All About History Issue 34

That old discussion has broken out again: What is jazz? Who does it belong to? Where does it begin? The latter of these questions is at least not an issue for the Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala: "Johann Sebastian Bach and his music came into my life when I was six." So it comes as no surprise that Bach ties up his new ACT album "my history of jazz" - Rantala's personal history of the music that captivated him when he was 13 is embedded in the classically rendered aria: "Ever since then I always wanted to become an improviser, composer, stage performer and bandleader". A universal concept shown on the five greatly varied improvisations on the Goldberg Variations, upon which Rantala threads the album like a string of pearls.

Being the child of a famous father can be quite a burden, in particular when father and child have the same occupation. The Bach sons knew all about it. It can also be a blessing, though. That was certainly the case with the two most famous female composers of 17th-century Italy, Barbara Strozzi and Francesca Caccini. The latter was the daughter of Giulio Caccini who with his compositions and in his writings expressed a new approach to music in which the text was at the centre and should be depicted in the music.