Volume 41, Number 16 · October 6, 1994
Bach's Greatest Hit
By Joseph Kerman
Bachanalia: The Essential Listener's Guide to Bach's 'Well-Tempered Clavier'
by Eric Lewin Altschuler
Little, Brown, 254 pp., $22.95
Where does a Harvard undergraduate science major who has listened to Bach's Well-tempered Clavier 'several thousand times' turn to find a ready ear and encouragement for his singular passion? Not, it appears, to any of the notable musicians on the Harvard faculty, but to the even more notable Stephen Jay Gould, who barely raises an eyebrow and signs Eric Altschuler on as an advisee for two whole years. Altschuler produces a senior thesis, we may suppose, consisting of short accounts of each fugue of 'The Forty-Eight,' as the British call the Well-tempered, together with numerous miscellaneous glosses. He obtains a vigorous preface from his adviser, secures underwriting from two foundations (Ford, Fannie and John Hertz), hires an agent, and sure enough: his unlikely manuscript is taken up by a major trade publisher.
Review, 2014 words
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