The Reception of Bach's Organ Works from Mendelssohn to Brahms - Softcover

Stinson, Russell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199747032 ISBN 13: 9780199747030

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, 2010

Synopsis

In this penetrating study, Russell Stinson explores how four of the greatest composers of the nineteenth century―Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Johannes Brahms―responded to the model of Bach's organ music. The author shows that this quadrumvirate not only borrowed from Bach's organ works in creating their own masterpieces, whether for keyboard, voice, orchestra, or chamber ensemble, but that they also reacted significantly to the music as performers, editors, theorists, and teachers. Furthermore, the book reveals how these four titans influenced one another as "receptors" of this repertory and how their mutual acquaintances―especially Clara Schumann―contributed as well.
As the first comprehensive discussion of this topic ever attempted, Stinson's book represents a major step forward in the literature on the so-called Bach revival. He considers biographical as well as musical evidence to arrive at a host of new and sometimes startling conclusions. Filled with fascinating anecdotes, the study also includes detailed observations on how these composers annotated their personal copies of Bach's organ works.
Stinson's book is entirely up-to-date and offers much material previously unavailable in English. It is meticulously annotated and indexed, and it features numerous musical examples and facsimile plates as well as an exhaustive bibliography. Included in an appendix is Brahms's hitherto unpublished study score of the Fantasy in G Major, BWV 572. Engagingly written, this study should be read by anyone at all interested in the music of Bach or the music of the nineteenth century.

About this title

Review:

Stinson has successfully combined biography and analysis to produce a book that is highly readable and accessible to both scholars and enthusiasts. Russell Stinson should be commended for assembling information from a great variety of sources in order to produce this valuable resource. I am sure that his enthusiasm for this subject - and the book's extensive bibliography - will help stimulate further study in this fascinating study. (Ian Mills, Assistant Editor, The Bach Bibliography)

About the Author:

Russell Stinson is the Josephine Emily Brown Professor of Music and College Organist at Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas. He is the author of J. S. Bach's Great Eighteen Organ Chorales (Oxford, 2001), Bach: The Orgelbüchlein (reissued by Oxford, 1999), and The Bach Manuscripts of Johann Peter Kellner and His Circle.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0199747032
• ISBN 13: 9780199747030
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240