Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century
Reverence for J. S. Bach's music and its towering presence in our cultural memory have long affected how people hear his works. In his own time, however, Bach stood as just another figure among a number of composers, many of them more popular with the music-loving public. Eschewing the great composer style of music history, Andrew Talle takes us on a journey that looks at how ordinary people made music in Bach's Germany. Talle focuses in particular on the culture of keyboard playing as lived in public and private. As he ranges through a wealth of documents, instruments, diaries, account ledgers, and works of art, Talle brings a fascinating cast of characters to life. These individuals—amateur and professional performers, patrons, instrument builders, and listeners—inhabited a lost world, and Talle's deft expertise teases out the diverse roles music played in their lives and in their relationships with one another. At the same time, his nuanced recreation of keyboard playing's social milieu illuminates the era's reception of Bach's immortal works.
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Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century
Reverence for J. S. Bach's music and its towering presence in our cultural memory have long affected how people hear his works. In his own time, however, Bach stood as just another figure among a number of composers, many of them more popular with the music-loving public. Eschewing the great composer style of music history, Andrew Talle takes us on a journey that looks at how ordinary people made music in Bach's Germany. Talle focuses in particular on the culture of keyboard playing as lived in public and private. As he ranges through a wealth of documents, instruments, diaries, account ledgers, and works of art, Talle brings a fascinating cast of characters to life. These individuals—amateur and professional performers, patrons, instrument builders, and listeners—inhabited a lost world, and Talle's deft expertise teases out the diverse roles music played in their lives and in their relationships with one another. At the same time, his nuanced recreation of keyboard playing's social milieu illuminates the era's reception of Bach's immortal works.
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Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century

Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century

by Andrew Talle
Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century
Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century

Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century

by Andrew Talle

Paperback(Reprint)

$29.95 
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Overview

Reverence for J. S. Bach's music and its towering presence in our cultural memory have long affected how people hear his works. In his own time, however, Bach stood as just another figure among a number of composers, many of them more popular with the music-loving public. Eschewing the great composer style of music history, Andrew Talle takes us on a journey that looks at how ordinary people made music in Bach's Germany. Talle focuses in particular on the culture of keyboard playing as lived in public and private. As he ranges through a wealth of documents, instruments, diaries, account ledgers, and works of art, Talle brings a fascinating cast of characters to life. These individuals—amateur and professional performers, patrons, instrument builders, and listeners—inhabited a lost world, and Talle's deft expertise teases out the diverse roles music played in their lives and in their relationships with one another. At the same time, his nuanced recreation of keyboard playing's social milieu illuminates the era's reception of Bach's immortal works.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780252083891
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Publication date: 07/09/2018
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 376
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Andrew Talle teaches musicology at the Peabody Conservatory and is a Gilman Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the editor of Bach Perspectives, Volume Nine: Bach and His German Contemporaries.

Table of Contents

Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xiii

A Note on Currency xv

Introduction 1

1 Civilizing Instruments 11

2 The Mechanic and the Tax Collector 32

3 A Silver Merchant's Daughter 43

4 A Dark-Haired Dame and Her Scottish Admirer 66

5 Two Teenage Countesses 84

6 A Marriage Rooted in Reason 111

7 Male Amateur Keyboardists 142

8 A Blacksmith's Son 171

9 May God Protect This Beautiful Organ 196

10 How Professional Musicians Were Compensated 205

11 The Daily Life of an Organist 222

Conclusion 257

Notes 261

Bibliography 305

Index 331

Color plates follow page 110

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