Baroque
HE NZBS have embarked on a mammoth series on the life of Bach, with musical illustrations proviced by North-West-German Radio. I heard last week the second episode, the Man of the Baroque Age. The purpose of the series is admirable; ‘to effect a synthesis from the two ideas of Bach that are today current: first, the religious composer of imponderable weight, lying across music like a colossus, the Bach of the Mass in B Minor, and the St Matthew Passion; and second, the genial, small-scale
twiddler of. the Brandenburg Concertos, the French = and English suites, the Partitas, the Preludes ‘ and Fugues. What this episode suggested is that both aspects are covered by the term baroque, and it was stated many times that "Bach was a man of the Baroque Age," but what this meant in the life of the times was never made clear; the word baroque, as previously gothic, was first a term of abuse; why? Bach’s colossal musical genius, at once worldly and deeply spiritual, did no doubt express the first half of the 18th century with unique clarity, but his relation to the intellectual world. of his time, the transformation of architecture into drama, for example, I missed. _But it is early days to carp; no doubt later episodes will be devoted to an exegesis of this nature. The recordings were splendid, at once
rich and devout. All in all, this promises
to be a memorable series.
B.E.G.
M.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 934, 5 July 1957, Page 8
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243Baroque New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 934, 5 July 1957, Page 8
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