About

Bach an’ All

The brilliant J.S.Bach came from a talented musical family.  His genious, insatiable curiosity, and lifetime study of his craft led him to become a composer whose works virtually summarized and eclipsed everything that had come before him.

His concertos and works for chorus and orchestra are towering monuments of sound.  His fugues and other works for keyboard as well as other solo instruments are  the achievements of an unparalleled musical mind. 

In making up the quartet Bach an’ All I wanted to achieve two things:

1. Transpose some of Bach’s pieces into keys that would maximize their effectiveness on the guitar (violin concertos for example go much too high for guitar, and to play them an octave lower would make them too dull and thick – the solution – transpose them down a 3rd or 4th). I doubt that Bach would object to the transposition – he did it all the time in his own lifetime.
2. Reduce the supporting parts of the piece so they would be playable with just 4 instruments.  This is feasible with a guitar group due to that instrument’s versatility as both a melodic as well as chordal instrument.

Bach an’ All is made up of 4 musicians: Myself and Dan Ferguson on guitars, Randy Landas on electric bass, and Doug Livingston doubling pedal steel and keyboard.