Bach Books
The Cambridge Companion to Bach
edited by John Butt

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The Cambridge Companion to Bach (Cambridge Companions to Music)

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Editor: John Butt

Language: English; ISBN: 0521587808

Cambridge University Press

1997

PB / 342 pp

Buy this book at: Amazon.com

Cambridge Companion

Jim Morrison wrote (August 9, 2001):
Thanks for the comment of the Cambridge Bach Companion. From looking over it last night and some of today, I agree that it's uneven. Much of the first half of the book (which is a collection of essays by various authors) seems geared towards people that already know a lot about Bach's life and times and work and the world he lived in, and need an update on where some of the 'facts' rest as of 1997 when the book was published, along with some speculation as to how Bach relates to Leibnez and Spinoza. There are a fair amount of pages devoted to just when and when Bach may have composed this particular work, and which works may have been performed on different occasions, etc.

But I'm just starting to sink my eyeteeth into the chapter on the keyboard music, and it looks promising.

There's also a chapter that touches on Busoni that I'm interested in.

It looks like the later half of the book is more to my interests than the first.

On odd fact, and interesting to me at least, I found out from the Cambridge Bach is that there is a two-piano transcription of the Goldbergs out there. boy, I bet that sounds really strange to Brad. Perhaps even stranger than the transcription for string orchestra.

Once again, I've only given the book a casual looking over, but my first impressions are if you already have the Oxford Companion (and you should, and which I think, should have been subtitled something like 'A study on Bach's vocal works and other useful facts about him') then you should not be envious of those of us who have the Cambridge, or seek this book out for it's new cover price, which is around 23 American dollars. I got mine, a bit beat up, used for about 10. That seems like a fair price.

Jeff Leone wrote (August 10, 2001):
Just an FYI...

I found the Cambridge Companion on Handel to be quite a good read. I agree that the second half of the Bach reader is more interesting, and found the same with the Handel reader.

Jim Morrison wrote (August 10, 2001):
Just came across a great Albert Schweitzer quote in the Cambridge companion. Page 212.

“Even with a choir of a hundred and fifty voices there is a danger of lines of the vocal polyphony coming out too thickly and heavily in a way directly opposed to the nature of Bach's music.”

I love that way the sentence begins with a kind of diminutive intimation, as if a choir that size was small.

Kirk McElhearn wrote (August 10, 2001):
Jim Morrison wrote:
< Once again, I've only given the book a casual looking over, but my first impressions are if you already have the Oxford Companion (and you should, and which I think, should have been subtitled something like 'A study on Bach's vocal works and other useful facts about him') then you should not be envious of those of us who have the Cambridge, or seek this book out for it's new cover price, which is around 23 American dollars. I got mine, a bit beat up, used for about 10. That seems like a fair price. >
I agree totally. Although there are a few very interesting chapters in the Cambridge.

John Butt: Short Biography | Dunedin Consort | Recordings of Vocal Works | Recordings of Instrumental Works
Discussions of Vocal Recordings: BWV 232 - J. Butt | BWV 244 - J. Butt
Reviews of Instrumental Recordings: Bach Organ Toccatas & Schubler Chorales from John Butt | New JSB Organ Recordings
Books: Bach Interpretation: Articulation Marks in the Primary Sources of J. S. Bach | The Cambridge Companion to Bach