The Art of Fugue: Bach Fugues for Keyboard, 1715-1750 | 
 enlarge | Author: Joseph Kerman
Publisher: University of California Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 124320
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 198
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5
ISBN: 0520253892
Dewey Decimal Number: 781
EAN: 9780520253896
ASIN: 0520253892
Publication Date: February 15, 2008
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Product Description
Fugue for J. S. Bach was a natural language; he wrote fugues in organ toccatas and voluntaries, in masses and motets, in orchestral and chamber music, and even in his sonatas for violin solo. The more intimate fugues he wrote for keyboard are among the greatest, most influential, and best-loved works in all of Western music. They have long been the foundation of the keyboard repertory, played by beginning students and world-famous virtuosi alike. In a series of elegantly written essays, eminent musicologist Joseph Kerman discusses his favorite Bach keyboard fugues--some of them among the best-known fugues and others much less familiar. Kerman skillfully, at times playfully, reveals the inner workings of these pieces, linking the form of the fugues with their many different characters and expressive qualities, and illuminating what makes them particularly beautiful, powerful, and moving.
These witty, insightful pieces, addressed to musical amateurs as well as to specialists and students, are beautifully augmented by a CD with new performances made specially for this volume. In addition to the complete scores for all the music discussed in the book, the CD features Karen Rosenak, piano, playing two preludes and fugues from TheWell-Tempered Clavier--C Major, book 1; and B Major, book 2--and recordings by Davitt Moroney of the Fughetta in C Major, BWV 952, on clavichord; the Fugue on "Jesus Christus unser Heiland," BWV 689, on organ; and the Fantasy and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 904, on harpsichord.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Good Book, Deceptive Title, Terrible Performances July 12, 2007
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
I find Joseph Kerman's writing almost universally elucidating. This book is no exception, although -- when Kerman ventures into areas of performance practice for which he is not prepared -- some small errors are made. Nothing, for example, about the Gigue to the G-minor English Suite suggests a two-manual harpsichord (something about the exoticism of the harpsichord's second manual always arouses pianists, making them want to insist on its necessarity; Elwood Derr makes the same error in discussing the Inventions). But Kerman's lapses are tiny.
But his lapse in taste in choosing second-rate performers for the accompanying CD is more irritating. Karen Rosenak is an unknown quantity who will likely remain unknown. Davitt Moroney is a voice from the past whose mechanical and lifeless manner of playing some still feel is appropriate to fugal counterpoint. I don't in the least, finding his playing, instead, absolutely anaesthetising.
One last quibble: the title is misleading. One expects a book on Die Kunst der Fuge and gets, instead, a compendium of analyses and music-critical pieces on all sorts of Bach fugues, from Gigue-fugues to Die Kunst der Fuge itself and everything in between. The writing suggests an erudite, specialist audience (it is musicology of the best kind: insightful and clearly written. But it is surely not intended for a lay audience) of the kind that might have preferred that he shine his considerable light on the whole of Art of Fugue, or the whole of Well-Tempered Clavier.
Still, I find this a worthwhile purchase. But, by all means, place the accompanying CD straightaway in the dust bin.
 Another gem from Joseph K September 10, 2005
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
I loved this book. The technical analysis seemed very dense, but I suspect I will return to this book again and again for the rest of my life, learning more and more about Bach.
I love how the book includes a beautiful cd of many of the pieces analyzed, and how the cd-rom includes the scores for all of the pieces analyzed. What a wonderful learning tool. Bless you, Joseph Kerman, for all of your wonderful books.
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