| Contents |
Part I. Constraints of history on interpretation. Bach against modernity ; Bach's handwritten entries in his Bible -- Part II. Brief commentaries. Fractal gavottes and the ephemeral world in Bach's Cantata 64 ; Time and eternities in Bach's Cantata 23 ; Bach's Christmas oratorio and a blessed end ; Bach and art and Mammon -- Part III. Texts. Historically informed renderings of the librettos from Bach's cantatas / Michael Marissen with coauthor Daniel R. Melamed -- Part IV. Jews and Judaism. On the Jews and their so-called lies in the Fourth Gospel and Bach's St. John Passion ; Bach and sons in the Jewish salon culture of nineteenth-century Berlin -- Part V. Theological character of secular instrumental music. Bach's sacred Brandenburg concertos ; The serious nature of the quodlibet in Bach's Goldberg variations. |
| Abstract |
Many scholars and music lovers hold that Johann Sebastian Bach is a "modern" figure, as his music seems to speak directly to the aesthetic and spiritual or emotional concerns of today's listeners. This collection of essays suggests that by the standards of what eighteenth-century thinkers believed to be forward-looking and modern, Bach and his music in fact reflected and forcefully promoted a premodern world and life view. Part I of the book concerns problems of inattentiveness to historical considerations in academic and popular writing about Bach's relation to the present. Part II puts foward brief interpretive reassessments of key individual works by Bach. Part III examines problems in modern comprehension of the partly archaic German texts that Bach set to music. Part IV explores Bach's music in relation to premodern versus more enlightened attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. And Part V enquires into the theological character of Bach's secular instrumental music. The bottom-line judgment is that while we are arguably free to make use of Bach and his music in whatever new ways we find fitting, we ought also to be on the ethical alert for a kind of cultural narcissism in which we end up miscasting Bach in our own ideological image and proclaiming the authenticity of that image, and hence its prestige value, in support of our own agendas. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-179) and indexes. |
| Language | Chiefly in English; vocal texts in German with English translation. |
| LCCN | 2023933378 |
| ISBN | 9780197669495 hardback |
| ISBN | 0197669492 hardback |
| ISBN | 9780197669501 |
| ISBN | 0197669506 |
| ISBN | 9780197669525 |
| ISBN | 0197669522 |
| ISBN | epub |
