Inimitable until eternity
To read this book it is not required to be specialized in Bach’s biography, or in particular music. Following the author’s vision, the book is much more than the simple explanation of the musician’s life. Through his books and music, he makes us understand the world he had to live. Ramón Andrés (Pamplona, 1955) is a contemporary poet, poet and thinker of much recognition. His solidity in humanistic knowledge, musical training in his youth and critical literary style about history, leaves us a legacy of exceptional works such as the Dictionary of Musical Instruments. From ancientity to J.S.Bach. Prologue of Sir John Elior Gardiner, Barcelona, Peninsula, 2009, the infinite listener. Reflections and sentences about music (from Nietzche to our day), Barcelona, 2007 or Claudio Monteverdi ”Sorry Della Ninfa”. To writings essays (the previous ones named), two dictionaries and several poetry books. Knowledge about music and the study of human thought, has allowed Ramón Andrés to enter a very sparticular way in the history of thought from musical language. Therefore we can assume that the intention of the work is to understand how the historical context in Bach and its musical creation influenced. The author’s erudition is so complex and as complex his historical references, that we will focus on the profile that Bach draws us, on explanatory ideas to understand the work and the approach he proposes, how a man as scholarly as Bach was , only theological and spirituality books possessed as testified by its inventory?
Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685, and died, in Leipzig, in 1750, ending the Baroque period. Baroque man does not pursue beauty, but base his thinking on reason and feeling. The author argues that libraries are a space for reflection and wisdom, where people can take refuge and obtain knowledge.The author explains that Johann Sebastian Bach was a man of much intellectual curiosity, he had unheard of ability to absorb the proposals from reason and spirit and transform them into an art, his books were full of annotations. This left a library among which the titles of theology and spirituality abounded, as certified by the inventory of his death. The problem is that the majority being religious books, we would achieve a perception of Bach as a man of close training, which does not sympathize with part of his work and work. Who has more books is from Luther, this is logical because, at that time, Lutheranism is a very influential current in German life. The Bible was a source of inspiration for his passions and cantatas of him, based on biblical texts. The singer of Santo Tomás, will be recovered for the general public in 1829, where Mendelsshon makes the>. The author points out that Bach students spread their work, as well as important composers.
Death was a very recurring theme throughout the life of the musician. Orphan, death of children, the death of Maria Barba who marked him, to which he paid tribute to the work "La Ciaccona". The author argues that the image we give today to the composer of a bad genius, the calculation echo musician, is the same one that was given in the S.XIX-XX. Influenced by authors such as Leibniz, who will be very recurrent in his work. The author also raises the influence of spiritualism, alchemy, dark and occult thoughts, referring to Yersley who suggests that Bach made use of alchemy and music with the sole purpose. Bach was a religious man, God like music, he had no confines. The author names Spener several times, a disseminator of Pietist thought. Bach also had books of this character.
The author tells us that Bach was totally self-taught, a practical musician. His son Carl Philip Emmanuel wrote in his necrological (a book that has been taken as the basis of Bach’s biographies) that he had the ability to compose and improvise without an organ or key in front.
In conclusion, if something is clear in the book is the depth of the work of the German musician, that the author empters into the currents not only musical, but also spiritual and cultural of the time. The musical didactic books or other genres were not included in the inventory due to their little economic value. Therefore, the author does not share the idea that a personality can be deciphered through papers human beings are changing ideas, attitudes and feelings over time, therefore, we cannot define ourselves in a single being.
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