Johann Sebastian Bach As His World Knew Him

Description

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Customer Reviews

An Excellent Biography of Bach for the Non-Specialist Reader
Every six months or so I find myself in a 'Bach period'; that is to say, I become immersed in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and don't seem to want any other kind of music for a while. I'm in the midst of one of these periods as I write this review. I came across this 1995 book at my local library and have been utterly delighted by it. Otto Bettmann, the author, is a non-musician who is best known for having founded the Bettmann Archive - you've seen its cutline hundreds of times alongside pictures in books and magazines - a comprehensive collection of historic pictures. He was born in Leipzig and in his childhood lived in a house across the street from the Thomaskirche where Bach spent twenty-seven years as Cantor. He even sang in the Thomaskirche boys' choir as a youth.

The lavishly illustrated 235-page book is organized like an encyclopedia with one- or two-page articles arranged alphabetically by subject. They cover the range of Bach's life and activities from 'Abendmusik' (the regular musical soirée held by Buxtehude in Lübeck where Bach visited and stayed four months) to 'Zeitgeist' (an article about the spirit of the times in which Bach lived and worked). Other representative articles include such topics as 'Anhalt-Cöthen,' 'Cantor or Capellmeister?,' 'Fugal Wizardry,' 'Goldberg Variations,' 'Kaffee Kantate,' 'Money Matters,' 'Organist Supreme,' 'Quaffing,' 'Summation Works,' 'Wanderlust,' among many others. One may read the book straight through or dip into it here and there; each method has its rewards. Bettmann's prose style is relaxed, entertaining, often wry, and yet factually solid and coherent. He repeatedly makes the point that Bach was a much livelier person than the usual picture we have of him as the stern Cantor of Leipzig.

Also included are a pleasant foreword by Martin Bookspan who, among other things, sings the praises of Otto Bettmann (who, by the way, wrote this book when he was in his 90s!; he died in 1998 at 95), a glossary of musical terms, a chronology of Bach's life, an index and an extensive bibliography.

This book is perfect for the general reader who doesn't have the background or the patience to read the more scholarly books on Bach by such illustrious biographers as Philipp Spitta, Albert Schweitzer, Karl Geiringer, or Christoph Wolff.

Scott Morrison

2004-04-04 (Middlebury VT, USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Inventions and Sinfonias: Two- and Three-Part Inventions (Alfred Masterwork Edition)

Product Details

• Acclimatize: NEW
• Notes: Marque New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• ISBN13: 9780882846262

Description

Students, teachers and professional pianists will find this volume invaluable. This historically accurate edition contains a wealth of background information on ornamentation, dotted rhythms in the Baroque style, and the recommended tempos and guidelines for performing the works on the piano. Bach's writing is carefully separated from the editorial suggestions in light gray print. A wealth of footnotes compare the various sources consulted. 116 pages.

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Customer Reviews

A favorite for Bach studies, but not for me personally
While a lot of people say that the Alfred edition of sheet music is the optimal tool for learning the classics, this edition disappointed me. Now, the things that I had problems with are things that others might actually like.

First, I find the alternate fingerings distracting. As a player, I look at the treble and bass cleft and then the fingerings, so that's three things I'm looking at. When I look to the fingering and see an extra set of fingerings in parenthesis above the first set, it confuses my hands too much. I can see how others would appreciate that there are alternate fingerings, so that they would be able to see what feels most comfortable, though, it's just too distracting for me.

Also, I thought that the additions of exactly how to trill and such were a little too much and I found them to be, again, distracting. However, I could definitely see how someone who needs that explanation benefiting from having it spelled out for them.

Over all, I think this is an excellent book and it certainly delivers a very comprehensive way to teach yourself how to play Bach's Inventions (I haven't even glanced over the Sinfonias as I was only interested in the Inventions). I just would prefer my music to look as clean and simple as possible. There's already enough going on in my head as it is when I sit down to play a piece of music. All the notes and such just serve to clutter it, in my experience.

I am very aware that I am NOT the majority of people on this belief, though. Many of my friends have this exact book and they love it and the things I have a problem with are the things that they love about it. So, find what works for you. If a lot of extra stuff on the page won't distract you and will actually help you, then by all means, this is definitely a great buy.

It's also a very good price for what you get.

2008-04-09 (CONWAY, AR United States) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 3

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371 Harmonized Chorales and 69 Chorale Melodies with Figured Bass: Piano Solo (Piano Method)

Product Details

• Published by G. Schirmer, Inc.
• 166 Pages

Description

The great Baroque master composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) wrote music for every combination of instruments and voices. His simplest and purest work are four-part chorale compositions and settings, so perfectly constructed that they evoke meditative spirituality. "Figured bass" was a Baroque system of notating harmony. In addition 371 chorales, this collection includes 69 melodies with figured bass. This classic Schirmer edition, edited by Albert Riemenschneider, has sold over 1,000,000 copies since its release in the early 20th century. Primarily for keyboard, the chorales can also be played by other instruments.

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Customer Reviews

very happy
This book is a school of music its self.Learning to play, sing, transpose and analyse the Bach chorals can become an everyday practice that helps the improoving of musical skills, creativity, musical imagination and even your composing technic.

2009-07-19 (Cyprus) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Excellent
Amazon took care of the problem I had with a previous seller and the results were great! Thanks.

2009-05-26 | Musician (Tijuana, Mex) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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J.S. Bach's Chorales
The copy of this highly useful collection of J.S. Bach's chorales that I purchased in 1964 finally collapsed from fatigue. I am delighted to find such an affordable replacement. The chorales are simply beautiful music. As well, they provide a plethora of material to analyze and with which to hone one's harmonic skills.

N.B., The editor Riemenschneider also acted as the editor-in-chief of the "Methodist Hymnal" of the, then, Methodist Church (now, the United Methodist Church). To my knowledge, it is the only edition of the Methodist hymnal to begin with Dyke's "Holy, Holy, Holy" instead of Charles Wesley's "O For A Thousand Tongues".

2009-04-03 | Nierhumbring (Memphis) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Still Waiting
I ordered this item over a month ago, and I am STILL waiting for it. I've emailed the seller roughly two weeks ago, and they have not gotten back to me as of yet. I would NOT recommend this retailer.

As for the book itself... I am still looking forward to receiving it. I know it will be a very valuable resource.

2009-03-02 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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Music Nut
I needed to review these chorales for my own personal understanding. The book was great!

2008-11-25 | Jolly Judy (Villa Ridge, Missouri) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780393322569
• Prerequisite: NEW
• <a title='Condition Guide' href='/content/Condition_and_S hipping_Guide.htm' target='_blank'>Click here to assess our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices</a>
• Notes: Manufacturer New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Description

Finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. A landmark biography of Bach on the 250th anniversary of the composer's death, written by the leading Bach scholar of our age. Although we have heard the music of J. S. Bach in countless performances and recordings, the composer himself still comes across only as an enigmatic figure in a single familiar portrait. As we mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, author Christoph Wolff presents a new picture that brings to life this towering figure of the Baroque era. This engaging new biography portrays Bach as the living, breathing, and sometimes imperfect human being that he was, while bringing to bear all the advances of the last half-century of Bach scholarship. Wolff demonstrates the intimate connection between the composer's life and his music, showing how Bach's superb inventiveness pervaded his career as musician, composer, performer, scholar, and teacher. And throughout, we see Bach in the broader context of his time: its institutions, traditions, and influences. With this highly readable book, Wolff sets a new standard for Bach biography. 42 b/w illustrations.

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The Learned Musician is an apt subtitle for this intellectual biography, which assesses the career of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) with the scholarly rigor one would expect from a Harvard professor. Opening with a 1737 attack by a critic who labeled Bach a pedant who spoiled the natural beauty of his creations with "an excess of art," Christoph Wolff cogently compares the German composer to English scientist Isaac Newton. Both men "brought about fundamental changes and established new principles" in their chosen fields, he argues; both sought to reveal God's harmonious ordering of their world. While Wolff conscientiously covers the basics of Bach's life, including his two marriages and the musical achievements of his gifted family, the author's primary focus is on his performing (Bach was an unrivaled organist) and composing. From the Goldberg Variations through the Brandenburg Concertos to Art of the Fugue, Wolff carefully analyzes Bach's innovations in harmony and counterpoint, placing them in the context of European musical and social history rendered in nicely atmospheric detail. Casual readers may find this dense tome a bit daunting, but serious music lovers will relish the deeper understanding it conveys of a genius who transformed Western music. --Wendy Smith

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Customer Reviews

Bach for Scholars
Bought for my wife...she reads a lot of biographies & this one was
so detailed as to make it difficult to read unless you're a Bach scholar.
Too much info that she did not need...maybe fine for someone needing the
intimate details of Bach's life to the level of nausea though.

2010-02-12 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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The archaeology of Bach: Much From Little
The great problem we face, studying Bach, is that there are only a few records from his life from which to construct a biography. And, perhaps, half his prodigious music is lost. Bach musicology is its own academic sub specialty and Wolff one of Bach's better known and scholarly biographers. The difficulty must always be trying to tease out inferences from so little extant material and piece together some kind of fabric that provides insight into such profound music. Wolff's attention to detail and his ability to draw threads from such slim pickings are the skills of the archaeologist who can "read" into seemingly nothing, something which may prove significant as the pieces come together. This makes his biography both enlightening and, at times, tedious. I found it worth the effort, because Wolff does draw a coherent and well articulated picture of the man and the inspiration for his music. As long as you can be discerning about when to skip the non essential details and redundant repetitions...Very worth while even for the non academic non specialist.

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician

2010-02-10 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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The Best Biography I've Ever Read on Herr Bach!
Reading this biography, I found out even more about the Master than I had ever read about before from other sources! Mr. Wolff is to be congratulated for his efforts in brining more facts to light about "old" Bach. His writing sets up the atmosphere in which Bach and his predecessors and descendants lived and worked in. You can almost see and hear all the activity of Bach's father's house when he was a child: musicians, students and instrument makers coming and going all day long. Bach himself was just totally immersed in this environment and besides his family heritage for being musicians, how else could have been anything else but a musician and one of the world's greatest composers of ALL time?
The 17th Century and first half of the 18th was certainly a "golden age" for anyone who had definite talent and ability. IT seems in those times that people weren't interested so much in a person's "credentials" as they were in if they could simply carry out the duties of an organist/choir director or capellmeister. You can play and compose? You were hired. Unlike today when everyone is trying to impress the rest of us with how many "little letters" they have after their name and how many "institutions" that they've studied at.
The author states, when he covers Bach's Leipzig years, states that he must have worked on the average of about 16 hours a day, or thereabouts. Composing, private music lessons for his own children and Thomas Schule students, rehearsals with the Collegium Musicum, drafting and composing a new cantata EVERY week, and then the general running of his domestic household. And STILL he found time to father 22 children by two wives. Enough said on that matter.
The author also presents Bach and his life in a more positive light than other sources that I've read from. He shows that Bach wasn't so much the isolated mystic as some other authors have portrayed him. He was in constant contact and good friends with some of the leading composers of the day such as Weiss, Hasse, Zelenka, Telemann, not to mention his famously lengthy visit with Dietrich Buxtehude. Unfortunately, on three separate occasions, Bach missed meeting Handel.
Long and short of it: buy this book and just enjoy reading it. It's lively and informative and really puts Bach life in perspective with his music.

2010-01-08 | Liber Magister (Warren, MI) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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ok
this book is boring because it continuously goes on loose association and tangents about the envoironment of his time and makes it difficult to follow. Perhaps people think that makes it good. But I think it makes it hard to follow and read.

2009-12-31 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Pretty dreadful
2 1/2 stars.

I have a strict rule about reading books -- if I start it, I finish it and I read three books per week on the average and have done so for many years, all genres.

In this instance, I wanted to read a really intricate biography of J.S. Bach and landed on this one which I obtained through the public library. I could not finish it. It's only the second book in the past ten years which I've had to close prematurely. After enduring the first 100 pages, I threw in the towel because reading this material was as boring as watching concrete dry.

Don't get me wrong, the detailed information is in here for those who can bear it. That's why I'm awarding 2 1/2 stars instead of one star. It's the author's writing style and the mountain of "data" which turns off the reader. This is sad because a skilled and articulate writer could have taken the information found herein and developed a first-class biography. To me, this work is more of a "compilation of facts."

I'm presently commencing my eighth reading of Tolstoy's "War and Peace," (these are English Translations -- there are currently 12) so lengthy books do not discourage me in the slightest. But if you want a biography of J.S. Bach for reading pleasure, I cannot recommend this one. It might be okay for musical student research work.

Not Recommended.

2009-04-23 | The Old Grottomaster (Lucasville, OH USA) | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 2

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First Lessons in Bach, Complete: For the Piano

Description

Books I and II of this traditional edition of Musical Classics have been combined in an affordable new volume. An excellent resource for Late Elementary to Early Intermediate pianists.

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Customer Reviews

The Place to Begin for Bach (or any Classical Music)
Let me start with an embarrassing admission. I've been playing piano for nearly thirty years. I'm intermediate. I can tackle some intermediate/advanced material, like Michael Nyman's pieces from The Piano. But when I took lessons years ago (only four years), I never took scales or classical music seriously. Thus, I can play pop rock, soundtrack music, and certain expressive classical pieces, but solid, finger-strengthening, mind-puzzling classical pieces I avoided.

Now, at thirty-eight, I'm starting over, and I'm embarrassed to say that I really need to practice these pieces! They make my mind work. I need to concentrate on fingering. I'm proud to be humbled because I'd love to work my way up to playing Bach inventions, variations, preludes and stuff, but I never had the background or training. These simple pieces, designed for young pupils, are great for old or young. They are "songs" in their own right, so you won't be bored. And they subtly introduce all matters of technique (stuff that I never got or never took seriously). I cannot recommend more highly this "First Lessons" book as a place to begin. Once you make it through this book (both Book 1 and Book 2), you'll be ready to tackle more challenging pieces found elsewhere.

2009-10-08 (Palma de Mallorca, Spain) | Helpful Votes: 10 | Rating: 5

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Music to tame the beast within
I keep returning to this simple piece. Finding solace of great magnitude, in its simplicity. One of my favorite pieces other than Schubert and of course Beethoven.

2009-06-16 | mazeofbooks (janesville,wi) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Why not get young students started on Bach?
With such emphasis placed on piano methods these days, it's easy to forget that old standards, like these little Bach pieces, provide rich musical material for students. I highly recommend infusing the young pianist's curriculum with Bach.

2009-03-09 (USA) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 5

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Great BACH lessons
Compared with other BACH piano books, the arrangement in this book is superior. Schirmer has done a great job on composing each Bach number in this book. Highly recommend for piano students who are interested in Bach.

2008-10-07 | mother of a pianist | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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good few pages ... and a bit more ...
never having been a pianist of any quality (i learned what i know of piano 30 years ago in music theory classes in atlanta), and being unfortunately retired (meaning easily bored), i bought a midi keyboard, the chopin nocturnes (which i used to play !) and this book. the chopin nocturnes are still a bit beyond me, but the easy bach is great - to the point i am recording variations on the famous bouree for multitrack midi in garageband on my imac here. wish for more, of course. then, back to chopin !

2008-09-23 | - r (raleigh, nc USA) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 4

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First Lessons in Bach (Alfred Masterwork Edition)

Description

Willard A. Palmer updates this popular volume by turn-of-the-century British educator, Walter Carroll. The easiest keyboard works of J.S. Bach and others are presented primarily as Carroll edited them, with complete fingering, tempo, dynamic, and articulation markings. Improvements over Carroll's edition include wider line spacing and the restoration of Bach's ornaments that were previously omitted.

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Customer Reviews

Everything perfect
B"H
Everything was perfect! The product arrived promptly, in perfect shape, and the price was the lowest I've seen anywhere.
Great in every way; I'd definitely buy from them again!

2009-07-20 | Mommy (Brooklyn, NY USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Good intro to Bach classics.
Good job in presenting simple Bach tunes. Playable and good size print and format.

2009-03-27 (Alexandria, VA United States) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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excellent resource
This is a wonderful collection of easy pieces for a student, or just something you can pick up and home and play when you don't have a lot of time to practice.

2008-10-30 | 1smartmom (USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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beginning classical
This is a great book for all beginner piano students. The easy classical favorites are a great way to introduce classical piano to young musicians.

2007-11-02 (Philadelphia, Pa) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 4

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Good for beginning adults
I played piano for my entire childhood and adolescence, but gave it up over ten years ago now. I am trying to teach myself how to play again, and this book has been a great re-introduction. The songs are simple and accessible, but not "mary had a little lamb" or "when the saints go marching in," which is what you'll find even in the alfred's adult beginner books...I'd even venture to say that some of the songs are quite beautiful. That said, the level is a bit more advanced than the Alfred's beginner books, so if it's your first go-round with piano, I might still start there.

I'm also trying to learn theory, and the simplicity of these songs makes them pretty easy to analyze - although the theory is not always that obvious for a beginner.

I'd also recommend "Twenty Easy and Progressive Studies for the Piano", which is for a similar level, but the theory is more obvious, so you can go through and see why certain songs use certain notes. The songs aren't as nice, but they're still enjoyable to play and you don't feel like *such* an idiot when the downstairs neighbors hear you practicing. :)

2007-08-26 (CA United States) | Helpful Votes: 15 | Rating: 5

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