HjemGrupperSnakMereZeitgeist
Søg På Websted
På dette site bruger vi cookies til at levere vores ydelser, forbedre performance, til analyseformål, og (hvis brugeren ikke er logget ind) til reklamer. Ved at bruge LibraryThing anerkender du at have læst og forstået vores vilkår og betingelser inklusive vores politik for håndtering af brugeroplysninger. Din brug af dette site og dets ydelser er underlagt disse vilkår og betingelser.

Resultater fra Google Bøger

Klik på en miniature for at gå til Google Books

Evening in the Palace of Reason : Bach meets…
Indlæser...

Evening in the Palace of Reason : Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment (original 2005; udgave 2006)

af James R. Gaines

MedlemmerAnmeldelserPopularitetGennemsnitlig vurderingOmtaler
515847,005 (3.94)8
In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire's heralded 'philosopher-king', the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of 'outdated' music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age. Behind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged 'old Bach' to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son). Bach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write 'A Musical Offering' in response. A stirring declaration of faith, it represented 'as stark a rebuke of his beliefs and world view as an absolute monarch has ever received,' Gaines writes. It is also one of the great works of art in the history of music. Set at the tipping point between the ancient and the modern world, the triumphant story of Bach's victory expands to take in the tumult of the eighteenth century: the legacy of the Reformation, wars and conquest, the birth of the Enlightenment. Brimming with originality and wit, 'Evening in the Palace of Reason' is history of the best kind - intimate in scale and broad in its vision.… (mere)
Medlem:wrjensen382
Titel:Evening in the Palace of Reason : Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment
Forfattere:James R. Gaines
Info:New York : Harper Perennial, 2006.
Samlinger:Read completely, Dit bibliotek
Vurdering:****
Nøgleord:Classical music, Bach JS, Frederick the Great

Work Information

Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightment af James R. Gaines (2005)

Indlæser...

Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog.

Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog.

» Se også 8 omtaler

Viser 1-5 af 9 (næste | vis alle)
I don't know where this came from, but it is excellent, and makes me think of Jacques Barzun, in James Gaines's seeming familiarity with these historical characters.
  keithhamblen | May 19, 2019 |
May 1747. A 62-year-old German musician from Leipzig comes to visit his second son in Potsdam, where he is a member of the royal orchestra, and is immediately summoned to meet the 35-year-old monarch. The King -- known to history as Frederick the Great -- gives the older man -- the renowned Johann Sebastian Bach -- walks over to the keyboard and plays a sequence of 21 notes, which he then invites Bach to improve into a three-voice fugue. Once this task has been successfully completed, the King then demands a SIX-voice fugue, which the composer suggests is impossible on such short notice. But, upon his return to Leipzig, Bach not only writes out the requested six-voice fugue but sends the King a series of canons and other works (some 13 pieces in all) based on the theme, sending them back to Potsdam within two months. -- Such is the basis of James R. Gaines's excellent book "Evening in the Palace of Reason." Although there are elements of dual biography here (in alternating chapters, Gaines shares the lives of King and composer), the book is more a meditation on two contrasting world-views -- one based on the tenants of deeply-held Christian faith, the other on the strict rationality of the developing Enlightenment -- at something of a crossroads of the history of human thought and belief. The final pages of Gaines's analysis of Bach's achievement, adhering to his faith in the face of Frederick's power-politics, are deeply moving and rousing. -- The author writes, for the most part, with clarity and wit. (I found some of the more technical explanations of musical structure a bit difficult at times.) I recommend the book to anyone who might find these subjects of interest. -- I must confess, however, somewhat to my dismay, that I found two historical errors: (1) The throne of England did -not- pass to the descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, "after the last Stuart king, James II, died without a successor" (p. 37), but after the end of the -Protestant- Stuart line. (2) Charles Albert (Charles VII), the Holy Roman Emperor, was -not- "formerly elector of Bohemia," but was, in fact, the Elector of Bavaria (p. 207). (I always worry about finding such errors -- I want to be able to trust the authors of the books I read for complete accuracy, and, when I find mistakes of this kind, I begin to wonder about the reliability of everything else in the book! :-( ( )
  David_of_PA | Jul 14, 2018 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Fredrich the Great of Prussia, and the Enlightenment. Truly excellent book. ( )
  bodhisattva | May 31, 2015 |
I'm a pretty big fan of this book. It does sortof amount to the grown-up equivalent of doodling "I Ricercar is a total success, man. Six voices was too many even for Bach.)

The history is solid and the story is good, but what really elevates this for me is Gaines' descriptions of some of Bach's work. It's very difficult to write about music, which makes it surprising that so many people try to. Gaines really nails it; he makes you desperate to hear the pieces he's raving about (I spent several hours on the couch reading this book and listening to each piece as he got to it), and once you hear them, crucially, you think, "Yes: he's totally right about that, whatever, catabasis there." (Except in the case of his defense of the Ricercar. A for effort, bud.)

For what it's worth, the best writing about music I've ever seen is the treatment of the Trout Sonata in Vikram Seth's [b:An Equal Music.|50366|An Equal Music|Vikram Seth|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170368734s/50366.jpg|2307024] I'm sure you were wondering. I don't remember anything about that book except that now I'm a huge fan of the Trout. (Incidentally, one of the many times I fell in love with my wife was while watching her play that piece.)

The essential question in Gaines' book is the difference between music as mathematics and music as free expression, and that's one that's fascinated me ever since Music Comp II when we learned all sorts of arcane rules for how to modulate between keys. It was extremely scientific; that might sound awful, but it's not...necessarily. In my hands it was pretty awful. Bach, on the other hand, was obsessively mindful of all this, but you don't notice it at all. Some think these rules - the dissonance in a tritone, the consonance in a fifth - are the secrets to the universe, no different than Einstein's E=MC2. That's bullshit, but it's really interesting bullshit, isn't it?

Added and weird bonus: this book also started one of my very rare and much-wished-for literary conversations on the T, from a New England Conservatory student of indeterminate gender. The bad news is that it reminded me: the sort of person who comes rushing over to talk about your history book with you is also the sort of person who insists on pronouncing "Bach" all pretentious-like. Just say it Bock, dude(tte?). You sound like the kind of douche who pretends to like the Ricercar. ( )
  AlCracka | Apr 2, 2013 |
Solid and enjoyable book. Gaines has his subject and its presentation in an iron grip, and his wit is actually pretty witty (though the abundant parenthetical asides got to be a bit much). His presentation of his theme, woven together like counterpoint, is very clever. The epilogue too was an insightful (and parenthesis-less) sweep through the epochs of ideas post-Bach-and-Frederick. If the whole book were more like the finale it would add another star, but still overall a very enjoyable essay. ( )
  ShaneTierney | Sep 7, 2012 |
Viser 1-5 af 9 (næste | vis alle)
ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse

Tilhører Forlagsserien

Du bliver nødt til at logge ind for at redigere data i Almen Viden.
For mere hjælp se Almen Viden hjælpesiden.
Kanonisk titel
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen Viden Redigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Originaltitel
Alternative titler
Oprindelig udgivelsesdato
Personer/Figurer
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen Viden Redigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Vigtige steder
Vigtige begivenheder
Beslægtede film
Indskrift
Tilegnelse
Første ord
Citater
Sidste ord
Oplysning om flertydighed
Forlagets redaktører
Bagsidecitater
Originalsprog
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

Henvisninger til dette værk andre steder.

Wikipedia på engelsk

Ingen

In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire's heralded 'philosopher-king', the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of 'outdated' music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age. Behind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged 'old Bach' to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son). Bach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write 'A Musical Offering' in response. A stirring declaration of faith, it represented 'as stark a rebuke of his beliefs and world view as an absolute monarch has ever received,' Gaines writes. It is also one of the great works of art in the history of music. Set at the tipping point between the ancient and the modern world, the triumphant story of Bach's victory expands to take in the tumult of the eighteenth century: the legacy of the Reformation, wars and conquest, the birth of the Enlightenment. Brimming with originality and wit, 'Evening in the Palace of Reason' is history of the best kind - intimate in scale and broad in its vision.

No library descriptions found.

Beskrivelse af bogen
Haiku-resume

Current Discussions

Ingen

Populære omslag

Quick Links

Vurdering

Gennemsnit: (3.94)
0.5
1
1.5
2 3
2.5 1
3 10
3.5 3
4 32
4.5 2
5 14

Er det dig?

Bliv LibraryThing-forfatter.

 

Om | Kontakt | LibraryThing.com | Brugerbetingelser/Håndtering af brugeroplysninger | Hjælp/FAQs | Blog | Butik | APIs | TinyCat | Efterladte biblioteker | Tidlige Anmeldere | Almen Viden | 203,252,142 bøger! | Topbjælke: Altid synlig