Polish Style in the Music of Johann Sebastian Bach

Polish Style in the Music of Johann Sebastian Bach
Author: Szymon Paczkowski
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2017-03-21
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0810888947

Now appearing in an English translation, this book by Szymon Paczkowski is the first in-depth exploration of the Polish style in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach spent almost thirty years living and working in Leipzig in Saxony, a country ruled by Friedrich August I and his son Friedrich August II, who were also kings of Poland (as August II and August III). This period of close Polish-Saxon relations left a significant imprint on Bach’s music. Paczkowski’s meticulous account of this complex political and cultural dynamic sheds new light on many of Bach’s familiar pieces. The book explores the semantic and rhetorical functions that undergird the symbolism of the Polish style in Baroque music. It demonstrates how the notion of a Polish style in music was developed in German music theory, and conjectures that Bach’s successful application for the title of Court Composer at the court of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland would induce the composer to deliberately use elements of the Polish style. This comprehensive study of the way Bach used the Polish style in his music moves beyond technical analysis to place the pieces within the context of Baroque customs and discourse. This ambitious and inspiring study is an original contribution to the scholarly conversation concerning Bach’s music, focusing on the symbolism of the polonaise, the most popular and recognizable Polish dance in 18th-century Saxony. In Saxony at this time the polonaise was associated with the ceremonies of the royal-electoral court in Dresden, and Saxon musicians regarded it as a musical symbol of royalty. Paczkowski explores this symbolism of the Polish royal dance in Bach’s instrumental music and, which is also to be found to an even greater extent, in his vocal works. The Polish Style in the Music of Johann Sebastian Bach provides wide-ranging interpretations based on a careful analysis of the sources explored within historical and theological context. The book is a valuable source for both teaching and further research, and will find readers not only among musicologists, but also historians, art historians, and readers in cultural studies. All lovers of Bach’s music will appreciate this lucid and intriguing study.

Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach

Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach
Author: Mark A. Peters
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2020-07-06
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1498554962

Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach collects seventeen essays by leading Bach scholars. The authors each address in some way such questions of meaning in J. S. Bach’s vocal compositions—including his Passions, Masses, Magnificat, and cantatas—with particular attention to how such meaning arises out of the intentionality of Bach’s own compositional choices or (in Part IV in particular) how meaning is discovered, and created, through the reception of Bach’s vocal works. And the authors do not consider such compositional choices in a vacuum, but rather discuss Bach’s artistic intentions within the framework of broader cultural trends—social, historical, theological, musical, etc. Such questions of compositional choice and meaning frame the four primary approaches to Bach’s vocal music taken by the authors in this volume, as seen across the book’s four parts: Part I: How might the study of historical theology inform our understanding of Bach’s compositional choices in his music for the church (cantatas, Passions, masses)? Part II: How can we apply traditional analytical tools to understand better how Bach’s compositions were created and how they might have been heard by his contemporaries? Part III: What we can understand anew through the study of Bach’s self-borrowing (i.e., parody), which always changed the earlier meaning of a composition through changes in textual content, compositional characteristics, the work’s context within a larger composition, and often the performance context (from court to church, for example)? Part IV: What can the study of reception teach us about a work’s meaning(s) in Bach’s time, during the time of his immediate successors, and at various points since then (including our present)? The chapters in this volume thus reflect the breadth of current Bach research in its attention not only to source study and analysis, but also to meanings and contexts for understanding Bach’s compositions.

Historical Dictionary of Baroque Music

Historical Dictionary of Baroque Music
Author: Joseph P. Swain
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2023-05-08
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1538151626

Named a Library Journal Best Reference of 2023 - "Bravo! An invaluable source for scholars and concertgoers.” - Library Journal In the history of the Western musical tradition, the Baroque period traditionally dates from the turn of the 17th century to 1750. The beginning of the period is marked by Italian experiments in composition that attempted to create a new kind of secular musical art based upon principles of Greek drama, quickly leading to the invention of opera. The ending is marked by the death of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750 and the completion of George Frideric Handel’s last English oratorio, Jephtha, the following year. The Historical Dictionary of Baroque Music, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries on composers, instruments, cities, and technical terms. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about baroque music.

Bach

Bach
Author: David Schulenberg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2020
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0190936304

Updated and refreshed with new biographical information and understanding of Bach's contemporary context, Bach traces the composer's student years, professional career, and family life alongside his most famous compositions.

Bach in the World

Bach in the World
Author: Markus Rathey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2022
Genre: Cantatas
ISBN: 0197578845

"Johann Sebastian Bach's works are often classified along the lines of "sacred" versus "secular." While this distinction is fraught with problems, it seems to provide a useful way to distinguish between Bach's vocal works for the liturgy and those that were written to honor courts and members of the nobility. But even there, the lines cannot be drawn that clearly. The political and social systems of Bach's time relied on religion as an ideological foundation and public displays of political power almost always included religious rituals and thus required some form of sacred music. Social constructs, such as class and gender, were also embedded in religious frameworks. The book analyzes public manifestations of the social order during Bach's time in large-scale celebrations, processions, public performances, and visual displays. By analyzing selected cantatas, the book explores how Bach's music functioned as an agent of affective communication within rituals, such as the installation of the town council, and as a place where socio-political norms were perpetuated and-in a few cases-even challenged"--

Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass

Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass
Author: Yo Tomita
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2013-10-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107007909

The collection of essays represents a through and systematic study of Bach's B-minor Mass by leading scholars in the field and includes a range of discussions relating to the Mass's historical background and contexts, structure, sources and editions, and its reception in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Bach and Mozart

Bach and Mozart
Author: Robert Lewis Marshall
Publisher:
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2019
Genre: MUSIC
ISBN: 1580469620

Interpretive and biographical essays by a major authority on Bach and Mozart probe for clues to the driving forces and experiences that shaped the character and the extraordinary artistic achievements of these iconic composers.

Andreas Werckmeister’s Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse

Andreas Werckmeister’s Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse
Author:
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1498566359

Andreas Werckmeister (1645 – 1706), a late seventeenth-century German Lutheran organist, composer, and music theorist, is the last great advocate and defender of the Great Tradition in music, with its assumptions that music is a divine gift to humanity, spiritually charged yet rationally accessible, the key being a complex of mathematical proportions which govern and are at the root of the entire universe and all which that embraces. Thus understood, music is the audible manifestation of the order of the universe, allowing glimpses, sound-bites of the very Creator of a well-tempered universe, and of our relationship to each other, our environment, and the divine powers which placed us here. This is the subject matter of the conversation which Werckmeister wishes to have with us, his readers, particularly in his last treatise, the Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse. But he does not make it easy for today’s readers. He assumes certain proficiencies from his readers, including detailed biblical knowledge, a fluency in Latin, and a familiarity with treatises and publications concerning music, theology, and a number of related disciplines. He writes in a rather archaic German, riddled with obscure references which require a thorough explanation. With its extensive commentary and translation of the treatise, this book seeks to bridge Werckmeister’s world with that of the twenty-first century. Werckmeister wrote for novice and professional musicians alike, an author who wanted to consider with his readers the basic and existential questions and issues regarding the wondrous art of music, questions as relevant then as they are now.

The Polyphonic Mass in Early Lutheran Central Europe

The Polyphonic Mass in Early Lutheran Central Europe
Author: DR. ALANNA. ROPCHOCK TIERNO
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2024-09-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783277920

Investigates the reception and performance history of the polyphonic mass in Lutheran Central Europe from ca. 1540-1600. The five-movement polyphonic Mass Ordinary emerged from the cultural and liturgical practices of medieval Roman Catholicism and became the pre-eminent large-scale musical genre of early modern Europe. By the end of the sixteenth century, the polyphonic mass remained a core musical genre among Catholics despite gaining widespread popularity within a new institution fundamentally opposed to the Catholic Church and best known for its cultivation of vernacular liturgical music: the Lutheran church. This book investigates the reception and performance history of the polyphonic mass in Lutheran Central Europe from ca. 1540-1600. Through careful source analysis, this study presents examples of polyphonic masses composed in both Lutheran and Catholic contexts that contradict the conventional conception of the Mass Ordinary as a fixed five-movement cycle with unaltered Latin texts. The book draws on sixteenth-century liturgical documents such as Lutheran church orders and hundreds of primary printed and manuscript sources of polyphonic masses; some of these items are well-known in Renaissance musicology source studies while others have received little to no scholarly attention. The book's findings invite reconsideration of how the Mass Ordinary genre is defined, allow for a discussion whether the polyphonic mass should be considered a bi-confessional genre, and present a cohesive examination of early modern liturgical music in the Germanic and western Slavic regions. It offers interesting reading to scholars and students of European Renaissance and religious music, as well as Reformation studies more generally.

The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture

The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture
Author: Janet Sturman
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 2730
Release: 2019-02-26
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1483317749

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Music and Culture presents key concepts in the study of music in its cultural context and provides an introduction to the discipline of ethnomusicology, its methods, concerns, and its contributions to knowledge and understanding of the world's musical cultures, styles, and practices. The diverse voices of contributors to this encyclopedia confirm ethnomusicology's fundamental ethos of inclusion and respect for diversity. Combined, the multiplicity of topics and approaches are presented in an easy-to-search A-Z format and offer a fresh perspective on the field and the subject of music in culture. Key features include: Approximately 730 signed articles, authored by prominent scholars, are arranged A-to-Z and published in a choice of print or electronic editions Pedagogical elements include Further Readings and Cross References to conclude each article and a Reader’s Guide in the front matter organizing entries by broad topical or thematic areas Back matter includes an annotated Resource Guide to further research (journals, books, and associations), an appendix listing notable archives, libraries, and museums, and a detailed Index The Index, Reader’s Guide themes, and Cross References combine for thorough search-and-browse capabilities in the electronic edition