Johann Sebastian Bach has loomed large in the imagination of scholars, performers, and audiences since the late nineteenth century.This new book, edited by veteran Bach scholar Bettina Varwig, gathers a diverse group of leading and emerging Bach researchers as well as a number of contributors from beyond the core of Bach studies. The book's fourteen chapters engage in active 'rethinking' of different topics connected with Bach; the iconic name which broadly encompasses the historical individual, the sounds and afterlives of his music, as well as all that those four letters came to stand for in the later popular and scholarly imagination. In turn, challenging the fundamental assumptions about the nineteenth-century Bach revival, the rise of the modern work concept, Bach's music as a code, and about editions of his music as monuments. Collectively, these contributions thus take apart, scrutinize, dust off and reassemble some of our most cherished narratives and deeply held beliefs
about Bach and his music. In doing so, they open multiple pathways towards exciting future modesof engagement with the composer and his legacy.
Industry Reviews
"...sums up our fascination with Bach's music as the 'symbol of the desire to strive beyond our own limitations towards a sublime and immutable "truth" '" -- Susan Pierotti, AUSTA National Journal Reviews
"Fourteen essays in all, and each one of them provocative and carefully argued." -- Howard Dyck, Music Times
"When you get this book, as I hope you will, start reading early in the evening, because once you start, you won't be able to put it down." -- Howard Dyck, The Music Times
"You can never think about Bach too often. This excellent book inspires the reader to do just that, and in some new and interesting ways. It is rich in historical, scholarly and analytical details and offers different approaches to, or total reevaluations of, long-held beliefs." -- Mark Kroll, Early Music America
"There is nothing quite like this book in the vast ocean of Bach studies. This collection of exciting, pathbreaking essays will be widely read and highly influential, and it is sure to stir up much productive dialogue." -- Stephen A. Crist, Emory University
"The perceptive authors of these essays challenge current thinking about Bach. They do so by reviewing what we think we know about Bach, or by raising issues that have been neglected until now. Some confute the over-thinking of ideas whose intricacies reveal more about the proponents than about Bach. Others question the unthinking acceptance of the status quo of a standard image of Bach. The topics of each chapter are remarkably broad, but taken together they
significantly expand the parameters of our thinking about Bach." -- Robin A. Leaver, retired visiting professor at the Julliard School, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and Queen's University, Belfast,
NI; author of Bach Studies (2021)
"Rethinking Bach does indeed show new paths for the study of Bach and his music. Despite the different approaches and methodologies used by the fourteen authors, the consensus among most of them is that a study of Bach's works should not focus exclusively on his compositions as intellectual, even mathematical artifacts. Instead, it is the emotional side of Bach the authors want to emphasize: the significance of affect, the human body, and the ear of
the listener. It is not Bach the Learned Musician (to cite Christoph Wolff's fundamental biography from twenty years ago) but Bach the Emotional Musician." -- BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute
of Rethinking Bach
"The book largely lives up to its billing, requiring readers to think about Bach in new ways. The main readership will be scholars, but others interested in Bach will also find much of value." -- Joseph Herl, Lutheran Quarterly
