Bach's Dialogue with Modernity: Perspectives on the Passions

by John Butt

• ISBN13: 9780521883566
• ISBN10: 0521883563
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-03-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Providing a detailed analysis of Bach's Passions, this book represents an important contribution to the debate about the culture of 'classical music', its origins, priorities and survival. The angles from which each chapter proceeds differ from those of a traditional music guide, by examining the Passions in the light of the mindsets of modernity, and their interplay with earlier models of thought and belief. While the historical details of Bach's composition, performance and theological context remain crucial, the foremost concern of this study is to relate these works to a historical context that may, in some threads at least, still be relevant today. The central claim of the book is that the interplay of traditional imperatives and those of early modernity renders Bach's Passions particularly fascinating as artefacts that both reflect and constitute some of the priorities and conditions of the western world.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
List of abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Bach's Passions and the construction of early modern subjectivities	p. 36
Bach's Passions and the textures of time	p. 97
The hermeneutic perspective - negotiating the poles of faith and suspicion	p. 146
The voices we hear and the construction of narrative authority	p. 193
Between rhetoric and dialectic - Bach's inventive stance	p. 240
Afterword	p. 293
Appendix	p. 297
Bibliography	p. 302
Index	p. 312
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