Happy Birthday, JSB

Today is the 325th anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach, the paterfamilias of western music (that is, music in the European style, not simply the western music of Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings, although JSB undoubtedly had an influence on them, as well).

The Pointless Digressions roving dilettante recalls with pleasure being in Toronto for the Bach Tricentennial Piano Competition in 1985, a competition won by the then relatively unknown young Ottawa pianist Angela Hewitt.  (After which, the P.D. ambassador taxied to Cafe des Copains to hear another pianist, Roger Kellaway.  That was a very good summer in Toronto.)

On another musical note (an accidental pun, which we regret) spring has begun, and the airwaves are filled, for a few hours, with spring songs.  There are some very good spring songs, and some wonderful almost spring songs ("It Might As Well Be Spring," "Spring will Be a Little Late This Year") but the two best spring songs, in the distinctly unhumble opinion of the P.D. Panel, are Clifford Brown's "Joy Spring" (with lyrics by Jon Hendricks) and Cole Porter's "I Love You," which contains these memorable lines: 

"It's spring again

 And birds on the wing again

 Start to sing again

 The old melody:

 I love you--

 It's the song of songs--

 And it all belongs

 To you and me."

Feel free to sing along.