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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 In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of 'outdated' music, a scorned genius in his last years.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)
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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.
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.
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
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.
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.