Bach and Kern

I've been studying the first violin part of Bach's double concerto in d minor on the flute in preparation for playing it as a duet with my teacher. It's a very demanding piece. My teacher kind of apologized for assigning it to me. But it's inexhaustible. It doesn't matter how much you practice it, because you'll always notice something new in it. I'm happy to play it over and over again.

I also decided to go back to "All the Things Your Are" and memorize the chords again. I have no problem playing the melody. I've played it dozens of times, but I don't hear how the chords fit in under it. I've started playing the chords on the piano and putting the melody in over them, and it's making more sense to me. Obviously the only way I'll ever start hearing the changes is by doing this kind of work with them.

What's the connection between those musical endeavors? When I play the Bach I try to be aware of what's going on harmonically as I play, as he modulates between keys and adds and takes away accidentals. (Oddly, the first version of the concerto that I was playing was arranged for soprano recorder, and for some reason the arranger didn't include the key signature of one flat in his version of the first and third movements. That troubled me.)

Seeing and hearing what Bach was doing when he wrote the concerto should help me understand what Jerome Kern was doing when he wrote the music for "All the Things Your Are," and vice versa. One web site I saw credited Kern with Bach-like harmonic sophistication. I'll buy that.

As I was writing here I began to wonder whether Kern wrote the music before Hammerstein wrote the words but I couldn't find an answer.