Volume 47, Number 10 · June 15, 2000
In Search of Bach
By Robert L. Marshall
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician
by Christoph Wolff
Norton, 599 pp., $39.95
Johann Sebastian Bach's life was notoriously, frustratingly, uneventful. Born in the eastern German town of Eisenach in 1685, Bach was a family man who all his life resided in small, often provincial, towns. He had a few public triumphs—acclaimed appearances as an organ or keyboard performer in Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, and smaller German cities—but otherwise he hardly traveled. He never went abroad. Bach led a fundamentally private existence devoted to cultivating and perfecting his talent for music, an activity that he considered a divine calling. Beyond his immediate surroundings he apparently had little to do with the intellectual, cultural, or social elite of his time. He had no truly famous friends, or enemies.
Review, 4513 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |