Or Michel Chapuis ! Many people have been known to improvise fugues and many have been recorded. I heard a 20 year old organist improvise a basic fugue on the spot ! Not impossible when you practice.
Honestly it's not that hard to improvise a basic fugue, once you've played enough, and once you have a good understanding of figured bass/continuo. Going from 3 to 4 voices is a bit harder, and making sure your countersubjects are consistent can also be a little bit of a challenge, depending on how complicated they are. I think that any keyboard can be trained to improvise fugue, and honestly at the college level, they probably should be.
It's sort of embarrassing for all concerned, but if Bach and de Vries had both gone for the same cantorship in 18th C Germany, it's pretty hard to say who'd have landed the job.
Ever since I discovered de Vries (I forget how!), I've been obsessed with the idea of writing an ISOT in which he finds himself translocated back through time to Bach's lifetime. Sadly, I probably don't have enough knowledge of music theory to make it happen - my abilities with organs, limited as they are, lie behind the console rather than at it!
@@sietzedevries6159 suppose you did find yourself cast back through time to that era? E.G. your old chapel at Niezijl is the one piece of 2019 in 1719, a year before Bach's visit to Hamburg? You'd still have your family and the comforts of home, maybe an electric car that you could charge via solar panels (including a portable one if you were away for some time), but you're stuck in the Baroque era alongside Bach and his contemporaries - if anything, senior to them in age and breadth of experience...
Fabulous way of improvising and also very impressive was the fugue!!
Onvoorstelbaar knap geïmproviseerd!
I had a high school music teacher say that no one except maybe Bach could improvise a fugue. She had never heard Sietze de Vries play (21:30).
Or Michel Chapuis ! Many people have been known to improvise fugues and many have been recorded. I heard a 20 year old organist improvise a basic fugue on the spot ! Not impossible when you practice.
Honestly it's not that hard to improvise a basic fugue, once you've played enough, and once you have a good understanding of figured bass/continuo. Going from 3 to 4 voices is a bit harder, and making sure your countersubjects are consistent can also be a little bit of a challenge, depending on how complicated they are. I think that any keyboard can be trained to improvise fugue, and honestly at the college level, they probably should be.
@@JoshuaSobel😮😮😮
The brother in law of my neighbour can also improvise fugues in the style of Bach, so it happens
It's sort of embarrassing for all concerned, but if Bach and de Vries had both gone for the same cantorship in 18th C Germany, it's pretty hard to say who'd have landed the job.
Ever since I discovered de Vries (I forget how!), I've been obsessed with the idea of writing an ISOT in which he finds himself translocated back through time to Bach's lifetime. Sadly, I probably don't have enough knowledge of music theory to make it happen - my abilities with organs, limited as they are, lie behind the console rather than at it!
😅
@@sietzedevries6159 suppose you did find yourself cast back through time to that era? E.G. your old chapel at Niezijl is the one piece of 2019 in 1719, a year before Bach's visit to Hamburg? You'd still have your family and the comforts of home, maybe an electric car that you could charge via solar panels (including a portable one if you were away for some time), but you're stuck in the Baroque era alongside Bach and his contemporaries - if anything, senior to them in age and breadth of experience...
I am a great fan of your improvisations Sietze. Is there any chance that they will be transcribed for purchase? Especially this one!