Old Meets New: BWV-1053 Harpischord Concerto No.2 (ii Siciliano) | Weekly Note Jam No.44 entry

For this jam’s theme, “old meets new”, I decided to adapt one of JS Bach’s harpsichord concertos and give it a modern twist. The original composition is BWV-1053, specifically the second movement, the Siciliano. Originally composed in C# minor, I have transposed down to B minor and also added some Phrygian colour for a darker feeling.

I had a lot of fun with this one despite only 3 days to do it in (fortunately I had all three days off work, with day 0 spent listening to Bach playlists on the commute looking for inspiration 😄)

I took the opening section of the siciliano as my piece to feature, and the ending which is just a revisit of the opening. I wanted to incorporate the section that follows as well, but did not have enough time for this sadly; a nod to the genius of Bach that a whole new track can be made just vamping over what he considered an introduction!

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The track starts off by quoting the reference material more or less by rote (thanks to the awesome people who transcribe Bach’s works into MIDI). I did tweak slightly to add a short descending passage in the bass to highlight the Phrygian modal colour early on… at least I was thinking Phrygian, it could be Phrygian Dominant or Harmonic Minor depending where you look? Who knows… a darker vibe overall.

The track then shifts into a kind of half-time trap beat (I guess?), before moving into a more cinematic/experimental electronic vibe. Finally it closes in a sort of retro chiptunish style, with tempo ramping up and back down, fading away to reveal Bach himself (at least I like to imagine!) playing his harpsichord… maybe he had these sounds in his head all along… he was kind of a genius 😎

The track proper isnt very long but I had to be judicious with my time to allow mixing and endless sound design and knob fiddling!

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Made on my iPad Mini 7 in Cubasis.

Chris (intønality)