One title on Penrose's list:
Evening in the Palace of ReasonRead about another book on Penrose's list.
By James R. Gaines
Fourth Estate, 2005There is no requirement that a good biography be exhaustive. A narrowly gauged approach may also capture the essence of the subject. James Gaines's "Evening in the Palace of Reason" does just this in its portrait of J.S. Bach (1685-1750). The point of departure is a meeting between Bach and Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1747. As an elaborate joke (or snub) Frederick summoned "Old Bach" to his Potsdam palace and commanded the greatest improviser of his age to improvise a fugue on a special theme, one designed to be "counterpoint proof." When Bach nevertheless extemporized a three-part fugue (complete with ornaments in Frederick's affected style -- Bach's own little gibe), the emperor petulantly demanded one in six voices, at which point Bach excused himself and then produced one of his greatest works, "A Musical Offering." Mr. Gaines gives us the parallel lives of the devout and mystical Bach, who believed that the principles of music were rooted in the divine, and the rationalist Frederick, who oozed contempt at everything not based in empiricism and reason -- a struggle as timely then as it is now.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
