Describes how Johann Sebastian Bach survived the sorrows of his childhood and composed the music the world has come to love.

Publisher Description

Now available in paperback, this landmark biography was first published in 2000 to mark the 250th anniversary of J. S. Bach's death. Written by a leading Bach scholar, this book presents a new picture of the composer. Christoph Wolff demonstrates the intimate connection between Bach's life and his music, showing how the composer's superb inventiveness pervaded his career as a musician, composer, performer, scholar, and teacher.

"Published in cooperation with the American Bach Society."

Peter Williams approaches afresh the life and music of arguably the most studied of all composers, interpreting both Bach's life by deconstructing his original obituary in the light of more recent information and his music by evaluating his priorities and irrepressible creative energy. How, even though belonging to musical families on both his parents' sides, did he come to possess so bewitching a sense of rhythm and melody and a mastery of harmony that established nothing less than a norm in Western culture? In considering that the works of a composer are his biography, the book's title A Life in Music means both a life spent making music and one revealed in the music as we know it. A distinguished scholar and performer, Williams re-examines Bach's life as an orphan and family man, as an extraordinarily gifted composer and player and as an ambitious artist who never suffered fools gladly.

Highlights the life and achievements of the eighteenth-century German composer and musician, and examines the development of his most important compositions.

(Amadeus). The Worlds of J.S. Bach offers both traditional and new perspectives on the life and work of the man who is arguably the central figure in the Western musical tradition. It appears at a time when, because of the fall of the Iron Curtain, extraordinary new discoveries are being made about Bach and his family at an increasing rate thus this book is able to incorporate important information and images not available even in the recent anniversary year of 2000. After making the case for the universality of Bach's art as an epitome of Western civilization, The Worlds of J.S. Bach considers in broad terms the composer's social, political, and artistic environment, its influence on him, and his interaction with it. Renowned specialists in history, religion, architecture, literature, theater, and dance offer the perspectives of these disciplines as they relate to Bach's milieu, while leading Bach specialists from both the U.S. and Germany focus on the man himself. The book is an outgrowth of the "celebrated" ( Boston Globe ) multidisciplinary Academies sponsored by the Aston Magna Foundation for Music and the Humanities with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This diversified collection guides students to develop stylistic performances of Bach's keyboard works. Among the 27 selections are numerous menuets, "short" preludes and suite movements. The introductory material contains an excellent discussion of ornamentation, rhythm, articulation, tempo and dynamics in the keyboard music of this master composer.

This is an imaginative evocation by Horatio Clare of the walk Bach made 300 years earlier in Northern Germany.