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Overview
In this new biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, Klaus Eidam brings the icon of Baroque music into focus as never before.
Synopsis
This comprehensive biography contrasts 250 years' worth of legend with the real facts of Bach's life as uncovered through the author's extensive research.
Publishers Weekly
Munich-based TV documentary scriptwriter Eidam offers a new interpretation of the great organist and composer, Bach. His writing can be clunky, such as when he refers to his own change of interest: "I had long since distanced myself from the organ as thoroughly as Offenbach had distanced himself from the synagogue." Such pretentious stretches aside, this new book provides a plainspoken reexamination of basic conditions of the composer' s life. Eidam reminds readers repeatedly that Bach, considered today to be a divinely inspired and peerless composer, did not make enough money to pay for his own gravestone. Treated as a lackey by noble employers, Bach was also saddled with lazy and inept musicians who were uninterested in his perfectionist goals: he got into a street brawl with one whom he termed "a prick bassoonist." As an organist, Eidam offers a particularly interesting account of Bach's most famous organ work, the mighty Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, pointing out that it was most likely written for an organ inspection, which explains the work's great instrumental range, and how the very title of the piece is a misnomer, "since the fugue is seamlessly integrated with the toccata." He also praises Bach for controlling his anger on many occasions, while other biographers have found the composer too hot-tempered. A provocative, if sometimes flawed, alternative to standard studies by scholars like Malcolm Boyd and John Butt. (Aug. 1) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.