Evening in the Palace of Reason

by James R. Gaines

Hardcover, 2005

Call number

780.9 G

Collection

Publication

Harper (2005), Edition: First Edition (US) First Printing, 352 pages

Description

In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire's heralded 'philosopher-king', the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of 'outdated' music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age. Behind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged 'old Bach' to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son). Bach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write 'A Musical Offering' in response. A stirring declaration of faith, it represented 'as stark a rebuke of his beliefs and world view as an absolute monarch has ever received,' Gaines writes. It is also one of the great works of art in the history of music. Set at the tipping point between the ancient and the modern world, the triumphant story of Bach's victory expands to take in the tumult of the eighteenth century: the legacy of the Reformation, wars and conquest, the birth of the Enlightenment. Brimming with originality and wit, 'Evening in the Palace of Reason' is history of the best kind - intimate in scale and broad in its vision.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member billiecat
Starting from the remarkable and historical meeting of "old Bach" and Frederick the Great of Prussia, Gaines builds an interesting double biography of a musical and a military genius. The book is a quick, "almost chatty" read, focusing primarily on Bach and his music, but giving Frederick his due
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as well.

Despite the frame Gaines attempts to place on his protagonists I am unpersuaded that using these two as emblematic of faith (Bach) and reason (Frederick) works. First, Bach, as even Gaines admits, was as much a revolutionary in music as post-Enlightenment figures like Beethoven. Second, Frederick's pose as the "philosopher king" is pretty much that - a pose. The theoretical "enlightened monarch," while far more liberal than many of his contemporaries, was still a militaristic despot at heart.

The book has other flaws. Switching back and forth between Bach and Frederick can cause whiplash if one does not keep in mind they were hardly contemporaries. Gaines' breezy style is amusing, but I can't help feeling he'd sacrifice accuracy for style. And his explanation of musical theory can cause the non-technical reader's eyes to glaze over. But Gaines keeps the focus on Bach's music, and more than once he directs his reader to set aside the book and listen to Bach's work, an exhortation that does more to make his argument than whole chapters on counterpoint could do.
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LibraryThing member clarkwebb
The book is principally a meditation on the respective claims of feeling--the senses (including religious faith)--and reason, to fulfill humanity's deepest needs. J. S. Bach represents the former, Frederick the Great of Prussia, the latter. I think the volume promises more than it delivers. Why?
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Because Gaines' principal metaphor (the encounter of Bach and Frederick in the latter's palace) is inadequate to convey Gaines' thesis. His statement of that thesis is, "[A] world without a sense of the transcendent and mysterious, a universe ultimately discoverable through reason alone, can only be a barren place; and that the music sounding forth from such a world might be very pretty, but it can never be beautiful" [p 12].

The author's extensive forays into music theory and the biographies of his principal characters (and others, C. P. E. Bach, for example), although not superficial, do not, ultimately, enlighten us as he apparently expects that they will.

This book is a prose hymn of praise to J. S. Bach and his heavenly music, set to a counterpoint of Enlightenment empirically-based reason.
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LibraryThing member samfsmith
This book needs to get an award just for the length of the subtitle!

Entertaining, excellent, and approachable history. Not a biography, but an examination of the lives of J.S. Bach and Frederick the Great inspired by their famous meeting. Late in Bach’s life, he journeyed to the court of
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Frederick (where his son, C.P.E. Bach, was a court musician). Summoned by Frederick, he was presented with a theme and asked to compose a fugue on it in three parts. Back improvised the fugue, to the astonishment of everyone. Later, when Bach returned to Leipzig, he composed and had printed the “Musical Offering” on Frederic’s theme and sent it to the court.

The author does a lot of creative reading between the lines to fill out the historical record. That is what makes the book so enjoyable, presenting the facts and giving an entertaining interpretation. He fills in the history of Bach and Frederick, and casts their meeting as a collision of the serious baroque music of Bach with the lighter music favored by Frederick, and uses that as a metaphor for the change from the religious reformation to the birth of the Enlightenment.
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LibraryThing member ShaneTierney
Solid and enjoyable book. The type of history I normally enjoy, though not necessarily the style. I don't care for endnotes, though in a case like this, which Gaines refers to as an interpretive essay, endnotes do protect the narrative flow. I also, usually, don't like when historians try to be too
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witty, because it often feels like a stand-in for mastery of the subject. Gaines has his subject and its presentation in an iron grip, and his wit is actually pretty witty (though I did find all the parenthetical asides to be a bit much).
Loved how he presented his theme, wove the two threads like counterpoint, and then culminated the theme again at the end. The epilogue too was an insightful (and parenthesis-less) sweep through the epochs of ideas post-Bach-and-Frederick. If the whole book were more like the finale it would add another star, but still overall a very enjoyable essay.
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LibraryThing member bodhisattva
Johann Sebastian Bach, Fredrich the Great of Prussia, and the Enlightenment. Truly excellent book.
LibraryThing member keithhamblen
I don't know where this came from, but it is excellent, and makes me think of Jacques Barzun, in James Gaines's seeming familiarity with these historical characters.

Pages

352

ISBN

0007156588 / 9780007156580
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