|
|
Article: Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- June 12, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work. By Martin Geck. Harcourt, 7.52 pp., $40.00.
NO COMPOSER has more universal appeal than Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). The plethora of concerts, festivals, recordings and publications that came in the wake of the Bach Anniversary Year of 2000 provides ample evidence. That outpouring is all the more telling since it came just 15 years after another Bach anniversary in 1985, which had called forth a similar quantity of celebratory events.
But Bach's music creates a problem for many who don't want to acknowledge the explicit Christian message proclaimed in so much of it. Since Mendelssohn's revival of the St. Matthew ...