Bach's Dialogue with Modernity
Perspectives on the Passions

A detailed 2010 analysis of Bach's Passions which demonstrates how they reflect and constitute priorities and conditions of the western world.

John Butt (Author)

9780521883566, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 January 2010

330 pages
25.5 x 18 x 2 cm, 0.82 kg

'Butt's [is a] scholarly book, with its copious musical examples and often fascinating asides.' Glasgow Sunday Herald

Providing a detailed analysis of Bach's Passions, this 2010 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.

Preface
Introduction
1. Bach's Passions and the construction of early modern subjectivities
2. Bach's Passions and the textures of time
3. The hermeneutic perspective: negotiating the poles of faith and suspicion
4. The voices we hear and the construction of narrative authority
5. Between rhetoric and dialectic: Bach's inventive stance
Afterword.

Subject Areas: Techniques of music / music tutorials [AVS], Classical music [c 1750 to c 1830 AVGC4], Music: styles & genres [AVG], Music reviews & criticism [AVC], Theory of music & musicology [AVA], Music [AV]