Customer Reviews

The Art of Fugue: Bach Fugues for Keyboard, 1715-1750

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I loved this book. The technical analysis seemed very dense, but I suspect I will return to this book again and again for the rest of my life, learning more and more about Bach.

I love how the book includes a beautiful cd of many of the pieces analyzed, and how the cd-rom includes the scores for all of the pieces analyzed. What a wonderful learning tool. Bless you, Joseph Kerman, for all of your wonderful books.

I find Joseph Kerman's writing almost universally elucidating. This book is no exception, although -- when Kerman ventures into areas of performance practice for which he is not prepared -- some small errors are made. Nothing, for example, about the Gigue to the G-minor English Suite suggests a two-manual harpsichord (something about the exoticism of the harpsichord's second manual always arouses pianists, making them want to insist on its necessarity; Elwood Derr makes the same error in discussing the Inventions). But Kerman's lapses are tiny.

But his lapse in taste in choosing second-rate performers for the accompanying CD is more irritating. Karen Rosenak is an unknown quantity who will likely remain unknown. Davitt Moroney is a voice from the past whose mechanical and lifeless manner of playing some still feel is appropriate to fugal counterpoint. I don't in the least, finding his playing, instead, absolutely anaesthetising.

One last quibble: the title is misleading. One expects a book on Die Kunst der Fuge and gets, instead, a compendium of analyses and music-critical pieces on all sorts of Bach fugues, from Gigue-fugues to Die Kunst der Fuge itself and everything in between. The writing suggests an erudite, specialist audience (it is musicology of the best kind: insightful and clearly written. But it is surely not intended for a lay audience) of the kind that might have preferred that he shine his considerable light on the whole of Art of Fugue, or the whole of Well-Tempered Clavier.

Still, I find this a worthwhile purchase. But, by all means, place the accompanying CD straightaway in the dust bin.

The printed version of "The Art of Fugue" includes a CD of the music analyzed in the text. While a reader can supplement the Kindle from her/his own collection, you should be aware that the writer assumes that (a) you have the CD and (b) you have the sheet music for the pieces focused on.

Pat