Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach

Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach collects seventeen essays by leading Bach scholars. The essays explore Bach’s sacred vocal music from the perspectives of historical theology, music analysis, the study of parody procedures, and reception history.

Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach collects seventeen essays by leading Bach scholars. The authors each address in some way such questions of meaning in J. S. Bach’s vocal compositions—including his Passions, Masses, Magnificat, and cantatas—with particular attention to how such meaning arises out of the intentionality of Bach’s own compositional choices or (in Part IV in particular) how meaning is discovered, and created, through the reception of Bach’s vocal works. And the authors do not consider such compositional choices in a vacuum, but rather discuss Bach’s artistic intentions within the framework of broader cultural trends—social, historical, theological, musical, etc.
Such questions of compositional choice and meaning frame the four primary approaches to Bach’s vocal music taken by the authors in this volume, as seen across the book’s four parts: Part I: How might the study of historical theology inform our understanding of Bach’s compositional choices in his music for the church (cantatas, Passions, masses)? Part II: How can we apply traditional analytical tools to understand better how Bach’s compositions were created and how they might have been heard by his contemporaries? Part III: What we can understand anew through the study of Bach’s self-borrowing (i.e., parody), which always changed the earlier meaning of a composition through changes in textual content, compositional characteristics, the work’s context within a larger composition, and often the performance context (from court to church, for example)? Part IV: What can the study of reception teach us about a work’s meaning(s) in Bach’s time, during the time of his immediate successors, and at various points since then (including our present)?
The chapters in this volume thus reflect the breadth of current Bach research in its attention not only to source study and analysis, but also to meanings and contexts for understanding Bach’s compositions.

Contributor: Mark A. Peters (Edited by), Yo Tomita (Contributions by), Markus Rathey (Contributions by), William H. Scheide (Contributions by), Tanya Kevorkian (Contributions by), Robert L. Marshall (Contributions by), Mark A. Peters (Contributions by), Robin A. Leaver (Contributions by), Reginald L. Sanders (Contributions by), Wye J. Allanbrook (Contributions by), Jason B. Grant (Contributions by), Gregory Butler (Contributions by), Mary Greer (Contributions by), Kayoung Lee (Contributions by), Hans-Joachim Schulze (Contributions by), Reginald L. Sanders (Edited by), Ruth Tatlow (Contributions by), Robin A. Leaver (Foreword by), Eric Chafe (Contributions by), Steven Saunders (Contributions by), Martin Petzoldt (Contributions by)

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.