The No1 Ethical retailer for Books, CD’s, DVD’s & Games
30 Day Refund Guarantee

Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

by PeterWilliams (Author)

  • New

    Paperback 2001

    $27.55

  • New

    Hardcover 2001

    $71.34
Synopsis

Many listeners and players are fascinated by Bach's Goldberg Variations. In this wideranging and searching study, Professor Williams, one of the leading Bach scholars of our time, helps them probe its depths and understand its uniqueness. He considers the work's historical origins, especially in relation to all Bach's Clavierubung volumes and late keyboard works, its musical agenda and its formal shape, and discusses significant performance issues. In the course of the book he poses a number of key questions. Why should such a work be written? Does the work have both a conceptual and a perceptual shape? What other music is likely to have influenced the Goldberg and to what extent is it trying to be encyclopedic? What is the canonic vocabulary? How have contemporaries or musicians from Beethoven to the present day seen this work and, above all, how has its mysterious beauty been created?

$27.55

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 120
 Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 27 Sep 2001
ISBN 10: 0521001935
ISBN 13: 9780521001939
Book Overview: A detailed guide to one of Bach's most popular keyboard works.

Media Reviews
Peter Williams manages to pack in an extraordinary amount of information about the work's background, compositional techniques and structures, and reception history. His consideration of the work's relationships to a large amount of other music is particularly remarkable. The writing style is fresh and engaging and the material presented clearly and concisely. We can safely say that Williams's book will be the fundamental work on its subject for years to come.' Eighteenth-Century Music
...this study explores not only music but its historical significance and reception, in prose that is clear, pithy, and to the point...Williams's latest book is a worthy addition to the Cambridge series. Notes
Author Bio
Peter Williams (1937-2016) was an internationally renowned Bach scholar and performer. He held the first Chair in Performance Practice in Britain at the University of Edinburgh, where he was Director of the Russell Collection of Harpsichords and latterly Dean of Music. He was also the first Arts and Sciences Distinguished Chair at Duke University, North Carolina. He was the author of many books, including The Organ Music of J. S. Bach (3 volumes, Cambridge, 1981-1984), Bach, Handel, Scarlatti 1685-1985 (Cambridge, 1985), The Life of Bach (Cambridge, 2003) and J. S. Bach: A Life in Music (Cambridge, 2007).