Bruce Adolphe in the liner notes of "Hilary Hahn plays Bach" CD, writes this on Bach's dances (allemande, curante, sarabande, loure, menuets, gavottes, bourree, gigue etc):

"Although the dances of Bach's suites are often choreographed (the solo cello suites have given rise to works by Paul Taylor and Mark Morris, among others), they were no more meant as accompaniments to dancing than Picasso's pitchers are meant for table service. Bach's bourrees, gigues and gavottes reverse the relationship of dancer to music, making choreography the accompaniment. This is because the music is perfectly complete, it is not a catalyst to movement - it is the spiritual essence of the impulse to dance, captured in sound."

...

So here are some Bach's dances, listening to which, as Adolphe put, is equivalent to dancing:

Andres Segovia performing a Bach's Sarabande and Gavotte en Rondeau

Gigue from Lute Suite No. 2

Double from Lute Suite No. 2

Mischa Maisky playing Prelude, Allemande, and Courante from the BWV 1007.

The celebrated Prelude to The E Major Partita

Finally, Bach's famous Choral from Cantata 147, better known as "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" is sent to the future on synthesizers.

Or since in Bangla the sound of 'p' seems to have gone AWOL, should I say bop? Anyway, by the virtue of having gone to college in Bengal, I suspect I have been somewhat infect by the Bangla chavunistic bug? The musical associations in my mind usually link the landscape of the place to Gurudeb Robi babu's soongeeth, which gave me company many a lovely evening as I sat on the pedestrian over-bridge at Hijli railway station 'jhandaaoing' alone or 'bhaat maaroing" with friend(s). However, my cursory observation is that in general Bengali culture has managed to prevent music drifting off into thin air as it has happened in other parts of India, i.e., it still occupies an important place in Bangla mind.

Need evidence? Just look at the number of rock bands that hatch in Calcutta, or the number of 'Bungaalees' (yes, I am still tripping on "English, August") who can be found in nearly all contemprorary Indian bands such as Indian Ocean etc. That said, today I discovered this lovely melodic music video over at YouTube, by a group from Bangladesh, who simply call themselves "Bangla". They claim to be in the business of keeping old Bangla folk songs from being forgotten. And they have a 'cute' female lead singer.

If they are this good, more power to them. Banglamusic has few more tracks to listen to. Also while searching for this link, I found this amatuer Calcutta band who call themselves "Crows of Calcutta", whose instrumental fusion sounding music is pretty good for an amatuer band. Give them a listen.

I think I saw my first piano in a movie, if my memory is not too ossified, in a weepy Telugu/Tamil movie for which Illayaraja had scored music for, "Hrudayam". I suppose as music directors for Indian movies went, one had to have a degree of affinity to directly use Western Classical music motifs in their work, for which Illu has credentials aplenty. Also any one remembers the Bach violin solo he deploys the Telugu movie, "Swaranakamalam"?

Pianos, because of their shape, size and exoticness, were are as remote to me as the moon. I remember being suitably awed, and perhaps, mildly envious when my mother after a rare trip to the United States, brought back pictures of a house she was invited to that displayed a spankin' grand piano in the living room. This envy was somewhat assuaged by the very basic Casio synthesizer I had managed to get out of that trip taken by my mother as an offering. My father subsequently arranged a few music lessons too with that rare uncle who didn't think music was for the pansies. Not that anything came out those few lessons; practicing scales and deciphering notes in four ruled notebooks required much patience and discipline that I didn't possess then, and perhaps, don't even now. Oh well! This simply adds another thing to the torture list for the future spawn: unasked for piano lessons.

I had wait until I came to here to the United States to finally meet a grand piano, a Miss. Steinway. And was she beautiful! And because of my youthful sins of omission I had to be content with just giving her a peck on the keys, i.e., play half remembered scales. I also realize now because of the lack of musical education and application on my part, I can't deploy the musician persona, which always seems to have stronger effect on ovaries than a mere poet or writer persona!

Jokes aside, one of the first tapes I rented in the first few months here was of "The Piano", with the lovely Michael Nyman score. "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" is a stunning theme for a movie, and Flora dancing to this music on the beach is an unforgettable sequence of visuals, which stands out in the many movies I have seen. Of course this movie, somewhat justifiably I think, has been criticized for romanticizing the native in opposition to the quotidian “massa”, who asks for, and gets a piano haunted mail-in bride.

Subsequently I fell in with my old friend T here, who had played both the piano and the organ at a church for many years. And he got me started on the piano repertoire with Glenn Gould and his opus of piano performances, notably those of Bach's Goldberg Variations. He also took me along to a few piano recitals. Given this, now piano is not as strange a beast as it once was in my imagination. End of post.

This evening you may enjoy playing:

Beethoven's transcendental 'Moonlight Sonata' & Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp Minor