Recently, I was listening to Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1068, followed a couple of days later by watching the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion. What does one have to do with the other? Well, the latter includes in the soundtrack the song “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by the 1960s English rock group Procol Harum, and it occurred to me that “A Whiter Shade” may be based on Bach. A little research revealed that the organ countermelody of “A Whiter Shade” is, indeed, based on BWV 1068. The song itself is an adaptation of Bach’s church cantata, Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe (“I am standing with one foot in the grave”), BWV 156. Bach Read More ›