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Bach, revealed and unfathomable

ISSN 2308-1333

Review of the book: Гардинер Дж. Э. Музыка в Небесном Граде: Портрет Иоганна Себастьяна Баха / Пер. с англ. Р. Насонова и А. Андрушкевич. М.: Rosebud Publishing, 2019. 928 c.

 

Abstract

The main significance of the fundamental book ‘Music in the Heaven’s Castle. A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach’ by J. E. Gardiner, an outstanding interpreter of early music, seems to be in the presentation of a new view on the personality and work of J. S. Bach. This view takes into account some previous concepts (including the concept of A. Schweitzer, in which Bach is represented as musical rhetorician and theologian), but emphasizes other moments in the self-determination of the composer: Bach's creative ambition, associated with the consistent implementation of his religious mission. Gardiner's concept, painted in undisguised subjective tones, unfolds on the richest historical and musical material concentrated around Bach's church cantatas. The translation of this book into Russian is an important event in Russian musicology.

 

Keywords

J. S. Bach, J. E. Gardiner, A. Schweitzer, Bach-Studies, cantatas, Missa h-moll

Journal
26