Bach and Mozart - Essays on the Enigma of Genius

The essays in this volume, by one of America's leading authorities on Bach and Mozart, serve a single objective: to promote a deeper understanding of those two great composers both as supremely gifted creators and as human beings.Drawing on the work of figures ranging from Harold Bloom, Theodor Adorno, and Edward Said to Maynard Solomon, Charles Rosen, and Peter Shaffer--not to mention Freud and Schenker--the essays deploy a diverse arsenal of interpretive strategies including both textual and musical criticism. Life and work are treated together, just as they were intermingled for the composers. After a preliminary historiographical contemplation of the "Century of Bach and Mozart," fifteen numbered chapters follow in roughly chronological succession. Among the issues addressed: the artistic consequences of Bach's orphanhood, his relationship to Martin Luther, his attitude toward the Jews, hisrelationship to his sons, the stages of his stylistic development, his position in the history of music, the size of his chorus; and, moving to Mozart, the composer's portrayal in Amadeus, his wit, his indebtedness to J. S.Bach, and aspects of his compositional process. The volume concludes with a factually informed speculation about what Mozart is likely to have done and to have composed, had he lived on for another decade or more. ROBERT L. MARSHALL is Sachar Professor of Music emeritus, Brandeis University.