Bachs Musical Universe, Christoph Wolff
Bachs Musical Universe, Christoph Wolff
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Bach's Musical Universe
The Composer and His Work

Author: Christoph Wolff

Narrator: Paul Heitsch

Unabridged: 13 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/14/2020


Synopsis

A concentrated study of Johann Sebastian Bach’s creative output and greatest pieces, capturing the essence of his art.

Throughout his life, renowned and prolific composer Johann Sebastian Bach articulated his views as a composer in purely musical terms; he was notoriously reluctant to write about his life and work. Instead, he methodically organized certain pieces into carefully designed collections. These benchmark works, all of them without parallel or equivalent, produced a steady stream of transformative ideas that stand as paradigms of Bach’s musical art.

In this companion volume to his Pulitzer Prize–finalist biography, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, leading Bach scholar Christoph Wolff takes his cue from his famous subject. Wolff delves deeply into the composer’s own rich selection of collected music, cutting across conventional boundaries of era, genre, and instrument. Emerging from a complex and massive oeuvre, Bach’s Musical Universe is a focused discussion of a meaningful selection of compositions—from the famous Well-Tempered Clavier, violin and cello solos, and Brandenburg Concertos to the St. Matthew Passion, Art of Fugue, and B-minor Mass.

About Christoph Wolff

Christoph Wolff is Adams University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, where he taught from 1976 to 2012. A former director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, Germany, he is the author of numerous works of music history, including Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography, and Mozart at the Gateway to His Fortune: Serving the Emperor, 1788-1791, winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. Wolff lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Gavin on May 11, 2020

The best writers on music (like Charles Rosen) can make you want to re-listen to familiar works or to listen to works you've never heard before. Christoph Wolff does almost the opposite; he focuses on the most boring aspect of a work, such that you have no particular desire to look it up ever. For ex......more

Goodreads review by Dan on April 07, 2020

This companion volume to Wolff's exemplary earlier biography of Bach (subtitled: The Learned Musician), is yet another tour de force of insight, history, erudition, and above all a tangible love for the subject matter and the timeless art his subject crafted. Where the previous volume was structured......more

Goodreads review by Kathleen on August 01, 2020

Using opus collections and benchmark works as an organizing principle, a noted Bach scholar demonstrates his growth as a composer over the years, and his remarkable powers, especially in harmony, counterpoint, and polyphony. This organization works out to be relatively chronological as well, and mak......more

Goodreads review by Martin on October 28, 2021

This is Christoph Wolff's follow up to his Pulitzer nominated Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician. It presents a roughly chronological discussion and analysis of Bach's benchmark works, beginning with the "composers business card" as displayed in the piece of music in Bach's hand in the fam......more

Goodreads review by Dan on February 18, 2025

Magnificat Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2025 I warmly and sincerely recommend this great work by Wolff to help you grasp and understand the genius, beauty, and science of the greatest composer of all time, J.S. Bach. I have always loved the music created by JS Bach. It flows like beaut......more