The ever-increasing number of performances of Bach's music is a sign of its enduring vitality. But perhaps no other composer is subject to such a wide diversity of interpretation--assessing the merits of these many interpretations and unravelling the sources and documents on which they are based can be extremely difficult for the modern performer. In this important book, Paul Badura-Skoda draws on forty years of studying and performing Bach to present startling new insights into many different aspects of Bach's music. He looks at rhythm, tempo, articulation, and dynamics; examines the instruments for which Bach's music was intended, and considers problems of sonority. He then discusses ornamentation in depth, analyzing each of the signs and symbols used by Bach, and argues that much of Bach's ornamentation in current performance is monotonous and fails to reflect the actual Baroque style. Sometimes contentious, always stimulating, Badura-Skoda's book conveys a passion for an informed interpretation of Bach's music based on a recognition and respect for Bach's actual intentions. Copiously illustrated with musical examples, the book will take its place as a standard work for all students and performers of Bach's ever-popular keyboard music.

A comprehensive assessment of J.S. Bach's use of articulation marks (i.e. slurs and dots) in the large body of primary sources.

This book sets forth the provocative theories of a musician who has been called the outstanding harpsichordist of this century. The late Ralph Kirkpatrick reveals here his approach to a deeper comprehension of music, showing how his methods are applied to the preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier of J.S. Bach. "This book is brilliant and important."--Clavier "All keyboardists performing classical repertoire can greatly benefit from Kirkpatrick's scholarship, dry wit, and stubborn dedication."--Keyboard "That Mr. Kirkpatrick's extraordinarily perceptive mind knew the subject matter thoroughly is beyond dispute. . . Valuable insights into the analysis, teaching and performance of all Western music, especially Bach's monumental Well-Tempered Clavier."--Arthur Lawrence, The American Organist "We are fortunate to have this book by Ralph Kirkpatrick. . . From it we gain insight into the musical mind of one of the outstanding performers of our century."--The Music Review "The real matter of the book is good old-fashioned musicianship."--Denis Arnold, London Review of Books

This volume contains contributions by nine scholars on two broad themes: the analysis of Johann Sebastian Bach?s orchestral works, especially his concertos, and the interpretation and performance of his music in general. The contributors are a diverse group, active in the fields of performance, organology, music theory, and music history. Several work in more than one of these areas, making them particularly well prepared to write on the interdisciplinary themes of the volume. ø Part 1 includes Alfred Mann?s introduction to Bach?s orchestral music as well as essays by Gregory G. Butler and Jeanne Swack on the Brandenburg Concertos. Part 2 offers ground-breaking articles by John Koster and Mary Oleskiewicz on the harpsichords and flutes of Bach?s day as well as essays by David Schulenberg and William Renwick on keyboard performance practice and the study of fugue in Bach?s circle. Paul Walker explores the relationships between rhetoric and fugue, and John Butt reviews some recent trends in Bach performance.

Known around the world for his advocacy of early historical performance and as a skilled violin performer and pedagogue, Stanley Ritchie has developed a technical guide to the interpretation and performance of J. S. Bach's enigmatic sonatas and partitas for solo violin. Unlike typical Baroque compositions, Bach's six solos are uniquely free of accompaniment. To add depth and texture to the pieces, Bach incorporated various techniques to bring out a multitude of voices from four strings and one bow, including arpeggios across strings, multiple stopping, opposing tonal ranges, and deft bowing. Published in 1802, over 80 years after its completion in 1720, Bach's manuscript is without expression marks, leaving the performer to freely interpret the dynamics, fingering, bowings, and articulations. Marshaling a lifetime of experience, Stanley Ritchie provides violinists with deep insights into the interpretation and technicalities at the heart of these challenging pieces.

In this major new interpretation of the music of J. S. Bach, we gain a striking picture of the composer as a unique critic of his age. By reading Bach’s music “against the grain” of contemporaries such as Vivaldi and Telemann, Laurence Dreyfus explains how Bach’s approach to musical invention in a variety of genres posed a fundamental challenge to Baroque aesthetics. “Invention”—the word Bach and his contemporaries used for the musical idea that is behind or that generates a composition—emerges as an invaluable key in Dreyfus’s analysis. Looking at important pieces in a range of genres, including concertos, sonatas, fugues, and vocal works, he focuses on the fascinating construction of the invention, the core musical subject, and then shows how Bach disposes, elaborates, and decorates it in structuring his composition. Bach and the Patterns of Invention brings us fresh understanding of Bach’s working methods, and how they differed from those of the other leading composers of his day. We also learn here about Bach’s unusual appropriations of French and Italian styles—and about the elevation of various genres far above their conventional status. Challenging the restrictive lenses commonly encountered in both historical musicology and theoretical analysis, Dreyfus provocatively suggests an approach to Bach that understands him as an eighteenth-century thinker and at the same time as a composer whose music continues to speak to us today.