Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven [Kindle Edition] Author: John Eliot Gardiner | Language: English | ISBN:
B00CNQ7G5G | Format: PDF, EPUB
Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven Free PDFPosts about Download The Book Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven [Kindle Edition] Free PDF from with Mediafire Link Download Link
Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who (when we can discern his personality at all) seems so ordinary, so opaque—and occasionally so intemperate?
John Eliot Gardiner grew up passing one of the only two authentic portraits of Bach every morning and evening on the stairs of his parents’ house, where it hung for safety during World War II. He has been studying and performing Bach ever since, and is now regarded as one of the composer’s greatest living interpreters. The fruits of this lifetime’s immersion are distilled in this remarkable book, grounded in the most recent Bach scholarship but moving far beyond it, and explaining in wonderful detail the ideas on which Bach drew, how he worked, how his music is constructed, how it achieves its effects—and what it can tell us about Bach the man.
Gardiner’s background as a historian has encouraged him to search for ways in which scholarship and performance can cooperate and fruitfully coalesce. This has entailed piecing together the few biographical shards, scrutinizing the music, and watching for those instances when Bach’s personality seems to penetrate the fabric of his notation. Gardiner’s aim is “to give the reader a sense of inhabiting the same experiences and sensations that Bach might have had in the act of music-making. This, I try to show, can help us arrive at a more human likeness discernible in the closely related processes of composing and performing his music.”
It is very rare that such an accomplished performer of music should also be a considerable writer and thinker about it. John Eliot Gardiner takes us as deeply into Bach’s works and mind as perhaps words can. The result is a unique book about one of the greatest of all creative artists.
Download latest books on mediafire and other links compilation Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven [Kindle Edition] Free PDF
- File Size: 18386 KB
- Print Length: 672 pages
- Publisher: Knopf (October 29, 2013)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00CNQ7G5G
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,012 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Classical - #9
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Music > History & Criticism - #18
in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Classical
- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Classical - #9
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Music > History & Criticism - #18
in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Classical
"Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven" by John Eliot Gardiner is well-written biography about one of the greatest composers of all time, whose works are an indispensable part of the world's musical heritage.
John Eliot Gardiner is considered one of the composer's greatest living interpreters who grew up in a family that was entrusted keeping the Bach's portrait made by Bach the Elias Gottlob Haussmann during WW II.
Due to interest in the music that was very important in his family, Gardiner has been studying Bach life and works, making him the perfect person to write this kind of biography book.
Also he very early realized that he needs to study and learn performing Bach's music which is why he became a great interpreter of author's pieces performing them ever since.
Gardiner starts his story with Bach's birth in 1685, his orphanage days when he was 9 years old, start of living with his eldest brother, and beginning of his composer career when he was teenager. Author's opinion is that Bach can thank for his success not only obvious great natural talent but also to the living with his older brother who taught him many difficult life lessons.
The story continues with Bach being awarded the position at the Neukirche in Arnstadt when he was only 18 and soon followed Thomas cantorate in Leipzig...
In his book Gardiner also speaks about the organization of Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, very important cultural and musical event that took place in 2000 for the occasion of the anniversary of 250 years of the Maestro's death.
That was very important event due to the first-time performance of Bach's newly found materials that were owned by the communist DDR and therefore unfamiliar to the world public.
“Aspects of Wagner” by Bryan Magee is by a mile the best intro to the work of that master, and Gardiner's book is in effect “Aspects of Bach” and could well be the best intro to him and his work. Mind you, Magee is succinct where Gardiner is exhaustive (102 and 672 pages respectively) but both leave you wanting to hear the music, which is after all the main point.
Born a Wagnerite I took my time approaching Bach but was getting there slowly until 2005, when BBC Radio 3 decided to play all Bach's works non-stop. A transistor radio was my only source of music at the time and after a week I was ready to buy a sledgehammer and pulverize every harpsichord and oboe in the country. Exit Bach from my listening life. But recently I watched Gardner's excellent tv documentary “Bach - a passionate life” and that made me buy this book. And dig out my B minor mass...
“Music in the Castle of Heaven” is superb in other words, with a couple of caveats, and not nitpicks either.
Gardiner says that that from the Galileo trial on “the Catholic Church confirmed itself as a reactionary bastion against scientific investigation”. Utter rubbish. E.g. Copernicus dedicated his “heliocentric theory” book to Pope Paul III and there was no problem till Galileo started stirring. And how about Abbot Mendel, the father of genetics, and Fr. Teilhard de Chardin, world authority on geology and palaeontology, and Fr. Georges le Maitre, who came up with the Big Bang theory, and the 35 craters on the moon named after Jesuit scientists??? If you’re interested, try the chapter on “The Church and Science” in “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization” by Prof. Thomas Woods.
And then Gardiner says Wagner “was an abominable human being”.
Book Preview
Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven Download
Please Wait...