How is Bachs music different from todays?
Are you referring to the classical music of today? The instrumentation of Bach’s time was smaller. It was difficult to round up different woodwind and brass instruments and keep them in tune with each other, so Bach’s orchestra used very little woodwind and brass. Moreover, the brass parts are more diatonic, because the brass instruments of Bach’s time did not have valves. It would have been difficult to play the Harry Potter theme on an Eighteenth Century French horn. The percussion section has diversified. I have never seen anything by Bach which called for any percussion instrument besides the kettledrum. Keyboard music was more contrapuntal, too. One explanation is that the well-tempered system was just then coming around. Composers wrote contrapuntal style in order to divert the listener’s mind from how awful the keyboard instrument was tuned. Another explanation is that harpsichords and clavichords did not have damper pedals. So a wide sweeping arpeggio did not sound as pretty. T
