Oxford Composer Companion: J.S. Bach - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198662084 ISBN 13: 9780198662082

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1999

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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.

From Booklist:

Oxford University Press is inaugurating a new series of composer companions with an impressive work on J. S. Bach. Edited by the noted Bach scholar Boyd, this first English-language A^-Z encyclopedia on Bach has more than 900 entries written by 44 contributors. The contributors are well chosen, writing on their interests--Russell Stinson wrote the entry on the Orgel-Buchlein ("Little Organ Book") and has also completed a book on the same collection of organ chorales. The consultant editor is John Butt, who edited The Cambridge Companion to Bach (1997), which includes essays on Bach's life and works as well as on his influence on modern music.

The Oxford volume provides short and long entries, many with bibliographies, on aspects of Bach's life, family, pupils, and employers; musical and technical terms; and individual works. Short articles include descriptions of cadenza fantasia, timpani, and watermarks. There are also a number of entries for current Bach festivals and twentieth-century musicians noted for Bach interpretations, such as Glenn Gould and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Extensive essays cover Bach's major works (Brandenburg Concerto, Mass in B Minor) and types of compositions (chorale, fugue). One of the longest entries, reception and revival, surveys Bach's impact on various national musical traditions. Another discusses recordings. 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. Appendixes list Bach's works by category and title both with BC (Bach Compendium) and BWV (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis) catalogue numbers. A "Thematic Overview" at the beginning of the volume lists entries by topic. There is also a brief glossary of musical terms.This volume should be considered a significant resource in the study of one of the most amazing composers who ever lived. Recommended for academic, public, and, of course, music libraries.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0198662084
• ISBN 13: 9780198662082
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 656
• Editor: Boyd Malcolm