Early Music America Summer 2014 - (Page 49)

BOOK reviews Edited by Mark Kroll Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven. John Eliot Gardiner. Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. 629 pages. Reviewed by Raymond Erickson. In January 2014, Sir John Eliot Gardiner assumed the newly created post of president of the Leipzig Bach Archive, the world's most important center for Bach research. Gardiner, of course, is known primarily as a distinguished conductor of a wide range of repertory (his Beethoven Ninth is my favorite among recordings of that work), and he certainly has a track record as a Bach interpreter, having recorded all the major choral works and having earned international attention in the Bach anniversary year of 2000 with his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage-a complete traversal of the 200 or so Bach cantatas in venues all over Europe. But Gardiner as the titular head of a scholarly research institute? It seems, therefore, that the release of the 600-page tome under review here might have as one purpose the goal of establishing Gardiner's bona fides as a Bach scholar. And, indeed, it demonstrates a remarkable knowledge of Bach scholarship, even citing a number of studies not yet published in 2013. But this is not a book that attempts to compete with Christoph Wolff's magisterial biography of Bach or, for that matter, with any other work; it is a very personal book, one that is replete, to be sure, with factual (and speculative) information about Bach's life and oeuvre but, more importantly and uniquely, one that is as much autobiography as biography. What we have here is "My life with Bach," with all the pros and cons that that implies. The book begins, not with an account Bach's life but with the author's. (One remarkable detail we learn is that one of the two known authentic Bach portraits, both in the collection of William H. Scheide, was hung in his childhood home.) Indeed, there is no really systematic, continuous treatment of Bach's life and career, the details of which are scattered throughout the book. Nor is there encyclopedic coverage of the music, but rather a focus on those (mainly choral) works to which Gardiner has given the most thought as an interpreter. In these instances, the discussion is insightful, very detailed (often even including information about the manuscript sources and variant versions), and cast in a very personal interpretive narrative- what Gardiner thinks Bach might be trying to express, often drawing on analogies in painting or literature that clearly convey Gardiner's broad intellectual horizons (even if one may not always find his similes and comparisons convincing). What is This is a very personal book, one that is replete with factual (and speculative) information about Bach's life and oeuvre but one that is as much autobiography as biography. important is that this book provides us an avenue for understanding one important interpreter's mind as he seeks to make Bach's music his own, and thereby also our own. (I admired in particular how Gardiner conveys Bach's dramatic thinking on one hand and, on the other, the ability of his music to console.) There are minor details or simplifications that one could quibble with: i.e., stretching the Schütz-Bach connection; seeming surprise that schoolboys in Eisenach and Ohrdruf could be raucous and headmasters and cantors mean; assuming that Hamburg organist J. A. Reincken was born in the 1620s, now challenged; Gardiner's penchant for working his beloved Monteverdi into the narrative whenever possible; improbable comparisons, such as opera houses to pizzerias (!); designating the ruler of SchwarzburgArnstadt a "duke"; assuming that the published cantata texts by Marianne von Ziegler (1728) represent the original form of the texts that Bach revised for use in his cantatas-possible, but not proven; referring to BWV 198 as the "TrauerOde" (the poet Gottsched's title of his poem) rather than as "TrauerMusik" (Bach's title of the setting after he pretty much destroyed Gottsched's ode form). There are some missed chances. The keyboard music, for example, is given short shrift. Another point that could have been made more forcefully was how Bach was intentionally misled by the Leipzig authorities, being induced to agree before he was elected to the Leipzig cantorate that he would accept any changes to the rules of St. Thomas's School, without knowing that major changes had already been agreed upon by the Council that would drastically undercut the quality of the musical forces at his disposal. The book is virtually devoid of musical examples but is embellished with illustrations in both color and black and white. There is a useful chronology of Bach's life and a glossary of terms, but the index is at times confusing. Particularly annoying is that there are both footnotes containing commentary (often these should have been incorporated into the main text or simply omitted) and endnotes that essentially contain only source references. Taking everything into consideration, there is nothing quite like this book. It is not a reference book for scholars as much as it is a source of information and inspiration for readers wanting to dig more deeply into the musical legacy of Bach as interpreted for us with profound understanding by someone who can truly claim to have earned the right to do so. Therein lies its justification and value. Linking to the books: Alfred A. Knopf www.knopfdoubleday.com Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Ashgate Publishing www.ashgate.com Indiana University Press www.iupress.indiana.edu Pendragon Press www.pendragonpublishing.co.uk University of Rochester Press www.urpress.com Suggestions about books to review may be sent to Mark Kroll at books@earlymusic.org. Raymond Erickson, editor of The Worlds of Johann Sebastian Bach (Amadeus), teaches performance practice in the DMA program at the CUNY Graduate Center and directs the summer performance workshop "Rethinking Bach" at The Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens > College, CUNY. Early Music America Summer 2014 49 http://www.knopfdoubleday.com http://www.cambridge.org http://www.ashgate.com http://www.iupress.indiana.edu http://www.pendragonpublishing.co.uk http://www.urpress.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Early Music America Summer 2014

Editor's Note
Reader Forum
Sound Bytes
Musings: The Force of Opinion
Recording Reviews
Baroque Opera and Historical Performance: A Reconsideration
Underestimating Turk
Our Disappearing LP Legacy
Living and Breathing Early Music, the Ukrainian Way
Ars Longa and the Festival Esteban Salas
Book Reviews
Ad Index
In Conclusion: The Flauto Dolce Heralds a Welcome Entrance into Heaven

Early Music America Summer 2014