- Taschenbuch: 368 Seiten
- Verlag: Harper Perennial; Auflage: Reprint (28. Februar 2006)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0007156618
- ISBN-13: 978-0007156610
- Größe und/oder Gewicht: 20,5 x 13,6 x 2,3 cm
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Amazon Bestseller-Rang:
Nr. 156.828 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)
- Nr. 62 in Englische Bücher > Geschichte > Weltgeschichte > 18. Jahrhundert
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Produktbeschreibungen
Amazon.com
In his lively history, Evening in the Palace of Reason, James R. Gaines sets two remarkable--and remarkably different--historical figures on a collision course toward a single night in Potsdam in 1747: the composer Johann Sebastian Bach--"old Bach," as he was called then at the age of 62--and the still-young Prussian king, Frederick II, already known as Frederick the Great after less than a decade on the throne. Having long employed old Bach's son Carl--a more celebrated composer at the time--Frederick summoned the father from Leipzig and challenged him, with an offhanded cruelty, to a public compositional puzzle designed to humiliate the great wizard of the waning art of counterpoint.
Gaines is a pleasant guide through the incestuous patchwork monarchies of middle Europe, with a breezy tone fitting for a former editor of People. ("The Hohenzollerns were a funny bunch," he writes at one point.) But he is also a passionately learned student of the intricacies of the era's musical theories and the secret languages of its coded compositions. (One is thankful that he and his publisher resisted calling the book The Bach Code.) Gaines leads up to his pivotal encounter with a double biography of his two principals, told in alternating chapters. Bach's mostly homebound life, which left few documents for historians, is often no match for the grotesque dramas of Frederick's parallel story, which climaxes when his father the king forces Frederick to witness the execution of his best friend (and perhaps lover). The weight that keeps the two stories in balance is the genius of Bach's work, particularly the masterful Musical Offering that he composes in response to the king's challenge. The encounter itself may not bear the full burden that Gaines wants to give it, as a clash between two epochal worldviews, the faith of the Reformation versus the rationalism of the Enlightenment, but the two life stories he so vividly describes make the journey there more than worthwhile. --Tom Nissley -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
From Booklist
In 1747, Bach met Frederick the Great; it was not a meeting of the minds. Gaines searches for the reasons behind the encounter in this book, which is part musicology, part dual biography. His exploration is clever without being frivolous, and explanatory without being effete. Formerly a magazine editor in the Time-Warner empire, Gaines writes very accessibly about classical music. He doesn't smother his topic in scholasticism, communicating his main idea that Bach's music is emphatically "message" music, that is, aural expressions of Lutheran theology. By contrast, Frederick, 27 years younger than Bach, regarded music as entertainment. Indeed, Frederick's choleric royal father thought music was effeminate and expressed his disapproval by beating Frederick and executing one of his friends. Thus Frederick brought a misanthropic cynicism to his night with Bach and thought it would be fun to embarrass the kapellmeister. In Gaines' rendition, Bach turned the tables and defied earthly power with one of his great works, Musical Offering. A marvelous story that will captivate the classical-music audience. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
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Einleitungssatz
FREDERICK THE GREAT HAD ALWAYS LOVED TO PLAY the flute, which was one of the qualities in him that his father most despised. Lesen Sie die erste Seite
Buchdeckel | Copyright | Inhaltsverzeichnis | Auszug | Stichwortverzeichnis | Rückseite
FREDERICK THE GREAT HAD ALWAYS LOVED TO PLAY the flute, which was one of the qualities in him that his father most despised. Lesen Sie die erste Seite
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42 Rezensionen
88 von 92 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Wonderful, wonderful book
3. März 2005
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
I have been playing Bach all my life, I have read everything about him, and I have never come across a book that brought him so vividly alive. I honestly never knew who he was before this book. I never quite understood the forces that motivated him, how and why his music could be as moving as it is, how he could have maintained such integrity in such adverse circumstances (his own sons were against him!), why he was so dismissed during his life. Now I understand that, and a great deal more. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It changed my view of Bach and in a way my view of why the world we live in is the way it is.
56 von 61 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
The Revenge of Genius
4. Mai 2005
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe|Von Amazon bestätigter Kauf
"Evening in the Palace of Reason" explores Bach's Musical Offering in incredible depth. What brought forth Bach's "Offering" of such unimaginable complexity? An annoyed genius--you just have to love that. For years I have read biography after biography (with one sterling exception--see my early reviews) that portray Bach as a kind of small town savant who was later and fortunately "discovered." Oh, so far from the truth...
Mr. Gaines reminds us that Bach was at the very center of his world--that Bach embodied the ideals of the Baroque. For this reason the juxtaposition of Bach and Frederick the Great is an excellent vehicle for demonstrating the ideas that were the power behind Bach's transcendent music. The reader is shown that Bach was no less a King in his own fashion than was Frederick--instead of armies to project power, Bach had an absolute mastery of musical art that despite the passage of 250 years still speaks to billions of people. What this book convincingly argues is that Bach was quite aware of his power and the supremacy of his beliefs and that he used the Offering to send a message.
In visiting Frederick's palace, Bach not only accepted the challenge he knew was coming but he so conquered the rigged game that the other side figuratively left and went home. I had no idea how messed up King Frederick really was, even if he could play a passable flute--this is the kind of "x-files" history that puts the great ideas of history in context and is fun to read.
In reviewing the aged Bach's life, Mr. Gaines leads one to consider the loneliness of a man who knew that he could speak a language of eternal beauty that few people had the patience to hear. We all know that Bach had a temper and demanded excellence from students and justice from his employers; however, in reading this book we are introduced to the mature Bach so confident in his power that he delivered a clear rebuke to a King.
Mr. Gaines makes a compelling argument that perhaps our culture could stand to return to those absolute truths that so moved Bach. That constraint and limitations can bring forth sublime creations denied to those who throw off the perceived shackles of convention. Highly recommended and a must-read for any disciple of Bach.
Mr. Gaines reminds us that Bach was at the very center of his world--that Bach embodied the ideals of the Baroque. For this reason the juxtaposition of Bach and Frederick the Great is an excellent vehicle for demonstrating the ideas that were the power behind Bach's transcendent music. The reader is shown that Bach was no less a King in his own fashion than was Frederick--instead of armies to project power, Bach had an absolute mastery of musical art that despite the passage of 250 years still speaks to billions of people. What this book convincingly argues is that Bach was quite aware of his power and the supremacy of his beliefs and that he used the Offering to send a message.
In visiting Frederick's palace, Bach not only accepted the challenge he knew was coming but he so conquered the rigged game that the other side figuratively left and went home. I had no idea how messed up King Frederick really was, even if he could play a passable flute--this is the kind of "x-files" history that puts the great ideas of history in context and is fun to read.
In reviewing the aged Bach's life, Mr. Gaines leads one to consider the loneliness of a man who knew that he could speak a language of eternal beauty that few people had the patience to hear. We all know that Bach had a temper and demanded excellence from students and justice from his employers; however, in reading this book we are introduced to the mature Bach so confident in his power that he delivered a clear rebuke to a King.
Mr. Gaines makes a compelling argument that perhaps our culture could stand to return to those absolute truths that so moved Bach. That constraint and limitations can bring forth sublime creations denied to those who throw off the perceived shackles of convention. Highly recommended and a must-read for any disciple of Bach.
20 von 21 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
an extraordinary experience
11. Januar 2007
Format:Taschenbuch|Von Amazon bestätigter Kauf
This is one of the great books of a lifetime, a book of soaring imagination, history, and some of the finest writing I've ever encountered. More Bach comes through in these luminous pages of a one-night encounter with Frederick the Great than is found in a dozen books of Bach 'scholarship'. While the book's 'premise' concerns Frederick's challenge to 'old Bach' that resulted in his composing 'A Musical Offering', James Gaines' exploration of Bach's mind and life and faith, and, indeed, his music, is so attuned, so wondrously rendered in the most engaging prose imaginable that any plot artifice is right away overwhelmed with a dire, burning truth, and never leaves it. It really is a book too rich to be 'reviewed'. Impossible? Check it for yourself. There are pages and pages of such fineness, such pleasure that one can only experience it, and be changed and renewed in love for 'old Bach'. One example - chapter 6 (The Sharp Edges of Genius), detailing Bach's famous funeral cantata 'Actus tragicus' (BVW 106), offers not only a brilliant summation of its musical parts, but is, immediately and ultimately, a moving, unforgettable rumination on the great meaning of Bach and his music, indeed, of the human experience in its divine dimensions unlike any I've come across. I'm a man lost for superlatives to express the importance, the resonating beauty of an amazing book. I've given this book to many friends, each in turn has confirmed my trust that this is one of the great books of a lifetime. You'll want for nothing within these pages - Bach's music, his towering mastery, his orneriness and orderliness, his divine business, and an unshakable look deep into our common human history. It's a book of discovery and confirmation. Evening in the Palace of Reason will change your life. No other 'recommendation' suffices.
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