John Eliot Gardiner, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven ***

In the preface, the author says that he intends to paint a portrait of Bach, the man, using evidence drawn from his music.

Part of my aim in this book is to show how clearly Bach's approach in his cantatas, motets, oratorios, Masses, and Passions reveals his mind at work, his temperamental preferences as well as his wide-ranging philosophical outlook.

I don't think he does that, though. The first half of the book describes the context in which Bach lived and worked, the second half gives a detailed musicological analysis of Bach's vocal church music, but Bach's personality remains unknown.

I am not really the ideal reader for this book, being neither a musician nor a superfan of Bach's cantatas, Passions, and masses. However, I really enjoyed the sections about life in seventeenth century Germany and the latest musical styles of the Baroque era. Gardiner does an excellent job of explaining the actual day-to-day practice of a musician/composer in those times. Like Thinking in Jazz, the book identifies the many ingredients that go into creating "inspired" music. When listening to a Bach cantata, you need to keep in mind the Lutheran beliefs, the loud socializing in the pews, and the divided balconies where the choir sang hidden from most of the congregation.

Gardiner is a conductor who recently led an ensemble through a Bach Cantata Pilgrimage: a year-long tour during which they played Bach's cantatas during the week for which they were composed. (For two years, Bach wrote a new cantata every week related to the pastoral subject for that time of year!) He knows his Bach. If I were a musician performing any of the church music, I would study the relevant chapters immediately. He assuredly overanalyzes them ("God descends and takes on human form, symbolically represented by the last minute swerve to C major"), but in so doing he fulfills the conductor's role:

The primary role of the conductor is to identify and transmit [the shared] vision to all those involved. At every instant he needs to know where the music is headed; and he has to be able to convey to each musician how individual lines fit into the overall pattern.