Originally published in 1967, in this book the author delves deeply into the fascinating field of Bach’s music and the reasons for his ‘borrowing’, and adaptation within his oeuvre. This book, scrupulously uncontroversial in its manner, contains evidence which upends many established judgements. Whether concerned with Bach’s artistic personality or with details of his performance, this voluminous record, with commentary, of his adaptations, recompositions or transcriptions is an essential work of reference. When it was first published much of the information on the Choralgesänge and the chorals contained in or intended for the Orgelbüchlein was available for the first time in English.
As information flows become increasingly ubiquitous in our post digital environment, the challenges to traditional concepts of intellectual property and the practices deriving from them are immense. The romantic understanding of the lone author as an endless source of new creations has to face these challenges. In order to do so, this work presents a collectivist model of intellectual property rights. The core argument is that since copyright works enjoy profit from significant public contribution, they should not be privately owned, but considered to be a joint enterprise, made real by both the public and author. It is argued that every copyright work depends on and is reflective of the author's exposure to externalities such as language, culture and the various social events and processes that occur in the public domain, therefore copyright works should not be regarded as exclusive private property. The study takes its organizing principle from John Locke, defining and proving the fatal flaw inherent in debates on copyright: on the one hand the copyright community is eager to arm authors with a robust property right over their creation, while on the other this community totally ignores the fact that the exposure of the individual to externalities is what makes him or her capable of creating material that is copyrightable. Just as Locke was against the absolute authority of kings, the expressed view of the study is against the exclusive right an author can claim.
Until recently, issues of intellectual property were relegated to the experts—attorneys, legal scholars, rightsholders, and technology developers who wrangled over interpretations and enforcement of copyright, patent, and trademark protections. But in today's knowledge-based economy, intellectual property protection has taken on fundamentally new proportions, as a subject of urgency for businesses (whose survival depends on protection of their intangible assets) and as a subject of cultural importance that grabs front-page headlines (as the controversy over Napster and high-profile revelations of plagiarism, for example, have illustrated). This landmark set of essays brings new clarity to the issues, as societies around the world grapple with the intricacies and complexities of intellectual property, and its impact on business, law, policy, and culture. Featuring insights from leading scholars and practitioners, Intellectual Property and Information Wealth provides rigorous analysis, historical context, and emerging practical applications from the public, private, and non-profit sectors. Volume 1 focuses on protections to novels, films, sound recordings, computer programs, and other creative products, and covers such issues as authorship, duration of copyright, fair use of copyrighted materials, and the implications of the Internet and peer-to-peer file sharing. Volume 2 explains the fundamental protections to inventors of devices, mechanical processes, chemical compounds, and other inventions, and examines such issues as the scope and limits of patent protection, research exemptions and infringement, IP in the software and biotech industries, and trade secrets. Volume 3 looks at the protections to distinctive symbols and signs, including brand names and unique product designs, and features chapters on consumer protection, trademark and the first amendment, brand licensing, publicity and cultural images, and domain names. Volume 4 takes the discussion to the global level, addressing a wide range of issues, including not only enforcement of IP protections across borders, but also their implications for international trade and investment, economic development, human rights, and public health.
Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who (when we can discern his personality at all) seems so ordinary, so opaque—and occasionally so intemperate? John Eliot Gardiner grew up passing one of the only two authentic portraits of Bach every morning and evening on the stairs of his parents’ house, where it hung for safety during World War II. He has been studying and performing Bach ever since, and is now regarded as one of the composer’s greatest living interpreters. The fruits of this lifetime’s immersion are distilled in this remarkable book, grounded in the most recent Bach scholarship but moving far beyond it, and explaining in wonderful detail the ideas on which Bach drew, how he worked, how his music is constructed, how it achieves its effects—and what it can tell us about Bach the man. Gardiner’s background as a historian has encouraged him to search for ways in which scholarship and performance can cooperate and fruitfully coalesce. This has entailed piecing together the few biographical shards, scrutinizing the music, and watching for those instances when Bach’s personality seems to penetrate the fabric of his notation. Gardiner’s aim is “to give the reader a sense of inhabiting the same experiences and sensations that Bach might have had in the act of music-making. This, I try to show, can help us arrive at a more human likeness discernible in the closely related processes of composing and performing his music.” It is very rare that such an accomplished performer of music should also be a considerable writer and thinker about it. John Eliot Gardiner takes us as deeply into Bach’s works and mind as perhaps words can. The result is a unique book about one of the greatest of all creative artists.
How much time do I have left? A hundred days? A thousand? If I knew I was going to die next week but could be taken to see The Marriage of Figaro tonight, would I go? Absolutely.' In a long and generously lived life, Barry Jones has been on an endless quest to share the extraordinary and the beautiful, to encourage the pursuit of an abundant life of reading and listening. Following the publication of A Thinking Reed, he was staggered by the response to his lists of the great works that have had the most profound effect on his life and thinking. Here he expands on those lists to write about the literature and the music that has inspired him. With no claims to objectivity, he urges us to take the plunge, to rattle the bars of the cage and expose ourselves to the music of Hildegard of Bingen, Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Mahler, Ravel and Stravinsky as well as the writings of Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Sterne, Tolstoy, Proust, Joyce, and Beckett among many more. Eagerly awaited by his many followers, The Shock of Recognition is a deeply considered, richly rewarding and often very funny journey of the mind.
