Jeni's Musings

Jeni, you bemoan lacking “some really meaty data to use” some “cool ways out there for viewing information” on (apologies for the convoluted grammar). Dare I suggest (gulp) the music of Johann Sebastian Bach? There’s a wealth of information (sorry, mostly data) on this, relatively well organised on the basis of an accepted catalogue (BWV) offering a unique identifier (with some quirks!), although the edition on which it is based has been superseded. There are a pile of attributes about the nature of the work, dates of composition and first performance, and even recommended recordings; plus some funnies like derived works (such as the Gilded Goldbergs). Additionally, there’s audio such as midi, or even (as you know), courtesy of BBC Radio 3, a pile of DVDs with all the works and some textual annotation.

You can even access some open format data, for example on this enthusiast’s page. There is also pictorial stuff, both about the man and the music.

There is, of course, piles of scholarship on JSB. Easy use cases for data presentation would be about types of work, dates of performance (mainly first performance, but for some there are intriguing revival issues). Harder use cases would be about things like connections between the works (parody, re-use) and variations in the ways they are interpreted and performed (such as organ, harpsichord, piano; lute, guitar and so on). I could imagine some experiments with graphical or spatial clustering presentations. There are already interesting such things on individual works such as the St Matthew Passion.

You know I would be happy to help you with assembling the data and contributing suggestions - and probably some linux based infrastructure.

Barry