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Oxford Composer Companion: J.S. Bach
This superb reference work on Johann Sebastian Bach is the first volume in a new species of Oxford Companion that will focus on major composers.
Illustrated with twenty-four black-and-white plates, this volume boasts over a thousand alphabetically arranged entries that cover Bach's music, his life and times, scholarship on Bach, and the performance of his music. Readers will find entries on the various genres that Bach worked in
(including chorales, fantasia, sonata, concerto, missa), his many individual works (such as St. John's Passion, The Goldberg Variations, Brandenburg Concertos, Passacaglia, Well-Tempered Clavier, The Christmas Oratorio, and The Art of Fugue), places important to his career (such as Muhlhausen,
Weimar, and Leipzig), and important contemporaries (Handel, Rameau, Vivaldi, Telemann, among others). There are also entries on instruments (harpsichord, organ, clavier, and so on), Bach performance practice, stylistic influences on his work, and other biographical details. The book concludes with
a family tree, a chronology of Bach's life, a list of his works, and a glossary of terms.
Bach was one of the giants of classical music, a composer of astonishing powers of invention. In The Oxford Composer J.S. Bach , music aficionados will have at their fingertips a treasure chest of information on this major figure.
Illustrated with twenty-four black-and-white plates, this volume boasts over a thousand alphabetically arranged entries that cover Bach's music, his life and times, scholarship on Bach, and the performance of his music. Readers will find entries on the various genres that Bach worked in
(including chorales, fantasia, sonata, concerto, missa), his many individual works (such as St. John's Passion, The Goldberg Variations, Brandenburg Concertos, Passacaglia, Well-Tempered Clavier, The Christmas Oratorio, and The Art of Fugue), places important to his career (such as Muhlhausen,
Weimar, and Leipzig), and important contemporaries (Handel, Rameau, Vivaldi, Telemann, among others). There are also entries on instruments (harpsichord, organ, clavier, and so on), Bach performance practice, stylistic influences on his work, and other biographical details. The book concludes with
a family tree, a chronology of Bach's life, a list of his works, and a glossary of terms.
Bach was one of the giants of classical music, a composer of astonishing powers of invention. In The Oxford Composer J.S. Bach , music aficionados will have at their fingertips a treasure chest of information on this major figure.
- GenresMusic
652 pages, Hardcover
First published June 17, 1999
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About the author
Malcolm Boyd
74 books1 followerLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
Please note there is a different entry for Malcolm Boyd (priest and civil rights activist)
Please note there is a different entry for Malcolm Boyd (priest and civil rights activist)
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August 14, 2012
The best reference that I have found on the music of J S Bach. I am always turning to this volume for information and history about pieces once I hear them on CD. Would be a good gift for a person that has bought one of the "complete Bach" box sets.
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