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The ever-increasing number of performances of Bach's music is a sign of its enduring vitality. But perhaps no other composer is subject to such a wide diversity of interpretation--assessing the merits of these many interpretations and unravelling the sources and documents on which they are based can be extremely difficult for the modern performer. In this important book, Paul Badura-Skoda draws on forty years of studying and performing Bach to present startling new insights into many different aspects of Bach's music. He looks at rhythm, tempo, articulation, and dynamics; examines the instruments for which Bach's music was intended, and considers problems of sonority. He then discusses ornamentation in depth, analyzing each of the signs and symbols used by Bach, and argues that much of Bach's ornamentation in current performance is monotonous and fails to reflect the actual Baroque style. Sometimes contentious, always stimulating, Badura-Skoda's book conveys a passion for an informed interpretation of Bach's music based on a recognition and respect for Bach's actual intentions. Copiously illustrated with musical examples, the book will take its place as a standard work for all students and performers of Bach's ever-popular keyboard music.
This book sets forth the provocative theories of a musician who has been called the outstanding harpsichordist of this century. The late Ralph Kirkpatrick reveals here his approach to a deeper comprehension of music, showing how his methods are applied to the preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier of J.S. Bach. "This book is brilliant and important."--Clavier "All keyboardists performing classical repertoire can greatly benefit from Kirkpatrick's scholarship, dry wit, and stubborn dedication."--Keyboard "That Mr. Kirkpatrick's extraordinarily perceptive mind knew the subject matter thoroughly is beyond dispute. . . Valuable insights into the analysis, teaching and performance of all Western music, especially Bach's monumental Well-Tempered Clavier."--Arthur Lawrence, The American Organist "We are fortunate to have this book by Ralph Kirkpatrick. . . From it we gain insight into the musical mind of one of the outstanding performers of our century."--The Music Review "The real matter of the book is good old-fashioned musicianship."--Denis Arnold, London Review of Books
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The Keyboard Music of J.S. Bach provides an introduction to and comprehensive discussion of all the music for harpsichord and other stringed keyboard instruments by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Often played today on the modern piano, these works are central not only to the Western concert repertory but to musical pedagogy and study throughout the world. Intended as both a practical guide and an interpretive study, the book consists of three introductory chapters on general matters of historical context, style, and performance practice, followed by fifteen chapters on the individual works, treated in roughly chronological order. The works discussed include all of Bach's individual keyboard compositions as well as those comprising his famous collections, such as the Well-Tempered Clavier, the English and French Suites, and the Art of Fugue.
With scholarship and the musical intuition of practiced performance, the author presents an internal reading of Bach's keyboard works. In the absence of interpretive directions, he seeks for clues to performance in the texture of the music itself, and his readings supply striking evidence that Bach was an accomplished law-breaker whenever tradition threatened to hamper his artistic insights. The eighty years from Bach's death to the year of Mendelssohn's revival of the St. Matthew Passion erased the first-hand knowledge of baroque music. Bach wrote for harpsichord and clavichord, and the interpretive potential of the piano has only obscured the salient characteristics of his work. This book is a welcome revelation of what devotion and skill can recover from the muddle of academics and Romantics. Not afraid to assert his personal convictions, the author points out that "although the problems of dynamics disappear with the solution of the instrument question, those of tempo, ornamentation, and articulation still remain? In our discussions of these problems it seems to us most imperative to separate as clearly as possible what we know to be fact from what is based only on personal interpretation and evaluation." He prefers "to restudy the basic language of Bach's time, with that spirit of humility we owe to its greatness, instead of debating how to adapt his music to the idiom of our contemporary musical conceptions."
This text on performing Bach's keyboard music presents in capsule form the various opinions current in late-1990s musicology, approaching controversial questions from a critical point of view.
Roy Thomson Hall commemorates its 30th anniversary with this lavishly illustrated book tracing its history from Arthur Erickson's iconic design, to the artists, audiences, volunteers, and staff who have enriched and enlivened the hall since its opening in 1982.
Bach's Well-tempered Clavier (or the 48 Preludes and Fugues) stands at the core of baroque keyboard music and has been a model and inspiration for performers and composers ever since it was written. This invaluable guide to the 96 pieces explains Bach's various purposes in compiling the music, describes the rich traditions on which he drew, and provides commentaries for each prelude and fugue. In his text, David Ledbetter addresses the main focal points mentioned by Bach in his original 1722 title page. Drawing on Bach literature over the past three hundred years, he explores German traditions of composition types and Bach's novel expansion of them; explains Bach's instruments and innovations in keyboard technique in the general context of early eighteenth-century developments; reviews instructive and theoretical literature relating to keyboard temperaments from 1680 to 1750; and discusses Bach's pedagogical intent when composing the Well-tempered Clavier. Ledbetter's commentaries on individual preludes and fugues equip readers with the concepts necessary to make their own assessment and include information about the sources when details of notation, ornaments, and fingerings have a bearing on performance.
Performance studies in the Western art music tradition have often been dominated by the relationship of theoretical score-analysis to performance. This book presents a structured approach to analyzing the interpretation of a musical work from the perspective of a musically informed listener.