Bach's Numbers
Compositional Proportion and Significance

Ruth Tatlow employs theoretical evidence and practical demonstrations to explain how and why Bach used numbers in his published compositions.

Ruth Tatlow (Author)

9781107459694, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 October 2016

430 pages, 9 b/w illus. 119 tables
24.4 x 16.9 x 2.3 cm, 0.73 kg

… Bach's Numbers clears the way for some promising new directions in Bach scholarship. Tatlow's work should be valued not only for what it suggests for future study, however, but for what it provides in its own right: a bold historical rendering of Bach's compositional process that forces us to view some of the composer's greatest works in a new light, and with deepened appreciation.' Robert L. Wells, Music Analysis

In eighteenth-century Germany the universal harmony of God's creation and the perfection of its proportions still held philosophical, moral and devotional significance. Reproducing proportions close to the unity (1:1) across compositions could render them beautiful, perfect and even eternal. Using the principles of her groundbreaking theory of proportional parallelism and the latest source study research, Ruth Tatlow reveals how Bach used the number of bars to create numerical perfection across his published collections, and explains why he did so. The first part of the book illustrates the wide-ranging application of belief in the unity, showing how planning a well-proportioned structure was a normal compositional procedure in Bach's time. In the second part Tatlow presents practical demonstrations of this in Bach's works, illustrating the layers of proportion that appear within a movement, a work, between two works in a collection, across a collection and between collections.

Part I. Foundations: 1. Bach's numbers
2. Symmetry, proportion and parallels
3. Unity, proportions and universal harmony in Bach's world
4. Bars, compositional planning and proportional parallelism
Part II. Demonstrations: 5. Three collections for strings
6. Four in two collections for keyboard
7. Two further collections for keyboard
8. Two small late collections
9. Two large late collections
10. Collections of concertos
11. Collections of organ works
12. Great passions and cantatas
13. Festive cut-and-paste projects: masses and oratorios
14. Lost blueprints
Appendix 1. Chronological index of musical doctrine.

Subject Areas: History of mathematics [PBX], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Classical music [c 1750 to c 1830 AVGC4], Baroque music [c 1600 to c 1750 AVGC3], Music [AV]