Bach: Essays on His Life and Music

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 480 pages
• Published by: Harvard University Press April 1994
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0674059263
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0674059269
• Book Dimensions: 9.7 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 1.8 pounds

From Library Journal
Bach's life and work has been of interest to musicians and scholars for over 200 years. This collection of essays by Wolff ( The New Grove Bach Family , Norton, 1983) illuminates aspects of Bach's life through his music. Written over a 25-year period, the essays are documented in an extensive bibliography and have been updated with postscripts when necessary. Whenever possible, Wolff has gone directly to Bach's manuscripts to form his theses. For example, the question of the final "unfinished" fugue in the "Art of the Fugue" is resolved by notes in Bach's own hand that were revealed by infra-red photography. The book is illustrated with facsimiles, tables, and musical examples. Although it contains considerable technical material, it is largely accessible to the knowledgeable layperson and will be welcomed by serious students and performers. Essential for music libraries and a valuable addition to greater serious music collections.
- Sherry Feintuch, Dauphin Cty . Lib. System, Harrisburg, Pa.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Review
What there is to know about Bach, Christoph Wolff knows. And everything Wolffknows about Bach's life, he has poured into this new and magisterial biographical portrait[Bach] is user-friendly, helpful, and entertainingly informative. Direct and illuminating commentary on Bach's major works, and on the major musical issues that Bach confronted, fill the book[Wolff's] main text surrounds the facts of Bach's life with an invaluable sense of context--additional facts about musical life, courts, patronage, church doctrine, ecclesiastical and municipal politicsWolff has provided every lover of Bach with a book to learn from.
--Richard Dyer (Boston Globe )

Reader Reviews
Then read this book. Christoph Wolff is one of the - if not THE - foremost Bach scholars alive today. His earlier Biography of J.S. Bach is one of the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and readable presentations of the great Master's Life. Now this book of Essays collects shorter articles and speeches Wolff has given over the years, exploring a wide variety of subjects having to do with Bach's music, primarily, as illuminated by recent historical findings and analysis of his music.For instance: 1)did Bach really leave his Art of the Fugue unfinished, or did he actually complete it? 2)What do Bach's own markings on his personal copies of several of his works tell us? 3)How did he adapt an aria from one of the cantatas to have it function as the Agnus Dei in the Mass in B Minor? 4) Who tacked the chorale onto the end of the Art of the Fugue, and why? 5) What does the structure and import of his Musical Offering really imply as a message to Frederick the Great, to whom it was dedicated? Of more interest to the serious musician, who wants to understand in greater depth the art of arguably the greatest composer in the Western World, than to the casually interested reader, this book is a must for any serious lovers and devotees of his music. Comment | | (Report this)