The Cambridge Companion to Bach, first published in 1997, goes beyond a basic life-and-works study to provide a late twentieth-century perspective on J. S. Bach the man and composer. The book is divided into three parts. Part One is concerned with the historical context, the society, beliefs and the world-view of Bach's age. The second part discusses the music and Bach's compositional style, while Part Three considers Bach's influence and the performance and reception of his music through the succeeding generations. This Companion benefits from the insights and research of some of the most distinguished Bach scholars, and from it the reader will gain a notion of the diversity of current thought on this great composer.
A concentrated study of Johann Sebastian Bach’s creative output and greatest pieces, capturing the essence of his art. Throughout his life, renowned and prolific composer Johann Sebastian Bach articulated his views as a composer in purely musical terms; he was notoriously reluctant to write about his life and work. Instead, he methodically organized certain pieces into carefully designed collections. These benchmark works, all of them without parallel or equivalent, produced a steady stream of transformative ideas that stand as paradigms of Bach’s musical art. In this companion volume to his Pulitzer Prize–finalist biography, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, leading Bach scholar Christoph Wolff takes his cue from his famous subject. Wolff delves deeply into the composer’s own rich selection of collected music, cutting across conventional boundaries of era, genre, and instrument. Emerging from a complex and massive oeuvre, Bach’s Musical Universe is a focused discussion of a meaningful selection of compositions—from the famous Well-Tempered Clavier, violin and cello solos, and Brandenburg Concertos to the St. Matthew Passion, Art of Fugue, and B-minor Mass. Unlike any study undertaken before, this book details Bach’s creative process across the various instrumental and vocal genres. This array of compositions illustrates the depth and variety at the essence of the composer’s musical art, as well as his unique approach to composition as a process of imaginative research into the innate potential of his chosen material. Tracing Bach’s evolution as a composer, Wolff compellingly illuminates the ideals and legacy of this giant of classical music in a new, refreshing light for everyone, from the amateur to the virtuoso.
As the official publication of the American Bach Society, Bach Perspectives has pioneered new areas of research in the life, times, and music of Bach since its first appearance in 1995. In a series long known for its major essays by leading Bach scholars and performers, Bach Perspectives, Volume 6 is no exception. This volume opens with Joshua Rifkin's seminal study of the early source history of the B-minor orchestral suite. It not only elaborates on Rifkin's discovery that the work in its present form for solo flute goes back to an earlier version in A minor, ostensibly for solo violin, but also takes this discovery as the point of departure for a wide-ranging discussion of the origins and extent of Bach's output in the area of concerted ensemble music. Jeanne Swack presents an enlightening comparison of Georg Phillip Telemann's and Bach's approach to the French overture as concerted movements in their church cantatas, and Steven Zohn views the B-minor orchestral suite from the standpoint of the "concert en ouverture," responding to Rifkin by suggesting that the early version of the B-minor orchestral suite may also have been scored for flute.
Intended for the music student, the professional musician, and the music lover, Chamber Music: An Essential History covers repertoire from the Renaissance to the present, crossing genres to include string quartets, piano trios, clarinet quintets, and other groupings. Mark A. Radice gives a thorough overview and history of this long-established and beloved genre, typically performed by groups of a size to fit into spaces such as homes or churches and tending originally toward the string and wind instruments rather than percussion. Radice begins with chamber music's earliest expressions in the seventeenth century, discusses its most common elements in terms of instruments and compositional style, and then investigates how those elements play out across several centuries of composers- among them Mozart, Bach, Haydn, and Brahms- and national interpretations of chamber music. While Chamber Music: An Essential History is intended largely as a textbook, it will also find an audience as a companion volume for musicologists and fans of classical music, who may be interested in the background to a familiar and important genre.
In this completely rewritten and updated edition of his long-indispensable study, Malcolm MacDonald takes advantage of 30 years of recent scholarship, new biographical information, and deeper understanding of Schoenberg's aims and significance to produce a superb guide to Schoenberg's life and work. MacDonald demonstrates the indissoluble links among Schoenberg's musical language (particularly the enigmatic and influential twelve-tone method), his personal character, and his creative ideas, as well as the deep connection between his genius as a teacher and as a revolutionary composer. Exploring newly considered influences on the composer's early life, MacDonald offers a fresh perspective on Schoenberg's creative process and the emotional content of his music. For example, as a previously unsuspected source of childhood trauma, the author points to the Vienna Ringtheater disaster of 1881, in which hundreds of people were burned to death, including Schoenberg's uncle and aunt-whose orphaned children were then adopted by Schoenberg's parents. MacDonald brings such experiences to bear on the music itself, examining virtually every work in the oeuvre to demonstrate its vitality and many-sidedness. A chronology of Schoenberg's life, a work-list, an updated bibliography, and a greatly expanded list of personal allusions and references round out the study, and enhance this new edition.
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. Selected unpublished correspondence written between 1903 and 1950 includes the responses of the addressees. Gives a vivid picture of the historical controversies between the composer and other major figures in the field.
More than two centuries after his lifetime, J. S. Bach's work continues to set musical standards. Noted Bach scholar Christoph Wolff offers new perspectives on the composer's life and remarkable career.
