Skip to Main Content

Rethinking Bach

Online ISBN:
9780190943929
Print ISBN:
9780190943899
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Rethinking Bach

Bettina Varwig (ed.)
Bettina Varwig
(ed.)

Lecturer in Early Modern Music

Lecturer in Early Modern Music, University of Cambridge
Find on
Published online:
18 November 2021
Published in print:
23 December 2021
Online ISBN:
9780190943929
Print ISBN:
9780190943899
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

If Johann Sebastian Bach has loomed extra-large in the imagination of scholars, performers, and audiences since the late nineteenth century, this volume sets out to provocatively reshape that imagination from a multitude of present-day perspectives, both from within and outside of traditional Bach studies. The essays gathered here reconsider Bach’s musical practices from the vantage points of material culture, voice, embodiment, affect theory, and systematic theology; they challenge fundamental assumptions about the nineteenth-century Bach revival, about the rise of the modern work concept, about Bach’s music as a code, and about editions of his music as monuments; and they reimagine Bach as humorist, as post/colonial export, as pedagogue, as anti-modernist, and as uneasy postmodern icon. Collectively, these contributions thus take apart, scrutinize, dust off, and reassemble some of our most cherished narratives and deeply held beliefs about Bach and his music. In doing so, they open up multiple pathways toward exciting future modes of engagement with the composer and his legacy.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close