Oxford Composer Companions: J.S. Bach - Softcover

9780198606208: Oxford Composer Companions: J.S. Bach

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198606206 ISBN 13: 9780198606208

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2003

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 Companion: J.S. Bach, music aficionados will have at their fingertips a treasure chest of information on this major figure.

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About the Author:

Malcolm Boyd is the author of numerous books on music, particularly on Bach. He was a member of the editorial team for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and is a frequent contributor to periodicals and reviews. He lives in the United Kingdom.

Review:

"As a resource for students, scholars, and lovers of music, Boyd's volume offers succinct, incisive information about Bach's life and works in a volume of signed articles...Volumes in the composer companion series published by Cambridge, which comprises collections of essays, do not compare with this title."--Choice

"This is an excellent first volume of a new series of extensive composer-based reference books from Oxford."--Library Journal

"Black-and-white illustrations of Bach, his sons, places important in his life, a family tree, manuscripts of his works, and a map of his Germany enhance the text.... A significant resource on one of the most amazing performers who ever lived."--Booklist

"A vast storehouse of information on almost everything you could want to know about this most universally revered of composers. Up to date with recent scholarship and research, it deals very readably with an immense field of subjects--Bach's life, family, friends, pupils and contemporaries, places connected with him, sources of his works, instruments (with specifications of organs he played), musical forms, publishers, scholars, and much more. Every single one of the cantatas is examined in considerable detail, as well as the Passions and many other works, such as the Brandenburg Concertos, the Art of the Fugue or the Clavier-Ubung."--Gramophone

"As a resource for students, scholars, and lovers of music, Boyd's volume offers succinct, incisive information about Bach's life and works in a volume of signed articles.... Volumes in the composer companion series published by Cambridge, which comprises collections of essays, do not compare with this title."--Choice

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