Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph Wolff
Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph Wolff
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
Club: $14.99

Johann Sebastian Bach
The Learned Musician

Author: Christoph Wolff

Narrator: John Pruden

Unabridged: 21 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/22/2019

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

Finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, this landmark book was revised in 2013 to include new knowledge discovered after its initial publication.

Although we have heard the music of J. S. Bach in countless performances and recordings, the composer himself still comes across only as an enigmatic figure in a single familiar portrait. As we mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, author Christoph Wolff presents a new picture that brings to life this towering figure of the Baroque era. This engaging new biography portrays Bach as the living, breathing, and sometimes imperfect human being that he was, while bringing to bear all the advances of the last half-century of Bach scholarship. Wolff demonstrates the intimate connection between the composer's life and his music, showing how Bach's superb inventiveness pervaded his career as musician, composer, performer, scholar, and teacher. And throughout, we see Bach in the broader context of his time: its institutions, traditions, and influences. With this highly readable book, Wolff sets a new standard for Bach biography.

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 Michael

I think that if you are going to read one biography of Bach (and if you like music - any kind of music - you owe it to yourself to read at least one), then this one is it. It is engaging, interesting, not overly intellectual and gives you a real appreciation for the genius of the artist and the comp......more

Goodreads review by Samuel

Holy crap I finished it. I have to imagine it's rough writing a biography of someone for whom nothing but the barest facts of his day-to-day life exist. Unfortunately, when this is all you have, this is all you can talk about, and as a result The Learned Musician gets awfully caught up in the minuti......more

Goodreads review by Lemar

Bach is a giant in music and Christoph Wolff successfully explains why. Wolff's book is an excellent work of scholarship. His thesis is that Bach worked within historical musical frameworks to let his original musical genius emerge. He worked to become a virtuoso of several instruments and then had......more