Updated 08 October 2001

The best works of J. S. Bach

(The homepage of Aleksandr Goltsov, reduced translation)

I am programmer and I like the music of Bach very much. Unfortunately I do not play on any musical instrument good enough but I like to listen music. I am 32 year old and my face looks like... like that (see at the right).

On this page you will find some MIDI files with the famous Bach's works and some AWE32 patches to make them sound better. These files came to me by various ways, mainly from Internet pages.

Write me if you wish to my e-mail (do not forget to remove all digits from the address!). I'm seeking for the AWE patches for Church Organ (different stops), Flute, Harpsichord, Acoustic Guitar and "live" instruments at all.

MIDI files:

Toccata & Fugue in D minor (BWV 565) - That what the most of people remember hearing the name of Bach. Church Organ. I recommend to listen it using the good Organ patch with "steel" sound and powerful bass (see below).
Toccata & Fugue in D minor (BWV 565) - Another style of performance.
Passacaglie & Fugue in C minor (BWV 582) - That what the most of people unfortunately do not remember. Multiinstrumental, predominantly wind instruments (this is an organ work of course). ROM standard instrument set is suitable. Organ sound must be soft (wood pipes), though this music can be played on metal pipes too. It sounds doleful and peaceful on wood pipes and stern and gloomy on metal.
Choral prelude in F minor (BWV 639) - From "Little book for organ". Wood wind instruments. Also good when played with a "steel" organ patch.
Prelude D minor (BWV 554) - From "Small English preludes". Church Organ.Good with "steel" sound.
Prelude in E-flat minor (BWV 853) - Piano. From "The Well-tempered Clavier", part 1, #8. This prelude seems to be the most emptionally saturated work among all of the Well-tempered Clavier parts.
The Big Chromatic Fantasia (BVW 903) - Piano. Or load a Harpsichord patch and enjoy. "Chromatic" means "having no key". Bach's ingenious switching from key to key can really bewitch auditory.
From Suite #3 in D major (BWV 1068) - This music is known as "Air". Smooth, "goldish" music for violins an cello. Strings. Sounds well with standard AWE wavetable instrument set.
Chacone from Partite #2 D minor (BWV 1004) - The work for violin solo. Arranged for Guitar Nylon. Did you hear the single violin which sounds like a full orchestra? In Paganini works, may be... The violin in Chacone sounds like this. Though it can't be heared in this arrangement - chords used...
Prelude C minor (BWV 999) for laute - Arranged as Acoustic Bass. Just such a music is to be called "cosmic". It calls an image of something infinite, cold and beautiful, like a night sky in stars. Especially in case of playback with some organ patch.
Partita #6 (BWV 830) for klavier - Piano. This romantic work is written by J.S.Bach too - just imagine! It sounds like Choppin works. The second part begins as folk dance... and then You listen that it is a fugue instead.

Soundfonts

The samples of sound of instruments (patches) can be loaded into the memory of your soundcard with AWE Control Panel. 2M of RAM or more should be installed on your SB32/AWE soundcard, otherwise large patches will not fit. You can play MIDI with standard ROM instrument set, of course, but organ probably will not sound good. SoundBlaster with its wavetable synthesizes many other instruments with acceptable quality, but I did not hear standard Church Organ from ROM similar enough to the church organ sound.

synthgm.sf2 (42k, Creative) - standard Creative instrument set for AWE32. Other, improved instrument sets may be provided with modern SoundBlaster models (such as SB Live!). But the files at the top of this page are optimized for AWE32 standard set, so you should use this patch to listen them with the instruments for which they are arranged using new Creative soundcards.
aweorgan.sf2 (23k, by Ralph van Zetten, 1996) - Organ. Many stops, but "metal" sounds and powerfull basses are represented relatively poor. This patch uses only instruments from ROM, so it uses no RAM of your soundcard at all. You can use it even if you have no RAM installed on your soundcard! Turn reverberation on. Playing large chords with this patch may cause an "overload" of DAC - then lower the bass&treble and volume to avoid this. The main rule for use this patch is: volume of notes must be lower than maximum (maximum volume is 127) to avoid distortion. I arranged some files below for this patch ("strange" instruments will be heared without patch loading). Ensure the sound quality:

ch_mono.sf2 (2M, "Sonido Media", 1997) - It is real organ for playing "powerful" organ works. You should have at least 2M RAM on your soundcard. Good quality sound of organ with metal pipes, powerful bass present (usually there are no organ bass in wavetables at all). Patch also contains the sound with reverberation (Cathedral Organ).

gothorgn.sf2 (703k) - Organ. Sounds like previous one. Basses are stronger, but high-pitched notes are less realistic. For "powerful" organ works.

bwv999cm.mid (BWV 999)

barharp.sf2 (140k) - Baroque Harpsichord. Nice, realistic sound.
piano.sf2 (967k) - Piano. This is "real" fortepiano due to velocity sensitivity. It means that notes with different velocity will have differences not only in volume but in timbre too. Appreciate the sound with this prelude (without patch the sound will be low and will have no so much beauty):

h314guit.sf2 (880k) - Acoustic steel guitar. It is the only patch on this page wich is made by myself. It seems to sound well (at least in guitar pitch range), though little noises raice through the sound time to time. It can be useful for harpsichord music.

"Last but not least". It is much better to listen music (especially classic, even synthesized) on a good acoustic system. Plug the wire from your SoundBlaster to HiFi amplifier with HiFi loudspeakers and FEEL THE DIFFERENCE.

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