The secrets of the hidden canons in J.S. Bach's masterpieces
The secrets of the hidden canons in J.S. Bach's masterpieces

Author: Giovanni Pietro Orefice

Publisher: Youcanprint

Published: 2024-02-08

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13:

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Why does J.S. Bach's music deeply resonate in our soul and in our churches like no other one? How can treasures keep hidden in a work that was studied and explored during three centuries?You'll find here the lonely and passionate discovery of marvelous multiple canons structures in many of the famous works of a music history's giant, crowned by surprising revelations, that give some new path of attributing the pieces. The analysis of the historical and cultural context and of some contemporaries' masterpiece let emerge Bach's outstanding earing and compositive talent, explaining his excellence during the organ tournaments. This unveiling is the starting point for a speculative journey using room-acoustics, psycho-acoustics and music performer's practice knowledges to explain why Bach did adopt this compositive strategy, this "secret ingredient" to excel.

Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work
Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work

Author: Christoph Wolff

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2020-03-24

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 0393651797

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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.

Gödel, Escher, Bach
Gödel, Escher, Bach

Author: Douglas R. Hofstadter

Publisher: Penguin Group(CA)

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 832

ISBN-13: 9780140289206

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'What is a self and how can a self come out of inanimate matter?' This is the riddle that drove Douglas Hofstadter to write this extraordinary book. In order to impart his original and personal view on the core mystery of human existence - our intangible sensation of 'I'-ness - Hofstadter defines the playful yet seemingly paradoxical notion of 'strange loop', and explicates this idea using analogies from many disciplines.

New Bach Reader
New Bach Reader

Author: Hans T David

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1999-10-26

Total Pages: 612

ISBN-13: 9780393319569

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'The New Bach Reader' contains a collection of documents intended to bring the composer to life.

The Cello Suites
The Cello Suites

Author: Eric Siblin

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2011-01-04

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0802197973

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An award-winning journey through Johann Sebastian Bach’s six cello suites and the brilliant musician who revealed their lasting genius. One fateful evening, journalist and pop-music critic Eric Siblin attended a recital of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suites—an experience that set him on an epic quest to uncover the mysterious history of the entrancing compositions and their miraculous reemergence nearly two hundred years later. In pursuit of his musicological obsession, Siblin would unravel three centuries of intrigue, politics, and passion. Winner of the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction and the McAuslan First Book Prize, The Cello Suites weaves together three dramatic narratives: the disappearance of Bach’s manuscript in the eighteenth century, Pablo Casals’s discovery and popularization of the music in Spain in the late nineteenth century, and Siblin’s infatuation with the suites in the present day. The search led Siblin to Barcelona, where Casals, just thirteen and in possession of his first cello, roamed the backstreets with his father in search of sheet music and found Bach’s lost suites tucked in a dark corner of a store. Casals played them every day for twelve years before finally performing them in public. Siblin sheds new light on the mysteries that continue to haunt this music more than 250 years after its composer’s death: Why did Bach compose the suites for the cello, then considered a lowly instrument? What happened to the original manuscript? A seamless blend of biography and music history, The Cello Suites is a true-life journey of discovery, fueled by the power of these musical masterpieces. “The ironies of artistic genius and public taste are subtly explored in this winding, entertaining tale of a musical masterpiece.” —Publishers Weekly “Siblin’s writing is most inspired when describing the life of Casals, showing a genuine affection for the cellist, who . . . used his instrument and the suites as weapons of protest and pleas for peace.” —Booklist, starred review

Mahler in Context
Mahler in Context

Author: Charles Youmans

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-11-19

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 1108540147

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Mahler in Context explores the institutions, artists, thinkers, cultural movements, socio-political conditions, and personal relationships that shaped Mahler's creative output. Focusing on the contexts surrounding the artist, the collection provides a sense of the complex crosscurrents against which Mahler was reacting as conductor, composer, and human being. Topics explored include his youth and training, performing career, creative activity, spiritual and philosophical influences, and his reception after his death. Together, this collection of specially commissioned essays offers a wide-ranging investigation of the ecology surrounding Mahler as a composer and a fuller appreciation of the topics that occupied his mind as he conceived his works. Readers will benefit from engagement with lesser known dimensions of Mahler's life. Through this broader contextual approach, this book will serve as a valuable and unique resource for students, scholars, and a general readership.

Evening in the Palace of Reason
Evening in the Palace of Reason

Author: James Gaines

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 0007153937

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Tells the story of the history-making meeting between scorned master composer Johann Sebastian Bach and Prussia's Frederick the Great.

Style and Idea
Style and Idea

Author: Arnold Schoenberg

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1984

Total Pages: 564

ISBN-13: 9780520052949

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One of the most influential collections of music ever published, Style and Idea includes Schoenberg’s writings about himself and his music as well as studies of many other composers and reflections on art and society.