Bach
Music in the Castle of Heaven
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Narrated by:
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Antony Ferguson
About this listen
Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who (when we can discern his personality at all) seems so ordinary, so opaque - and occasionally so intemperate? John Eliot Gardiner grew up passing one of the only two authentic portraits of Bach every morning and evening on the stairs of his parents’ house, where it hung for safety during World War II. He has been studying and performing Bach ever since, and is now regarded as one of the composer's greatest living interpreters. The fruits of this lifetime's immersion are distilled in this remarkable book, grounded in the most recent Bach scholarship but moving far beyond it, and explaining in wonderful detail the ideas on which Bach drew, how he worked, how his music is constructed, how it achieves its effects - and what it can tell us about Bach the man.
Gardiner's background as a historian has encouraged him to search for ways in which scholarship and performance can cooperate and fruitfully coalesce. This has entailed piecing together the few biographical shards, scrutinizing the music, and watching for those instances when Bach's personality seems to penetrate the fabric of his notation. Gardiner's aim is "to give the reader a sense of inhabiting the same experiences and sensations that Bach might have had in the act of music-making. This, I try to show, can help us arrive at a more human likeness discernible in the closely related processes of composing and performing his music." It is very rare that such an accomplished performer of music should also be a considerable writer and thinker about it. John Eliot Gardiner takes us as deeply into Bach’s works and mind as perhaps words can. The result is a unique book about one of the greatest of all creative artists.
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- Unabridged
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By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
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The Audible is a Train Wreck
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Religion for Atheists
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The boring debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers is finally moved on by Alain de Botton's inspiring new book, which boldly argues that the supernatural claims of religion are of course entirely false - and yet that religions still have important things to teach the secular world.
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Disappointing, Erroneous, Implausible
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Meister Eckhart was a medieval Christian mystic whose wisdom powerfully appeals to seekers seven centuries after his death. In the modern era, Eckhart's writings have struck a chord with thinkers as diverse as Heidegger, Merton, Sartre, John Paul II, and the current Dalai Lama. He is the inspiration for the best-selling New Age author Eckhart Tolle's pen name, and his 14th-century quotes have become an online sensation. Today, a variety of Christians, as well as many Zen Buddhists, Sufi Muslims, Jewish Cabbalists, and various spiritual seekers, all claim Eckhart as their own.
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Meister Ekhart foisting his sexuality....
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Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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Super super
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When an obscure monk named Martin Luther tacked his theses on the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517, protesting corrupt practices, he was virtually unknown. Within months his ideas spread across Germany then all of Europe; within years their author was not just famous but infamous, responsible for catalyzing the violent wave of religious reform that would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation and engulfing Europe in decades of bloody war.
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Informed, Impacting
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A Life Observed
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A Life Observed tells the inspiring story of Lewis' spiritual journey from cynical atheist to joyous Christian. Drawing on Lewis' autobiographical works, books by those who knew him personally, and his apologetic and fictional writing, this spiritual biography brings the beloved author’s story to life while shedding light on his best-known works.
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A beautifully written remembrance
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A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
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1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.
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Note!--Abridged version
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Natasha's Dance
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Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
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A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
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The Man Who Invented Fiction
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In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.
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Very Interesting and Informative, but Poorly Read
- By LCorSMT on 06-21-23
By: William Egginton
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Wanted: More audiobooks from the author
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Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life - even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last becoming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature.
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Really boring.
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Alex Ross, renowned New Yorker music critic and author of the international best seller and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics - an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and violence.
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Not Just for Wagner Experts!
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What listeners say about Bach
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Stefan
- 01-16-15
Fire the Reader!!!
Gardiner's book is fascinating, personal and based on current research, but it would be hard to imagine a reading that was less cognizant of musical or theological terms. In nearly every paragraph, the reader mispronounces terms in Latin, Italian, German and even English! It was infuriating at times, making it a struggle to listen to the end.
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20 people found this helpful
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- Tom
- 09-09-14
A Deep History of Bach
Is there anything you would change about this book?
I listen to about three books a week, so I have a broad experience in the varying qualities of books of various genres. I've listened to longer histories, Toland's biography of Hitler, for example, and I have to say that this history of Bach must be one of those books that just needs to be read, not heard. The narration is very precise, which does not necessarily equal pleasant reading. I ended up returning this book, simply because there was not enough movement in the narrative to maintain my interest.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
I did appreciate the scholarship in this book, but it does not make for interesting listening.
Did Antony Ferguson do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
None at all.
Could you see Bach being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
Not a chance.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 09-24-23
Great insights, unfortunate narration
As a lover of Bach, especially his choral music, Gardiner's insights deepened my appreciation of his genius. I kept wishing for a musical soundtrack that would bring these insights to life alongside the author's written words. On the other hand, I was utterly frustrated by the reader's butchered German and (often) Latin, and his consistent mispronunciation of "affect," so different in meaning from "effect." A book about J. S. Bach read by someone who hasn't the foggiest about how to pronounce German words??? The production people should hang their heads--and, even at this late date, re-record this book. (I'd be happy to volunteer.) The text is certainly worth it!
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3 people found this helpful
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- Brcrma
- 02-18-22
Narration debacle
It was hard to listen to for straight sentences in this book because the narrator knows neither German nor music. It seems both of these topics would’ve been at the top of a list when looking for somebody to narrate Gardeners. It’s laughable, Really
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1 person found this helpful
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- Robert Ploessl
- 04-01-19
A mixed bag
This is a wonderful book. Not a traditional biography, but with plenty of insight into the music from a famous conductor who turns out to be a great writer, too.
However the narration by Anthony Ferguson is pedestrian. He’d be entirely fine with a book that has no foreign words. However, the production on this “Audible Only” recording is unbelievably shoddy. There are - surprise! - many German words in this book, as well as Latin, Italian, and French ones. Mr. Ferguson renders the German words unintelligible, butchers the Latin, mangles the names of French composers, and can’t even get some of the musical terms right. A trip to the dictionary could have fixed many of these errors. It’s the “we don’t care” attitude from the entire production team I find most lamentable. No quality control. Did anybody listen to this? Apparently the Hollywood-movie-approach was applied. The words sound foreign, so it’s good enough.
In my opinion, a disservice was done to this book.
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- MJP
- 05-07-17
Great insight, ok reading
The book itself gave a fresh perspective on JS Bach - the man behind the music. Will be purchasing the physical book to reference the excellent content.
The reading was good except for several errors in pronunciation - especially Latin.
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- Gold man
- 01-07-15
Written by an Artist for Artists and Connoisseurs
Any additional comments?
An excellent biographical treatise on the complex life circumstances that go into creating the sublime. Any creative will be grateful to the author for fleshing out the details of Bach's life and music with purity of intent and love for our artistic evolution....skg
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- Kindle Customer
- 09-28-22
Great book about J. S. Bach
An excellent book. Some music words mispronounced. Well written and author extremely knowledgeable about the subject and made parts of the text personal.
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- Camerata
- 02-04-22
Monumental Work on JS Bach
The content is superb. Perhaps too detailed and in depth for casual Bach lovers and even many professional musicians.
Gardiner displays his extensive, lifelong experience and understanding of JS Bach and many other facets of Western Music History. It's not surprising that his recordings are so illuminated and musical. He has studied countless details that only reinforce his skill at recreating great performance of JS Back, Monteverdi and many others.
The narration is clean, precise and well paced, but some unfortunate pronunciation errors. I imagine reviewing and preparing a work of this size, was not possible.
Slightly irritating to hear pharisee pronounced as fuhREEsee, among other Italian and German word errors, but overall, very good and an impressive effort.
Much easier to absorb the material aurally than visually, so thank you for this audio version.
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- Jean
- 09-29-14
Interesting
The author is a well known Conductor in England. He is the founder of the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists. In some ways this book is an autobiography of Gardiner and his search for information to understand Bach, wrapped in a biography of Bach.
Gardiner tells of the difficulties Bach had with his employers throughout his career and his recurrent refusal to accept authority. He tells of Bach’s life as an orphan and his problems with schools. Gardiner book is dense with fact and full of diversions. The book is also rich in informal conjectures. He writes of Back’s gradual turn from what listeners today might consider “the parochiality of the liturgical context” to “music that shows more and more signs of an almost limitless appeal.” Gardiner speculates “It is entirely possible that Bach’s growing disenchantment with Cantatas in the 1730s arose from a since that the communality of belief that he had once shared with his congregation was breaking down, and that, for whatever reason, he was now failing to make his mark.”
The author writes in a lively, conversational style. Gardiner has done an excellent job of painting us a picture of Bach considering how little information about him is available. Antony Ferguson does a great job narrating the book.
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7 people found this helpful