Bach (Master Musicians (Paperback Oxford))
by Malcolm Boyd
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Book Summary Information
Author: Malcolm BoydEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-04-20
ISBN: 0195307712
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Bach (Master Musicians (Paperback Oxford))
Book Review: A Fair Read...
Summary: 5 Stars
Malcolm Boyd's Bach is nearly a classic at this point. It's a fair read, but frankly it leaves me a little flat. It's okay, but truth be told, Karl Geiringer's Bach is far, far better.
Summary of Bach (Master Musicians (Paperback Oxford))
Published in its first edition in 1983, Boyd's treatment of this canonical composer is essential reading for students, scholars, and everyone interested in Baroque music. In this third edition, biographical chapters alternate with commentary on the works, to demonstrate how the circumstances of Bach's life helped to shape the music he wrote at various periods. We follow Bach as he travels from Arnstadt and Muhlhausen to Weimar, C�then, and finally Leipzig, these journeys alternating with insightful discussions of the great composer's organ and orchestral compositions. As well as presenting a rounded picture of Bach, his music, and his posthumous reputation and influence, Malcolm Boyd considers the sometimes controversial topics of "parody" and arrangement, number symbolism, and the style and meaning of Bach's late works. Recent theories on the constitution of Bach's performing forces at Leipzig are also present. The text and the appendixes (which include a chronology, personalia, bibliography, and a complete catalogue of Bach's works) were thoroughly revised in this edition to take account of more recent research undertaken by Bach scholars, including the gold mine of new information uncovered in the former USSR.Though he begins by bemoaning "the difficulty of writing anything on Bach remotely worthy of its subject," Malcolm Boyd goes on to do exactly that. This volume from the Master Musicians Series (which also includes Julian Budden on Verdi and Michael Kennedy on Richard Strauss) intermingles chapters on Bach's life with chapters on his music (also roughly chronological) in a delightfully clearheaded way. Boyd is perfectly willing to say whether he finds a piece of music to be substandard and freely takes issue with the scholarship of earlier analysts. Taking nothing for granted, Boyd disproves common assumptions about relative dates of compositions. The section on cantatas begins with brief notes on the genre, a few antecedents, and the subtypes of secular and sacred. Boyd then briskly reviews the surviving works, dwelling on a few for some enlightening and representative details. In "Canons and Counterpoint," he sorts out the Musical Offering in a remarkable few paragraphs before having a go at The Art of the Fugue. Boyd's charts are very easy to follow (appropriate for a composer whose music is often compared to architecture), and his musical examples--especially in the chapter titled "Orchestral, Instrumental, and Keyboard Music"--are spectacularly well chosen. There is room for a few choice incidental observations (e.g., cantatas for the winter months were shorter, sparing the choirboys time in the unheated organ lofts). A 22-page work list (revised in 1997), a life calendar, and a brief chapter on numerology round out a highly rewarding volume. --William R. Braun
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