Counterpoint : : a Memoir of Bach and Mourning
Book - 2020 786.209 Ke, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Performing Arts / Music / Kennicott, Philip 2 On Shelf No requests on this item
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Call Number: 786.209 Ke, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Performing Arts / Music / Kennicott, Philip
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Westgate Branch
Location & Checkout Length | Call Number | Checkout Length | Item Status |
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Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout |
786.209 Ke | 4-week checkout | On Shelf |
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout |
Adult Book / Nonfiction / Performing Arts / Music / Kennicott, Philip | 4-week checkout | On Shelf |
"A Pulitzer Prize- winning critic reflects on the meaning and emotional impact of a Bach masterwork. As his mother was dying, Philip Kennicott began listening to the music of Bach obsessively, and spent the next five years trying to learn one of the composer's greatest keyboard masterpieces, the Goldberg Variations. In Counterpoint, he recounts his efforts to rise to the challenge, and to fight through his grief by coming to terms with memories of a difficult, complicated childhood. He describes the joys of mastering some of the pieces, the frustrations that plague his understanding of others, the technical challenges they pose, and the surpassing beauty of the melodies, harmonies, and counterpoint that distinguish them. While exploring Bach's compositions, he sketches a cultural history of playing the piano in the twentieth century. And he raises two questions that become increasingly interrelated, not unlike a contrapuntal passage in one of the variations itself: What does it mean to know a piece of music? What does it mean to know another human being?"-- Provided by publisher.
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PUBLISHED
New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2020]
Year Published: 2020
Description: 244 pages ; 22 cm
Language: English
Format: Book
ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9780393635362
0393635368
SUBJECTS
Bach, Johann Sebastian, -- 1685-1750 -- Appreciation.
Bach, Johann Sebastian, -- 1685-1750.
Kennicott, Philip.