Customer Reviews

Bach at Leipzig: A Play

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I owe a tremendous debt to this play and to Itamar Moses. I went to an early production in Ithaca, New York and found it so intellectually powerful and riotously funny that I became an avid follower of the contemporary theater scene and of Moses especially. You cannot read this play and continue thinking that modern America is a cultural wasteland. Moses combines artistic substance, formal ingenuity, and fall-out-of-your-seat humor to create an experience that delights you while you're in it and stays with you afterward. BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT! Your hope for America's arts will be restored.

To describe this play as riotously funny doesn't do justice to its vast intelligence. The form and content of Bach@Leipzig are inextricably linked in surprising (and, yes, hilarious) ways. And there are beautiful themes here: about the power of self delusion; and ambition; and music. This play is just that - musical, ambitious and deliciously delusional. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Gathered to replace the highly respected organist of the Thomaskirsche in Leipzig, Germany in 1722, a select group of composers aspire to this coveted position. Patronage is the key to survival in an era when good fortune and fame are the products of such an esteemed recommendation. As the six composers assemble, awaiting a decision, religion, politics and occupation are inextricable, Leipzig a Lutheran stronghold against the advances of Catholicism. One by one, each composer expresses his convictions and beliefs, assured that his is the righteous path. Introducing the characters, each act is prefaced by a composer penning a letter outlining his desire for to be organist, the missives then flown by carrier pigeon to the addressees.

Various characters gather for clandestine meetings, making deals to diminish the competition, revealing their personal agendas. When the entire group is together, the conversation is laced with double entendres and a purposeful manipulation of facts, their apparent bonhomie a façade for the negotiations in play. Since the Reformation, religion is integral to such affair, as is politics, the competing factions proffering a variety of beliefs on Predestination, Lutheran traditionalism challenged by the Calvinist's "standards" for achieving heaven, while Pietists "embrace an individual spirituality that frees them from all limits", pure joy available to everyone, divorced from God..

Based on real persons and events, this ingenious play reveals the farcical manipulations and skullduggery behind the scenes, as the musicians resort to bribery and blackmail, religious concerns set aside in a bid for the coveted position. The humor is pervasive, the contestants revealing their very human flaws and willingness to negotiate in the pursuit of success. Both politics and religion converge as the play evolves, a drawing room farce that reaches beyond the secluded world of this appointment, contretemps exposed in an intimate exchange of broad humor, a subtle reminder that "politics is only war by other means", proving once more that nothing is what it seems. Murder and mayhem aside, the composers are faced with an age-old conundrum, "People... have little interest in music or religion. I don't know what they will call this age... its chief characteristic is a profound lack of enlightenment." Luan Gaines/ 2005.

I would never have guessed that German dudes in the 1700's could be so flippin' funny. Or that a play so silly could be so smart. It is tremendously clever. I gotta read it again to see what I missed the first time. I can't wait to see what Moses writes next!

Perhaps if I'd seen the play, not read the play, I could have given "Bach in Leipzig" 3 stars, but I didn't and can't. Sure it helps if you know your Bach, his selection in Leipzig, the structure of the fugue and the frequency of old German fore names, but really that doesn't help enough. I did not find the play engaging, or funny, or worth the time I spent reading through it. I wish I had.

What a brilliant, funny, profound play. Moses manages to turn a footnote in history into a masterful piece of drama that touches on religion, politics, and man's inner creative life. I long to see it onstage.

Caveat: I have not seen this play in production. I have only read the copy listed for sale.

Itamar Moses has written a sophisticated comedy satirizing many aspects of life in 17th C in a style reminiscent of Tom Stoppard's. I loved it and saw it produced at UC Santa Cruz, a major success.

Bach at Leipzig is a kind of pushmepullyou of a play (my hat is off to Doctor Doolittle!), a witty comedy that is half low farce and half comedy of ideas. In 1723, seven musicians descend on the German cathedral city of Leipzig. They are auditioning for the newly vacated post of organist of the Thomaskirchof (St. Thomas's Church) and head of the chapel music school, the Thomasschule. The candidates dance around each other, seeking advantage in a deadly battle of wits and wiles. Two, maybe a third, are noble in birth. Three are base born, one both poor and a bastard. The seventh is Georg Phillip Telemann, widely acclaimed the Greatest Organist in Germany. Can any of the others defeat him? And if he is vanquished, who instead shall win the prize?

What follows is a comic fugue: The same Situations appear and reappear, lines are said and resaid, alliances are formed and broken, as the six musicians dance around each other. (Telemann is above such maneuverings.) Then an eighth candidate appears at the last minute. His name is Bach. Johann Sebastian Bach. (To confuse matters further, all of the candidates are named either Johann or Georg. And serendipitously, all the actors but one in this play are named either David or Daniel.) Careening from rapier wit to broad physical comedy, Bach is a constant surprise, a pleasure to watch and listen to. And above the talk and activity, there is the music, the glorious fugues, toccatas and passacaglias of Bach, in later times to be acknowledged the greatest composer in that age of many great composers.

I'm acting in this play and it's as much fun to act in as it is to watch.

Itamar Moses has written a fantastic play in BACH AT LEIPZIG. Some knowledge of music history and theory is required to get all the jokes and understand the form of the first act (it is a fugue), but it is a highly accessible introduction to the history of J. S. Bach at a pivotal moment in his life. Recommended for all music students and enthusiasts. Great for a college seminar or music history class!

This play is a very clever work of art in that it combines the silly and the profound in an entertaining mix. Humor and word play keep the interest of the viewer sustained throughout the acts. Yet, in some ways the play is about characters not on the stage and ideas that are only implicitly introduced in the play. Let me explain. This is a tightly written fast moving drama of 6 competitors for a valued music post at the Thomaskirsche in Leipzig Germany in 1722. It is very entertaining and witty as we see these 6 men express their inner ambitions and agendas as they make deals, create hidden agendas, conduct clandestine negotiation, engage in bribery and resort to blackmail. These actions are situated in a context of religious conflict between Lutheranism and Catholicism and the theological underpinnings for the Lutheran approach.

Yet there is much that is brilliantly unsaid in the text, such as the fact that Bach is never seen on stage and is tangential to the manipulations yet is central to the final selection. Further, the great artist rises above the manipulations whereas those of lesser talent are then put in the position of plots and schemes to obtain the desired position. Itmar Moses points out the distinction between the artist and careerism and self promotion. Thoughtful and funny.