Becoming Bach

Johann Sebastian grew up surrounded by music, the youngest member of a family of musicians, or 'bachs,' as they were known is his part of Germany. Taught to play the harpsichord, trumpet, violin, flute and organ at a young age, his musical education was continued by his eldest brother, Johann

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Christoph, after his parents died. A lover of patterns, which he observed in music, in the natural world, and in everything he encountered, he began to work those patterns into the music he was writing, music that would live on long after he himself, Johann Sebastian Bach, was gone...

A breathtakingly beautiful book, Becoming Bach moved me deeply, both on an aesthetic and an emotional level. I knew from the moment I picked it up that it would be a visually pleasing selection - the cover artwork told me that - but I didn't expect to find its simple narrative of a brilliant soul who took the patterns he observed around him, and transformed them into great art, so poignant. Expected or not, I finished the book with tears in my eyes. What was so moving? It's difficult to say - perhaps it was the notion of patterns, which I too find myself looking for, all around me - but the text here was pitch perfect, and was perfectly matched with the illustrations. As mentioned, I loved the artwork here, from the scene in which Bach composes a fairy-tale castle in the air with musical notation, to the depiction of music as a vibrantly colored floral pattern in the great composer's head. The tale itself was deeply moving, and the inclusion of an informative afterword providing more details about Bach's life was much appreciated. In short, an absolute triumph of a picture-book, one that, despite my current moratorium on book-buying, I will need to add to my collection.

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