion music, Bach’s own signature, musical crosses, Simon bearing the weight of the cross in the prelude et cetera. The fugal subject is a twelve-tone row, a theory not fully realized until some 200 years after J.S. Bach.



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    1 hr and 35 mins
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