Converting hundreds of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach into mathematical networks reveals that they store lots of information and convey it very effectively

I didn’t need proof myself, but I suppose it’s comforting nevertheless to have it mathematically confirmed.

  • ulkesh@beehaw.orgEnglish
    8·
    10 months ago

    He was! But he overused the harpsichord, in my very humble and unfounded opinion, and it hurts my ears to listen to a lot of his creation. I get why he did (the piano was still a very new creation, and the harpsichord could be more easily heard in concert halls), but it sure does pierce the eardrum these days.

    • hakase@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      10 months ago

      To provide a dissenting opinion, I’ve always preferred harpsichords to pianos, which is one of the reasons I love Bach so much.

      Pianos somehow sound simultaneously harsher than harpsichords with the off-putting initial clunk of the keys, and boringly muted in comparison.

      • PulptasticEnglish
        3·
        10 months ago

        Harpsichord always seems so frilly and thin. Piano has more depth and range of emotion, more dynamics.

      • ulkesh@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        I do love a lot of his music. It’s just difficult to hear the shrill of the harpsichord, for me.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      2·
      10 months ago

      Hmm, what percentage of his stuff was written for organ, I wonder? Wikipedia says that was his claim to fame while still alive, and there’s an instrument that still holds up.