Week 16: 12 February 2024 – Trio Sonata No.4 and Quinquagesima

Plus: Bach's "Worst" Organ Piece? Think[ing] About Moonbyul, Taiwanese Rap , and more!

As always, we recognize that Bond Chapel is situated in the traditional homeland and native territory of the Three Fires Confederacy—the Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe Nations—as well as other groups including the Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Miami, Peoria, and Sac and Fox. We remember their forced removal and dispossession, but also remember to speak of these groups in the present tense, as Chicago continues to be resound with tens of thousands of Native voices. 

Perusing this week’s Indigefi, I was happy to come across Anishinaabe DJ/producer Boogey the Beat. Really, I’m behind the times—it looks like some of his songs, especially “Run For Cover” feat. Snotty Nose Rez Kids, are starting to get a fair bit of “mainstream” recognition. Listening to it, I think that’s mostly on the strength of Boogey’s sonics and beats; the raps themselves are pretty hit or miss in terms of rhymes and flow (although the imagery and message are often great). And those production chops are really showcased in some of his other songs. “Tapwe” is a fantastic dance song that doesn’t sacrifice anything in terms of message (“Powwow like a gun, you hear the ground rumble / Sounds of the drum, type tings you can’t run from / Hiaki on the rise, Uttiawame / Yoeme linking up with Anishinaabe”). Same deal with “Buffalo,” and especially (probably his most visible song?) the Halluci Nation/Tribe Called Red collab “Land Back.” Title says it all there, although you may get a kick out of the lyrics.

Week 16: 12 February 2024 – Trio Sonata No.4 and Quinquagesima

Please save applause for the end of each set

Prelude and Fugue in C minor, BWV 549

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Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein, BWV 641
Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen, BWV 668a

Pastorale in F, BWV 590

i. [Prelude]

ii. [Allemanda]

iii. [Aria]

iv. [Giga]

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Trio Sonata No. 4 in E minor, BWV 528

i. Adagio – Vivace

ii. Andante

iii. Un poco Allegro

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Don’t tell anybody, but I may have accidentally swapped Bach’s two C-minor Prelude and Fugues on the spreadsheet.¹ (I was wondering how the Halloween concert ended up so long!) What I now suspect is that I originally had this piece in mind to pair with Toccata and Fugue in D minor. You’ll hear why at the opening:

(There’s an earlier version in D minor to boot, in case that wasn’t similar enough for you.)

In some ways, this piece is the evil twin of the C-major Prelude and Fugue BWV 531. (This C-minor Prelude and Fugue is sometimes nicknamed “Arnstadt,” but BWV 531 is probably from that period as well—really, Bach must have written several of his Preludes and Fugues in Arnstadt.) So here’s a description that fits both preludes: long pedal solo that goes up from the middle of the pedalboard to the top before cascading down again; then the hands come in and have a go with the same material. Similarly, in both fugues the pedal takes its sweet time before coming in; really, the pedal entrance in this C-minor fugue signals the end of the fugue proper, and the piece then transitions to a freer fantasy on the same tune. And that’s also where the fireworks begin. This piece makes you wait for it, but it goes out with a bang.

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Two chorales on the same tune, one from the Orgelbüchlein and the other from the “Great Eighteen.” Well, to be more precise, the BWV 668a “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen” I’m playing is really from the appendix to the Art of Fugue (supposedly added to the publication in “compensation” for the incomplete final fugue). But you may also know it under the title “Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich,” which is how a fragment of it was copied into the “Great Eighteen” manuscript.

That title’s quite evocative: “Before your throne I now appear.” As the story goes, the chorale was dictated by Bach “in his blindness.” (Given the title, it’s only natural that the anecdote has mutated to become “on his deathbed.”) Of course it’s impossible to know how true that story is (seems unlikely), and frankly it’s even impossible to know exactly what in this chorale is by Bach: is the published ending, for instance, original?

These questions are compounded once you notice that much of BWV 668 derives from BWV 641. Specifically, whenever the chorale tune plays, the left hand and pedal parts are basically identical to the Orgelbüchlein chorale. Does that make BWV 668 a “later version” of BWV 641? Sort of! Certainly, the borrowings are too extensive to just say that Bach or somebody else was just working through a set of stock formulas or harmonizations. Still, the differences between the two pieces are probably even more notable. On the one hand, BWV 668 is about five times the length of BWV 641. And on the other, it completely strips away the gorgeous melodic ornaments that make BWV 641 sing. In other words, Bach or whoever made BWV 668 has completely changed the character of the piece, from a long-breathed aria to a more old-fashioned counterpoint exercise. (Albeit a very musical one.) And that counterpoint is quite overt: at the beginning of BWV 668, you’ll hear a version of the chorale tune first right-side-up, and then immediately upside-down. The accompaniment of BWV 641 uses similar tricks, but they don’t draw attention to themselves. You’ll probably be too busy listening to the tune.

I’ll have more to say about the Pastorale below, but it might be good here to give at least a rough guide to what you’ll hear. That’s partly important because there’s nothing else in Bach’s keyboard works with quite the same format as this piece. First you get a prelude in the pastoral style that gives the piece its title: long drones in the pedal simulate the sound of bagpipes, and the parts for each hand echo each other like the piping of shepherds. (At least supposedly.) Then a lyrical movement somewhat in the style of an Allemande (but with no upbeat), followed by an Aria that resembles something like the Vivaldi slow movements Bach transcribed for organ. And finally, a a fugal jig. It’s unclear if “Pastorale” is really supposed to refer to the whole piece (as opposed to just the first movement), but the overall character is at least consistent: simple, dance-y, and to the point.

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One more piece of “chamber music” before Lent begins. (We get Ash Valentine’s Wednesday this year.) And this is our penultimate trio sonata: enjoy them while they last.

The E-minor trio sonata is the only one of the six where we can be fairly sure that at least one movement derives from an instrumental original:

One of the exciting things about having these two versions is that it allows us to make comparisons. Intriguingly, there are very few changes when it comes to the notes—the bassline is minimally rewritten for the feet, but otherwise practically everything is the same.

The articulation marks are another story. At least, if you believe the Neue Bach-Ausgabe editors:

(Cantata)

(Organ)

As you can see, the stylish and nuanced slurs of the original—lots of “2+2” and “3+1” groupings—are all papered over to form somewhat monotonous groups of 4 in the organ version. I’ve always been a little bit suspicious of these markings: I don’t know many instrumental pieces that would slur figures like these in fours, and there’s no particular reason to think that organ articulation should be so different.

Given my penchant for articulation heresies, it’s probably no surprise to hear that I happily adjust these slurs to match the BWV 76 version. But I also think there are principled reasons to make the change. In particular, it’s important to remember that modern published editions make Bach’s slurs look a lot less…ambiguous than they actually are:

The traditional assumption is to say that, whenever a Bach slur is placed almost randomly over a group of notes, it applies to the whole group. But some of them (e.g. in m.14) seem much more carefully placed over three specific notes—and then perhaps the others are supposed to follow by analogy? That’s basically what the editors did with the analogous passage in the cantata:

And look at all the dotted slurs in the edition of the cantata! (scroll up) Those are all suggestions based on parallel passages. In other words, the cantata’s editors clearly recognized that an absence of articulation marks doesn’t necessarily indicate an absence of articulations. Even if I disagree with some of their choices (where did the slurs out of the quarter notes in mm.9 and 16 come from?), I admire the spirit, and wish organ music editors gave this kind of guidance more often.

In any case, all of this is just a reminder of how, even when Bach gives markings to guide the interpretation, those markings themselves require interpretation. And when there aren’t any, their lack signals the need for imagination, not uniformity.

I guess I should say something about the music too? There are lots of other things that make the first movement unique and special among the trio sonatas. First, the slow introduction, which matches the contours of the Vivace’s theme without exactly quoting it. Then that Vivace theme itself (illustrated above), with its jolt of syncopation followed by a tumble of sixteenths. It’s one of Bach’s more memorable tunes, and lends its distinctive character to all of the Vivaldian unspooling that follows.

Equally singular is the second movement, which almost looks like an exercise in writing with different intervals:

Certainly, none of this material fits the usual conception of “singability” (starting off with ascending fourths, follow by those huge leaps in measure 3). And yet it’s one of Bach’s most expressive movements. Repeatedly, he builds up a theme by adding more and more ornaments, until the texture becomes a cascade of thirty-seconds:

And, toward the end, he lets that cascade surge into a gorgeous, meandering series of trills:

—followed by a stretto (copies of the melody chasing each other in close succession) over a completely new pedal part:

These passages combine to give this movement one of the most directional “plots” in all of Bach, a true beginning middle and end. You never know quite where it’s going to go, but it’s uniformly beautiful throughout.

Finally, a closing movement somewhere between a jig and a minuet. If you’ve been waiting for flashy music in the pedals, here’s your chance: it’s a nonstop whirligig of a movement, and the feet duly come along for a spin.

Bach’s Worst Organ Piece?

—And really, what would that actually mean?

I’m not sure if there’s really a consensus surrounding this question, but I have heard a number of organists and scholars talk about the Pastorale with a truly remarkable amount of disdain. And that reputation is longstanding: George Stauffer has an article about this piece from 40 years ago, and the phrase he chose for the title is “A Maligned Work.” (Although Stauffer more or less agrees that the piece deserves its reputation.)

The Pastorale isn’t my favorite piece either, but rather than simply dunking on it, I think it’s more interesting to examine why it’s treated with such contempt. After all, understanding why people think this piece might be bad is a useful way to point up what exactly they think is so good about other Bach organ pieces: it helps to reveal their musical values. And, to spoil what’s probably a fairly predictable punchline, I think that these implicit values don’t quite match the typical rhetoric surrounding “BACH.” So here’s the indictment, with some preliminary responses:

Count 1: the Pastorale is weird. As mentioned above, the format—something approximating an Italian sonata da camera—is extremely unusual, to the extent that most scholars doubt that the movements of the piece were even written together. Beside the movement structure, the choice of keys is deeply strange: an Allemanda in C Major when the outer movements are in F? Why is the third movement in C minor? Why does the first movement randomly end in A minor? If the movements were written separately, couldn’t they at least have been transposed to match each other? Does the lack of transposition mean that Bach didn’t even compile this piece?

—But don’t people nowadays generally privilege “unique” and “creative” music? Change “weird” to sui generis and all of a sudden the Pastorale sounds like a masterpiece.

Count 2: is this even organ music? The pedals play a bunch of super long notes in the first movement and never return. The figuration in the last three movements looks a lot like harpsichord writing—all those style brisée-esque arpeggiations! And really, aren’t dance suites really more of a harpsichord thing? When would this have made sense to play on organ?

—But are we really so sure the boundaries between organ and harpsichord music were really so strict? Or that we know where they were? Why don’t we try playing more dance suites on the organ?

Count 3: this piece is unsophisticated. Stephen Westrop is being nice—or really, euphemistic—when he says that the last movement is “charmingly artless.” The first two movements, especially, are awfully by-the-book, with few of the twists that we expect from BACH.

—Maybe, but the harmony in the third movement does some pretty cool things, and the counterpoint in the last movement includes all of the tricks—full fugal treatment, including inversion—that you would hope for from a Bach gigue. I don’t actually get what Westrop means.

Count 4: it’s boring. Who likes listening to drony pastorales? Isn’t the “Pifa” the worst part of Messiah? Why would Bach do this to us?

—Well, this first movement goes a lot more places than that “Pifa.” And if you’re categorically bored by an entire musical genre, are you sure that’s the fault of its individual pieces or composers? Maybe people haven’t figured out how to perform them convincingly yet? I was also bored by the “Pastorale” from Corelli’s Christmas Concerto until I heard performers like Il Giardino Armonico and Amandine Beyer’s Gli Incogniti. (You will be shocked to hear that I think the solution is to play faster.)

I think these charges all point to a certain ideal type of “Bach’s organ music”: a piece in a well-defined genre, that makes plentiful use of the pedals, calls attention to its harmonic and contrapuntal tricks, and keeps the listener engaged throughout The Pastorale’s problem is that it’s nothing like a Trio Sonata or the Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor.

It’s probably pretty clear from my “responses” above (as the world’s worst defense attorney) that I don’t think too much of the first few charges. If people liked this piece, its idiosyncracies would be something to celebrate; if they liked it, the pedal part would be less of an issue (nobody has a problem with the early manualiter chorale partitas); and if they liked it, they would talk up the harmonic range of the third movement and the contrapuntal rigor of the fourth (a much stricter fugue than many Bach gigues). In other words, I think that this piece actually checks off many of the BACH boxes. If anybody suggests otherwise, it’s because they need a “bad piece by Bach” to also be “bad at being a Bach piece.”

On the other hand, I do think there’s something to the last charge brought forth by the prosecution. Even if the melodies in this piece do in fact fit Bachian types (as Peter Williams takes weirdly great pains to point out in his remarks on it), none of them are particularly memorable. And even if the harmony can be quite “modern” and go places, it doesn’t really grab me.

Really, I think that’s this piece’s biggest problem: there’s not much distinctive in it rhythmically, and the melodies don’t consistently couple with harmonic changes in a driving or expressive way. They’re not great songs, so to speak.

I hope I’m not being too repetitious, but this a point I think is worth hammering home. It might feel a little embarrassing to admit that lack of tunefulness or rhythmic interest is the problem with a piece by Bach: isn’t the point supposed to be something “higher” or more “intellectual”? But yet again, I think this piece shows us that counterpoint and harmony aren’t enough: the biggest draws with Bach are the same as they are with a lot of other music. When they’re absent, all the fugues in the world won’t appeal, even to hardcore Bachians.

What I’m Listening To

Susanna Mälkki and Helsinki Philharmonic – Sibelius: Karelia Suite, Rakastava, and Lemminkäinen

Yes, I know that Aallottaret (aka The Oceanides) isn’t on this album, but I couldn’t resist putting it here—that video is a magnificent performance, of a piece I love to death.

Can I say that I don’t really love most of the pieces that are actually on this album? The Karelia Suite’s March is fun, but I find that the other two movements tend to drag. And there’s a reason I haven’t listened to Rakastava in over a decade. But Lemminkäinen is a different story, and this is one of the best recordings I’ve ever heard of it.

If you’ve been paying attention to the “classical music world” over the past decade or so, you’ve probably seen endless articles about the surge in excellent young Finnish conductors taught by Jorma Panula. Mälkki may not be the youngest of them, but she might be the most impressive. There are very few conductors who do contemporary music like she does. And her more recent work with orchestras on early repertoire is often revelatory. Supple, detailed, driving Bartók. Zemlinsky that actually makes you want to hear more. And this Sibelius.

I guess it took until her tenure with Helsinki was over for Mälkki to want to start recording Sibelius. I’m sure the stakes feel quite high. If they’re not, she definitely makes them feel high. This Lemminkäinen can be wonderfully taut and precise, while also having the lush, billowy cushion of sound that “contemporary music conductors” sometimes squeeze out of late-Romantic repertoire; “Lemminkäinen’s Return” both zips along and sound huge. Even moments of stasis like the long, held horncalls in “Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island” can crackle with icy energy. There’s no shortage of great Sibelius recordings, but this one leaves me keen for more. And hopefully with more consistent repertoire next time. (Third Symphony, anyone?)

Neave Trio – A Room of Her Own

I honestly wasn’t expecting to have much to say about this album. More specifically, I thought it would be in kind of the same boat as Mälkki’s Sibelius: one really great piece (or composer in this case) and then not much to write home about for the others. I was wrong.

The “really great composer” in this case is of course Lili Boulanger, whose music is always in danger of overshadowing her neighbors’. These two pieces are no exception. You may be more familiar with them in the later orchestral versions, and it’s obviously quite a statement that Boulanger decided to present them as public, symphonic works. I’d never heard these earlier trio versions, and they have a lot to recommend them—Boulanger’s piano writing is great as usual, and the string parts are beautiful. In some ways, the chamber versions help me focus a little better on the “bones” of the music, sort of like seeing black and white reproductions of a painting. (Which is not to say that these versions lack color.)

But I already knew I was going to be impressed by the Boulanger. What I wasn’t expecting was this Chaminade Trio, which Neave—somewhat boldly?—seem to be promoting as the highlight of the album. If you know Chaminade, it’s likely for the flute Concertino (under nine minutes) or for piano miniatures with titles like “Scarf Dance.” Those miniatures are quite nice themselves, and have justifiably been “reclaimed” as pieces worth programming again, but I’m not sure I’ve seen anybody stick up for Chaminade’s command of larger-scale forms.

This trio should change that. The first movement especially is a pretty impressive sonata-Allegro, one that can switch in fascinating ways between “French” and “German” sounds. So the opening and transition use thoroughly “French” harmonies (think Fauré, with all sorts of chordal sevenths and loose harmonic relations), before turning to a sound world that’s almost Eastern European for the second theme (think Dvořák or even Brahms, with lots of III and VI chords and plagal relations). And some music theorist will have to puzzle out what she’s doing with the key relationship between the themes: G minor to B minor? Heavens.

The middle two movements are more in line with what you expect from Chaminade, which is to say that they’re charming but not too surprising. But the last movement is also startingly “German” (sounds like Hensel or Clara Schumann to me at times)—and there’s now G minor going to B major?? I’ll definitely be coming back to this piece.

The Tailleferre and Smyth are also nice choices, albeit hardly shocking if you know their musical language. (If you don’t, these pieces are pretty good introductions.) The playing is overall good, although Chandos has somehow made the piano sound like it’s in a compleely different room at times. They’re very fine recordings of this music, but above all I hope they inspire more ensembles to take their own cracks at it.

Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh, and Tyshawn Sorey – Compassion

I’ve been trying to figure out how to put into words exactly why I like this album (and its predecessor, Uneasy) so much. Frankly, I kind of wrote Vijay Iyer off a bit after his first few ECM albums, which tried a lot of cool stuff but never quite recaptured the verve of Historicity or Accelerando. But this trio is really working for him.

Part of that, of course, is due to Iyer’s new bandmates. Sorey knows how to create washes of sound that are both incredibly lush and rhythmically precise: he can make it sound like there are at least two drummers playing, but without necessarily getting in the airspace of his bandmates. And Oh is maybe my favorite active jazz bassist; she’s especially good at locking in with a pianist (she’s married to one), whether as bandleader or as part of someone else’s trio.

You can especially hear Oh highlighted on “Tempest” and “Arch” (short for Archbishop Desmond Tutu), where she and Iyer take turns fading in and out of rhythmic and melodic prominence. Sorey, meanwhile, gets to introduce the album, and makes a wonderful noise in the Stevie Wonder cover “Overjoyed.” Don’t miss the frenetic energy of “Maelstrom” and (Roscoe Mitchell’s) “Nonaah,” or the beauty of “Prelude: Orison.” Here’s to many more years of this trio.

Moon Byul – “Think About”

Just so you know what to expect: I’m a member of Moonbyul’s official fanclub (not even MAMAMOO’s) and I subscribe to her on Fromm. Even less objectivity than usual here.

But really what’s not to like? It’s hard not to appreciate that Moonbyul debuted as an actual adult for once (university graduate even); that her goofball personality lends itself perfectly to comedy; that she potentially breaks from K-pop’s heteronormativity; or that she taught herself to rap credibly well in about six months and has since delivered some genuinely good verses and songs. (It helps that she writes them herself.) She may not be Soyeon or LE but it’s impressive none the less.

There’s plenty of rap in Moonbyul’s solo discography, but part of the fun has been seeing her explore a variety of styles. It’s not only an opportunity to sing more—although it must surely be humbling as a pretty good singer to be blocked from getting more lines by three even better singers. But also an opportunity to branch out from MAMAMOO’s sound, which has tended to focus around jazz-pop, soul, and “Latin pop.” So now she’s free to do more ballads, bouncy dance-pop (with a darker house interlude), new jack swing, and pop-rock, with a variety of different musical and visual concepts. MAMAMOO would never release anything as profoundly silly (or purely tuneful) as “C.I.T.T (Cheese in the Trap)”; Moonbyul seems to be having a great time.

“Think About” picks up where “C.I.T.T.” left off. The video might not include fake VHSs labelled “Cheese” this time, but its vertical format and references to TikTok and Instagram indicate that it’s going to be a bit of a meme. And she delivers plenty of funny visuals:

Plus the hilariously greenscreened scenes of walking in front of the Hongdae, Seongsu, and Itaewon Metro entrances:

The lyrics are equally goofy, a tongue-in-cheek version of a cheesy love song. If there’s any doubt about that, I think the game is really up at the end of the chorus:

Are you down, down, down, down?
Do-do-do-do-do-down, down

Just driving, driving anywhere
Let’s go, go “Vroom-vroom-vroom”

The music doesn’t take itself too seriously either, but it does groove along pretty well. It might not be the absolute best song ever (it’s a pre-release, not even the lead single for the album), but it’s good clean fun, and doesn’t mess around.

I also think the song gets a pretty big lift from its harmonic language. There’s nothing particularly innovative about its chords—it basically goes IV-I the whole time—but the progression does open up a little bit of ambiguity that the song exploits. (“Is the opening chord the tonic? Ah, it must be the second chord.”)

Listen to that guitar lick at the beginning again. (It also becomes the tune for the second half of the chorus.) The notes are just: F-E-D-C, going down the scale of the song’s key. But the bass note is a B-flat, rubbing up uncomfortably against the E in the tune. The result of this harmonization is to make the lick sound vaguely Lydian, negating the tendency of the leading tone (E) to go tup (back to F) and instead forcing the tritone to resolve down. It’s a cool effect that’s somewhat underutilized;² forgive a truly heinous comparison, but my favorite example before Moonbyul is at around 6:35 in this video (start at 6:30):

Or you can hear a similarly climactic downward resolution of a tritone starting about 90 seconds into this one (1:39 to be precise):

And this effect is wonderfully exploited in my favorite Lydian-mode rock song.³ Listen at words like “this city can be so loud” (around 0:55):

There’s also something vaguely Snail Mailesque in how “Think About” uses chordal sevenths. Take “Pristine,” for instance. This song gets a lot of mileage out of parallel sevenths in the guitar licks (around 0:45 for instance); and then listen to the chorus (1:38), in which she holds the “7” in IV7 and lets it turn into the third of I:

That’s exactly what Moonbyul does in the “Think About” chorus (0:46):

But Moonbyul even goes farther: after the chord switches to I, the tune switches so she’s singing its major seventh. The resulting dissonance really keeps the chorus moving—until it lands right back into the Lydian-esque lick, which itself destabilizes he harmony a bit. Nothing in this song is settled; it really does make you want to “go, go “Vroom-vroom-vroom”.”

Also liked…

Giorgi Mikadze Trio – Face to Face

ZAZEN BOYS – らんど

Boston Early Music Festival – Pergolesi: La Serva Padrona / Livietta e Tracollo

Ty Segall – Three Bells

Italian Rondinella Quartet – AMURUSANZA

8485 – software gore

What I’m Reading

At a certain point, if enough people ask what you think of a book, it’s probably best to just sit down and read it. That’s been me and Meredith Schweig’s Renegade Rhymes: Rap Music, Narrative, and Knowledge in Taiwan. I’m glad I did finally get to it: it’s in some ways both better and more relevant to me than I thought at first glance.

For a book with less than 200 pages of text, this one is trying to do a whole lot. Most obviously, it needs to introduce Taiwanese rap to an audience that’s largely in the dark about both the music and its political/social contexts. To a remarkable degree, I think it does a good job, at least up to a certain level of depth. That’s especially true when it comes to wrangling the complex political history of Taiwan, and the linguistic and ethnic divisions that still mark it. But more importantly I learned about a lot of music (much of which patently should have been on my radar before), much of which helps contextualize the Mandopop that I’m more familiar with.

Still, the inevitable tradeoff is that there’s just not very much room to really get into all of the nooks and crannies here. In the first part, Schweig brings up some really interesting points about how the English words “hip-hop” and “rap” have been mapped onto a variety of different Sinitic (Putonghua, Hoklo, and Hakka) terms, be they neologisms, translations, or existing forms of speech-song 说唱 performance. But with all of these terms, I felt like the analysis was just getting started by the time it had to wrap up. Much better is the third chapter, on performing different varieties of masculinity, which does really get some serious traction; it’s also the chapter with the most in-depth musical analyses. (Quite good ones, and not just “for an ethnomusicologist.”)

I think Renegade Rhymes may be a hard sell if you don’t have some investment in Taiwanese music. (If you do, it’s essential.) Maybe I could entice you with the discussion of rap’s relationship to indigeneity and cultural memory in the last chapter—a topic that has relevance in a variety of contexts across the globe. (Just ask Boogey the Beat!) Otherwise, the best I can say is that it’s a quick, fairly snappy (the most jargon-laden paragraphs, sadly, are all in the introduction), reasonably enjoyable read. Thanks to everyone who pestered me about it.

A few others: 

• FanGraphs – Has Anyone Ever Hit the Target Field Target?

• Intelligencer – Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media

• Bloomberg CityLab – Chicago, Atlantic City, Float New Programs to Open More Grocery Stores

• Common Edge – What Is Sacred Architecture in an Increasingly Secular Time?

• The Atlantic – A Fake Yellow Line Changed Football Forever

• Xtra – What the internet is getting wrong about Tracy Chapman

Thanks for reading, and for listening if you can make it on Monday!

1. How have I never run across this pluralization issue before? “Preludes and Fugues” is obviously fine in the aggregate but sounds weird talking about two specific Prelude-Fugue pairs.

2. Although the “tritone resolving down” is also a big feature in the verses of Jungkook’s “Standing Next to You,” a song I really like as well.

3. It’s fine if you hear this song as Dorian instead (it’s ambiguous); the same “downward-resolving tritone” effect is still there.