Bach, Johann Sebastian Books - Page 6

Analyzing Bach Cantatas

Eric Chafe

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The meaning of music 5 out of 5 stars.
32 of 36 people found this review helpful.

Far from being a mind unconscious that it is calculating, Chafe convincingly argues that Bach carefully set his canata texts to illuminate their theological meaning. Beginning with simple devices such as triads to represent the trinity, Chafe describes Bach's use of more subtle musical ideas such ascending or descending lines and harmonies to represent, for example, God's incarnation (descent to earth) and mankind's redemption (ascent to heaven). Bach's use of numerology, for example in his use of extended musical patterns repeated ten times to represent the Ten Commandments, strongly belies the notion that this composer was uncalculating. While the musical power of Bach's cantatas touch us even though we may not understand the significance -- or even the meaning -- of the text, Chafe's insights reveal for us the many ways in which Bach's music expresses Lutheran theological ideas, allowing us to appreciate Bach on an entirely different level. Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

The Bach cantatas are among the highest achievements of Western musical art; yet studies of individual Bach cantatas that are both illuminating and detailed are few in number. In this book Eric Chafe combines theological, historical, analytical, and interpretive approaches to the cantatas to offer the reader and listener the richest possible experience of the works in the light of the composer's intentions and of the enduring and universal qualities of the works. Concentrating on a small number of representative cantatas, mostly from the Leipzig cycles of 1723-24 and 1724-25, and in particular on Cantata 77, Chafe illustrates how Bach strove to mirror both the dogma and the mystery of religious experience in musical allegory.

Bach: Mass in B Minor (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

John Butt

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Editorial Review:

The Mass in B Minor is arguably Bach's greatest single work. This short guide considers the work from many angles, offering the reader basic information in a concise and accessible form. John Butt gives an absorbing account of the work's genesis, its historical context, and its reception by later generations. One chapter considers the work movement by movement, providing the text in both Latin and English, and the final group of chapters on the music itself suggests some new approaches to the work--its forms, style and overall structure. This is an informative and lucid guide, providing an up-to-date summary of existing research and opinions together with some new and challenging insights.

Johann Sebastian Bach (Primary Source Library of Famous Composers)

Eric Michael Summerer

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Bach: The Brandenburg Concertos (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

Malcolm Boyd

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Editorial Review:

The Brandenburg Concertos represent a pinnacle in the history of the Baroque concerto, as well as being among the most universally admired of all Bach's works. This fascinating new guide places the concertos in their historical context, investigates their sources, traces their origins and discusses the changing traditions of performance that have affected the way listeners have understood them since Bach's time. The work's rich instrumentarium is carefully described, and a substantial chapter considers each concerto individually, revealing those aspects of their style and structure that make this group of works a unique and towering landmark in the history of the genre.

Bachanalia: The Essential Listener's Guide to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier

Eric Lewin Altschuler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Bach for bozos 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I picked up this book with some excitement. Bach's 48 has been for me, as for many others, a great scource of spiritual nourishment. I had hoped for a book that would be enlightening and penetrating. Anything that grandly describes itself as a listener's guide, really should be able to get into the guts of the music. Alas no!
I find it hard to understand why this book was ever written let alone published. It is really quite feeble. Virtually nothing is said about the preludes, except that the author gives us a league table of his favourites, as he does the fugues. The fugues themselves are described in dreary terms of entries of subjects. Rarely is the emotional content mentioned.
The writer describes the charming c minor fugue from book one as the greatest of them all and dismisses the glorious b minor fugue as 'not one of his favourites'. He seems to have derived this opinion from statistical analysis. I doubt if many share his view.
The book is deeply schizophrenic. On one hand it wishes to appear learned and uses terms like stretti and inversion, and on the other, it wants to use expressions derived from baseball and popular culture. The two parts do not gel. The populist parts seem lightweight and the erudition heavy handed.
Ultimately, Bach's achievement in these pieces is greater than merely counting the number of entries of a subject or when it is being inverted, It is music with a heart and soul.
My advise is avoid, and spend your money buying the music itself.

Editorial Review:

An exuberant and offbeat guide to Johann Sebastian Bach's keyboard masterwork, the Well-Tempered Clavier, presents a series of forty-eight essays--one for each of the piece's fugues--that incisively illuminate one of the world's most famous musical works.

Counterpoint in the Style of J.S. Bach

Thomas Benjamin

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

an excellent book for qualified students 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Thomas Benjamin's book is a great continuation for serious students of counterpoint. Neccessary prerequisites include basic understanding of traditional harmony and a firm understanding of basic species counterpoint. When armed with this background, students will find this book an invaluable guide into the deeper aspects of Bach's musical style. (All serious composition students should go through this series, and yes its a 5 to 50 year project!) Through examples and excercises the student will learn to apply the same considerations to his writting, if not the same sublimity, as one of the greatest musical masters of known history. Progressive excercises show the student how to synthesize harmonic considerations, counterpoint guidelines, and stylistic techninques (rhythmic figures and motiffs and the like) in a way that leads to satisfying musical conclusions. Once smaller scale writting excercises are mastered, no small feat and nothing to be rushed, the student then is ready to tackle larger musical forms. The satisfaction that emerges from such work is immeasurable, and this book is one of the only successfull treatments of the subject. Once again, this book shouldn't be undertaken without at least a year's study in traditional harmony, and a years in species counterpoint. Once this has been acomplished, the study of Bach's counterpoint is the logical continuation. Hats off! to Mr. Benjamin.

Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

Peter Williams

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Editorial Review:

Bach's spectacular Goldberg Variations represent a high point in the repertory of keyboard music, particularly for the harpsichord. This book takes a detailed look at how these variations originated, especially in relation to all Bach's ClavierÜbung volumes and late keyboard works, what their exceptionally intricate plan is, what kind of impact they have had, and how their mysterious beauty has been created. This guide to what was at the time the largest and most carefully conceived single work of keyboard music will appeal to students, performers and listeners.

Helmuth Rilling: Conductor, Teacher

Sharon Hansen

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Editorial Review:

Alfred Mann writes in the Foreword to this book: "During our time, a modern ideal of musical direction arose, personified above all in the figures of Robert Shaw and Helmuth Rilling. Rilling's work has borne fruit, which moved the cultivation of Bach's bequest into a decidedly new era. The reader who becomes aware of Helmuth Rilling's achievements through the account by his sympathetic biographer will be well rewarded." The author has divided the book into two sections: Part One outlines the biography of Helmuth Rilling, providing a source of information about the man and the history and development of the institutions he created. Part Two documents his fundamental teaching philosophy and serves as a guide for conductors. Rilling's advice on conducting, score preparation, interpretation, and rehearsal techniques is included.

Interpreting Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: A Performer`s Discourse of Method

Ralph Kirkpatrick

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

disappointing 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 8 people found this review helpful.

If you are looking for an analysis of the expositions and episodes of the fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier, this book is not for you.
If you are looking for an analysis of the harmonic progression in the preludes, this book is not for you.
If you are looking for debate on which tempi to choose, this book is not for you.
In fact, it is hard to say who this book IS for!

The book consists mostly of philosophical discourse on melody, rhythm, and harmony. The author uses only a few examples from the WTC. I would summarize that philosophical discourse for you, but it was lost on me.

Ralph Kirkpatrick was a well-known harpsichordist, and was especially renowned for his catalogue of the works of Domenico Scarlatti. This book was published at the end of his life. He had apparently lost most of his mental faculties by that time, and the book was probably accepted for publication only because of his name. It is unfortunate that Kirkpatrick did not write such a book in his younger years.

Editorial Review:

This book sets forth the provocative theories of a musician who has been called the outstanding harpsichordist of this century.

Bach Performance Practice, 1945-1975: A Comprehensive Review of Sound Recordings and Literature

Dorottya Fabian

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Editorial Review:

Analysing over 100 recordings from 1945-1975, this book examines 20th-century baroque performance practice as evinced in all the commercially available recordings of J.S. Bach's "Passions", "Brandenburg Concertos" and "Goldberg Variations". Dorottya Fabian presents a qualitative, style-orientated history of the early music movement in its formative years through a comparison of the performance style heard in these recordings with the scholarly literature on Bach performance practice. Issues explored in the book include the availability of resources, balance, tempo, dynamics, ornamentation, rhythm and articulation.