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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
    Ebook151 pages3 hours

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

    By Michael Marissen

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    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateJul 1, 1999
    ISBN9781400821655
    The Social and Religious Designs of J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos
    Author

    Michael Marissen

    Michael Marissen is Assistant Professor of Music at Swarthmore College. His most recent book is Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism, and Bach's "St. John Passion."

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      Easily one of the most preposterous pieces of alleged scholarship I've seen in almost half a century of serious reading. Always lloking for the good in other people (even the least desrerving)I would like to think that perhaps I'm just too square to get an elaborate hoax like Ossian, or more particular to music, a joke in the manner, say, of the legendary work on the Guild of Funerary Violinists, but I fear that nobody would have put so much time into just making a joke like this. Another reminder that paper will put-up with anything printed on it. In the interest of full disclosure, let me add that I had a free copy of this, so it's not as if I was cheated on the material plane. The spiritual and intellectual planes are quite another story. LibraryThing badly needs a revised scale to reflect disappointing and lousy writing (see my review elsewhere of Zadie Smith's WHITE TEETH).

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