Listening to Bach

Melamed invites us into new ways of listening to and thinking about the Mass in B Minor and the Christmas Oratorio and also engages significant debates in relation to these works. [Listening to Bach] also serves as an excellent introduction for students not only to these two important works, but also to Bach scholarship and performance practice. -- Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institutep [T]his makes for a highly unified and informative book, one enhanced by sixty-five recorded examples (presented on the Oxford University Press website and performed mostly by John Butt and the Dunedin Consort) and an appendix of nine helpful tables... In the end, Melamed's book is about Bach the craftsman, the astonishingly inventive but pragmatic composer who compiled monumental choral works by blending styles-old and new, secular and sacred-and by appropriating, revising, and even abridging preexisting pieces. His approach reflects the tendency of today's scholars to present Bach as an enlightened, humanistic figure by stressing his musical and intellectual accomplishments and playing down his religiosity and observant Lutheran worldview. --New York Review of Books A highly unified and informative book, one enhanced by sixty-five recorded examples... A rich examination of parody and its consequences in the Christmas Oratorio. --New York Review of Books Melamed is sensible and tolerant in detailing the wide diversity of present-day Bach performance practice. The message is that there is no one way of listening to Bach, but awareness of musical style can help one learn both new and old ways of listening. This important book is must reading. --D.Arnold, CHOICE