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Title: Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician by Christoph Wolff ISBN: 0-393-32256-4 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Bach biography
Comment: This is unquestionably the single volume Bach biography for non-specialists, although musicologists will find it invaluable as well. Wolff has done a lot of debunking of various Bach myths (i.e., "Bach died while writing the final fugue in Art of Fugue, and dictated the chorale in his last breath"), but stilll has never lost his sense of wonder about this giant. Wolff also does a better job than most of placing Bach in European intellectual history as a whole, not just musical history. His comparison of Bach to Newton, while not original, is apt and insightful. The best thing about this book, however, is that it led me back to the music with several new insights. For example, Wolff's analysis of the famous d minor tocatta (BWV 565) led me to realize just how advanced this very early work is. Highly reccomended.
Rating: 5
Summary: A scholarly masterpiece worthy of your intelligence!
Comment: This book is most ostensibly not a work intended to provide a layman's knowledge of Bach. The book assumes a fair knowledge of Bach and his oeuvre, as well as a thorough knowledge of music theory and general instrumentation. Cristoph Wolff has written a thoroughly satisfying and extraordinarily comprehensive summary of Bach's professional and personal lives. I found that despite the book's intrinsically serious tone, reading it as a whole felt not like a biography, but a story that us Bach fanatics wish would never end.
This book is thoroughly impressive in both its scope and its detail, though the numerous tables cataloguing Bach's work from the various periods such as Weimar and Cothen are not as well integrated in text as one might hope. Where Wolff makes the occasional reference to the tables, I as the reader desired to see more comparison and analysis of various works in each period.
It is also immediately apparent upon even a glance through the index that Wolff dedicates much of his analysis of Bach's major works to Bach's vocal music, and notably less space to Bach's instrumental and keyboard/organ music. As we know, Bach's Fugue "the Great" in G minor, BWV 542, is a towering masterpiece of Bach's (and Baroque) organ music, but Wolff hardly affords it the analysis it demands. He also neglects to develop much depth of analysis with Bach's instrumental works. For example, we know that nearly all of Bach's solo and multiple piano concerti have their roots in previous concerti, but little attention is paid as to why Bach chose to transcribe to piano(harpsichord), why he selected the works he did, and whether there is a distinct method/pattern to Bach's transcriptions.
Wolff does do, however, an exquisite job of analysis of Bach's vocal music, exploring the depth of Bach's passion for writing cantatas, and how skillfully he was able to interpet his vision of the words into music. Wolff provides numerous glimpses of Bach's organ expertise, especially in the field of repair and construction. These descriptions do require some prior knowledge of how an organ produces sound and how it is played in order to be enjoyed to the fullest. The book also does a magnificient job of exploring and relating the various and primary influences on Bach's musical development and style. Wolff provides an insight into the influence of Dietrich Buxtehude especially, as well as that of Johann Pachelbel and the numerous older Bach relations. Much has been heaped upon Mozart's child prodigy fame, but even those of us for whom Bach is a perpetual favorite, know little about Bach's formative years, and Wolff gives a very comprehensive look at Bach's musical training.
Wolff's small digressions notwithstanding, this book is truly one every lover of Bach should keep in his library. (And reread every so often!)
Rating: 4
Summary: Detailed and Learned but Ultimately Unrewarding
Comment: This is a very detailed book covering a great deal about the life of Bach. A great deal of insight is on offer regarding the great man's life and times as well as the likely basis under which he produced his work. I have found that reading and re-reading this book has significantly enahnced my understanding of Bach's world - Thuringia in the first half of the 18th century.
There is more detail here in terms of how Bach lived and his day to day relations, both personal and professional, than anyone could possibly need. In terms of factual aspects concerning Bach and his life one could not expect or need anything more that this book and in this regard the book is successful; Christolph Wolff has been more than thorough in his research. So many points of detail are listed that I thought that I would come across one of Bach's laundry lists if I read for long enough. It could be said that there is actually too much detail here which doesn't significantly more forward one's understanding of Bach the man or Bach the musician. However, in an academic book such as this it is generally accepted that a surfeit of information does not constitute a lapse of quality. Concise is not an adjective which could be applied to the author.
However, there are two drawbacks for me in this book. The first is a relatively minor point but the second is very significant.
The first drawback is that the content of the book is, at times, meandering. Wolff seems to move around subjects and themes within a single chapter leaving the reader confused and unsatisfied. While there is plenty of information - sometimes too much even - the underlying structure is confused and confusing. This can appear as a meandering text which sometimes seems to lose the idea of the point it is pursuing. This is more a matter of style than an outright criticim however.
The second drawback is far more significant for me. Most people who would go to the extent of buying and reading this book would have a specific interest in Bach; that is his music represents something special to them. Many such readers will view Bach as a great genius; I am in that camp myself, no doubt so is Christolph Wolff. The main point about Bach is his musical, expecially compositorial skill. Why then is there no analysis of Bach's genius? How and where did it originate and how did it develop in his lifetime? How, in the view of the author, does Bach's genius manifest itself in his works. What is it about Bach which has raised his work to such an exalted level - how is this different to his contemporaries? The author scant regard to where Bach's creativity ebb and flow and how this manifested itself in his work. Little effort seems to be made in this book to consider the work of Bach in terms of how it could be analysed and contrasted - surely this is of primary importance in understanding Bach and his music.
I'm afraid that the dry factual/quantative approach which Wolff takes with regard to Bach's creative process is ultimately unrewarding for me. Most people who listen to Bach would be interested to hear the different musical aspects of, say the Masses. Why is the B Minor Mass considered great and how could it be compared in musical terms to the Mass in F for instance.
Which of Bach's cantatas are the ones to focus on when trying to expand one's understanding of his oeuvre? Merely listing the various Cantata cycles is not sufficient in terms of understanding the qualitative aspects of the music.
While this book gets behind the day to day Bach it does not give any insight into the creative core of Bach. This is certainly not easy given the essentially unknowable aspects of creative genius and the elapsed time since Bach's life - however I would have appreciated some effort on this front.
No book can serve the purposes of all potential readers and what this book covers it does in quality and detail. However an analysis of Bach's life should never be divorced from an analysis of his genius which the author seems to have done here.
Christolph Wolff is clearly a man who understands the life and times of Bach in great detail but I would have preferred to see more focus on the qualitative aspects of Bachs music.
In summary, then an informative and useful factual book but one which misses the opportunity to inform the reader as to the practicalities of the works of the great genius Bach.
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Title: The New Bach Reader by Hans T. David, Arthur Mendel, Chirstoph Wolff ISBN: 0393319563 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Oxford Composer Companion: J.S. Bach (Oxford Composer Companion) by Malcolm Boyd, John Butt ISBN: 0198606206 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Cambridge Companion to Bach (Cambridge Companions to Music) by John Butt ISBN: 0521587808 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1997 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Analyzing Bach Cantatas by Eric Chafe ISBN: 0195161823 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Handel by Christopher Hogwood ISBN: 0500274983 Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: 01 February, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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