The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos

The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos - Paperback

$85.50
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The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos
  • The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos
The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos - Paperback

The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos - Paperback

by Michael Marissen
$85.50
$85.50

Book Overview

This new investigation of the Brandenburg Concertos explores musical, social, and religious implications of Bach's treatment of eighteenth-century musical hierarchies. By reference to contemporary music theory, to alternate notions of the meaning of "concerto," and to various eighteenth-century conventions of form and instrumentation, the book argues that the Brandenburg Concertos are better understood not as an arbitrary collection of unrelated examples of "pure" instrumental music, but rather as a carefully compiled and meaningfully organized set. It shows how Bach's concertos challenge (as opposed to reflect) existing musical and social hierarchies.

Careful consideration of Lutheran theology and Bach's documented understanding of it reveals, however, that his music should not be understood to call for progressive political action. One important message of Lutheranism, and, in this interpretation, of Bach's concertos, is that in the next world, the heavenly one, the hierarchies of the present world will no longer be necessary. Bach's music more likely instructs its listeners how to think about and spiritually cope with contemporary hierarchies than how to act upon them. In this sense, contrary to currently accepted views, Bach's concertos share with his extensive output of vocal music for the Lutheran liturgy an essentially religious character.

Back Jacket

"Michael Marissen's new and largely persuasive conceptions do much to increase our awareness of Bach's historical environment and his tendency to reformulate the conventions of his day. . . . The basic points of his book will appeal to a wide range of readers concerned with eighteenth-century studies."--John Butt, University of California, Berkeley

"A superb study that accomplishes more than many much longer books. While the Brandenburg concertos have often been examined by musicologists, they have not really been taken seriously as cultural texts. Marissen makes it very clear that this kind of interpretive work is crucial if we are to understand music's historical and cultural significance."--Susan McClary, University of California, Los Angeles
ISBN9780691006864
Author Michael Marissen
PublisherPrinceton University Press
GenreYoung adult
FormatPaperback
PublishedJuly 1999
LanguageENG- English
Pages168
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

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More by Michael Marissen

The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos

The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos - Paperback

The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos - Paperback

By Michael Marissen

About Michael Marissen

Michael Marissen is Daniel Underhill Professor Emeritus of Music at Swarthmore College, where he taught from 1989 to 2014. He has also been a visiting professor on the graduate faculties at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. His publications include The Social and Religious Designs of J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos (Princeton, 1995), Lutheranism, anti-Judaism, and Bach's St. John Passion (Oxford, 1998), An Introduction to Bach Studies (co-author Daniel Melamed; Oxford, 1998), Bach's Oratorios (Oxford, 2008), Tainted Glory in Handel's Messiah (Yale, 2014), and essays in Lutheran Quarterly, Harvard Theological Review, The Huffington Post, and The New York Times.

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