Average customer rating:
- Good Intro to Leni
- Brilliant But Petty and Cruel -- Oh, Wait, That's The Author!
- Double standard
- Good book but, a little too long
- Leni survives all
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Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl
Steven Bach
Manufacturer: Knopf
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Leni Riefenstahl: A Life
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ASIN: 0375404007
Release Date: 2007-03-13 |
Book Description
The definitive biography of Leni Riefenstahl, the woman best known as “Hitler’s filmmaker,” one of the most fascinating and controversial personalities of the twentieth century. It is the story of huge talent and huger ambition, one that probes the sometimes blurred borders dividing art and beauty from truth and humanity.
Two of Riefenstahl’s films, Olympia and Triumph of the Will, are universally regarded as the greatest and most innovative documentaries ever made, but they are also insidious glorifications of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Now, in this masterful new biography, Steven Bach reveals the truths and lies behind this gifted woman’s lifelong self-vindication as an apolitical artist who claimed she knew nothing of the Holocaust and denied her complicity with the criminal regime she both used and sanctified.
The facts and her actions, many unknown until now, bear chilling witness: her passionate enthusiasm for Hitler from her first reading of Mein Kampf; her involvements with Nazi leaders Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann, Albert Speer, and Julius Streicher, who advanced her career, and with Hitler, who personally helped finance it; her role as silent eyewitness to wartime atrocities against Jews; and her use of slave labor in the form of concentration camp Gypsies destined for Auschwitz. We see her after the war trying to sell footage to Hollywood under an alias, manipulating a sham “discovery” of the Nuba tribes of Sudan into a career comeback, fighting to disinherit her closest living relatives, and—to the end—unable to express remorse for the millions murdered by the Nazi regime made mythic by her work.
Relying on new sources—including interviews with her colleagues and intimate friends, as well as on previously unknown recordings of Riefenstahl herself—Bach gives us an exceptional work of historical investigation that untangles the past and is also an objective but unsparing appraisal of a woman of spectacular gifts corrupted by ruthless personal ambition.
Customer Reviews:
Good Intro to Leni .......2007-08-29
After reading Jurgen Trimborn's admirable but somewhat inaccessible biography of Riefenstahl, I sought out this book in hopes that it would be friendlier to a Riefenstahl novice such as me. It certainly is an easier read and a much better starting place.
Steven Bach, of Final Cut fame, writes from the standpoint of a motion picture enthusiast. He also has a POV where Riefenstahl's Nazi associations are concerned and he doesn't hide it. For Bach Riefenstahl is the living version of Klaus Mann's Mephisto, a careerist willing to do anything and associate with anyone to advance her "art." He also makes the case (clearly building on Trimborn's work, among others) that Riefenstahl not only had no problem with anything Hitler did or said, she likely agreed with most if not all of it.
Bach's style is that of a gossipy Hollywood bio, which is fine by me, but he's no fan magazine hack. He knows the power of the snide observation and, best of all, how damning Leni's own words were. At times Riefenstahl comes across as downright delusional about her artistic abilities and men's lust for her. To hear her tell it no man so much as entered the same zipcode as Leni Riefenstahl without falling madly in love with her.
Some may have disagreements about Bach's assessment of Riefenstahl's artistic contributions. I've only seen clips of her work so my own opinion is somewhat limited. Bach does make a good case the Riefenstahl either stole the ideas of others or took credit for their work. Bach doesn't buy the argument that the art is more important than the character or actions of the artist. He also doesn't buy that Riefenstahl was much of an artist.
This is no love letter to Leni. It is an entertaining read. Gossipy, slightly bitchy (as one reviewer here has aptly noted), and full of telling details and quotes, this is a easy entry into the myths and controversy that make up Leni Riefenstahl.
Brilliant But Petty and Cruel -- Oh, Wait, That's The Author! .......2007-08-26
Not since Albert Goldman's ELVIS has a dense, full length biography of a sexy, glamorous larger than life legend been written with such sadistic relish, such delicious malicious bitchery and pure venomous guile.
There's no question that Leni Riefenstahl, the stunningly beautiful German woman who made hypnotic propaganda films for the Nazis, was guilty of moral cowardice and hypocrisy, if not during the war, then certainly afterwards. She persisted to the end of her life in wanting to have it both ways -- saying in effect "I didn't know," and at the same time "I was too scared to stop Hitler -- too scared that I would be next." She claimed to have legions of Jewish friends before the war, but she never tried to help them when things got bad, even though she had lots of Nazi influence and power. And she always seemed weirdly out of touch with the human results of Hitler's evil deeds.
The problem is, Steve Bach doesn't know when to quit. He sneers at Leni Riefenstahl not just for the big things -- not strangling Hitler with her bare hands, the way he seems to imagine he would have done -- but for the little things too. The book is full of catty little remarks like, "Leni was always conscious of her hypnotic effect on men" or "Leni didn't mind having handsome, powerful men buy her presents" or "Leni's fearless mountain climbing only made her feminine allure more overpowering to the distinguished male cinema artists who indulged her every creative whim."
It's hard to tell whether Bach hates Leni for being heartless and callous or for being beautiful, talented -- and very knowingly seductive.
There is a much more serious issue here than the hissy ALL ABOUT EVE style bitchery of a jaded Hollywood insider. Bach insists on judging a German film maker by a far more rigorous standard than he would ever apply to the film industry in Hollywood today -- or seventy years ago, for that matter. When Leni goes to Hollywood he brags that the left-leaning Hollywood of 1938 treated the lovely German visitor with scorn -- but how did they treat Margaret Mitchell when she came to town the very next year? Bach has nothing to say about why those same "leftists" failed to prevent the making of a racist epic like GONE WITH THE WIND.
If Leni Riefenstahl shares any part of the guilt for Auschwitz -- and I agree that she does -- then David O. Selznick is equally responsible for the murder of Emmitt Till, the bombings in Birmingham, and all the other hate crimes perpetrated in the Jim Crow south. Bach is in a big hurry to compare Leni to the Stalinist film maker Eisenstein -- arguing in a feeble and half-hearted way that Eisenstein "probably" rebelled at what he was doing. But why not compare Leni Riefenstahl to D.W. Griffiths, or Margaret Mitchell, or David Selznick? All of them dealt in racial hate. They looked the other way while helpless people were tortured and murdered, too. But mentioning America's poisonous history of racial hate would reflect badly on Bach's own milieu. Bach's beloved Hollywood elite never questioned the racial status quo in the Jim Crow south -- at least, not until long after blacks had begun risking their lives to bring the horror of their situation to national attention.
What's really going on here is not genuine, humanistic outrage, but elitist hypocrisy. Bach hates Leni Riefenstahl because he knows that, for all their tiresome liberal cant, just about everyone in Hollywood (and the book world, and the world of leftist Manhattan politics) has the same rat-like survival instincts that Leni had. None of the liberals who demonstrate their courage by hating her guts now ever had to look Hitler in the eye. But they know who would have blinked first. And they know themselves too well to ever show mercy to someone just like them.
Double standard.......2007-08-22
Most of the facts and "facts" in this book cannot be disputed. Only one comment - there were many other people who "cooperated" with the Nazis, but who escape any oprobrium, Richard Strauss name comes to mind. In 1938 he composed "Festliches Praeludium" for the occassion of NSDAP Parteitag, he was the president of Reichsmusikkammer, directly working for Goebbels, he never lifted a finger to help his Jewish friends, etc. etc. Maybe Richard Strauss could be another topic for Steven Bach to delve into.
Good book but, a little too long.......2007-08-11
This was a very good book but, I think Bach gives us too much detail on Leni's life after WWII. I thought the book could have ended much sooner than it did. After all, did we really have to hear about Leni's search for a particular tribe in Africa? It would have suited me fine to hear about her various means of defending herself from various charges as a result of her association with Hitler and the Nazis. I don't see what benefit the inclusion of the African tribe info was to the reader. Still an interesting read.
Leni survives all.......2007-06-14
The author tries and fails to give an evenhanded account of this much reviled woman's life. All this proves once again that the winners write the history. In the meantime he does portray a fascinating and beautiful woman as the opportunist she was without detracting from her worth as a great artist. All in all the best effort so far reflecting an eventful life.
Amazon.com
Readers of Richard Bach's Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, will recall that said messiah, Donald Shimoda, carried with him a small book entitled the Messiah's Handbook. According to Shimoda, all Bach had to do was, "Open it, and whatever you need to know is there." Now, decades after Illusions was first published, Bach has made the handbook available to all of us "advanced souls in training."
Rather than reading it cover-to-cover, Bach counsels us to close our eyes, focus on the question we want an answer to, then open the handbook at random, open our eyes and read what's on the page. In this regard, Messiah's Handbook can be likened to a 21st century version of the I Ching or The Book of Runes, with the same appeal to readers who enjoys such works. Each page is composed of a single, thought-provoking aphorism.
As with all of Bach's books, at the heart of Messiah's Handbook is his encouragement to his reader to follow the drumbeat of their dreams without compromise or apology, knowing that we can have what we desire so long as we believe we can. Used as directed, Messiah's Handbook is a delightfully insightful guide for making those dreams come true.--Larry Trivieri Jr.
Book Description
In Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Richard Bach met Donald Shimoda, a fellow pilot with the keys to the universe who barnstormed the Midwest in a Travel Air biplane. Part of Shimoda's secret was a small book, bound in a what looked like suede - Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul. "Open it," he said, "and whatever you need to know is there." Lost for decades and rediscovered, here it is in print at last - reminders for those who have outgrown cynicism and doubt.
Customer Reviews:
Inspiring, Fascinating.......2007-07-18
Over the years I have admired and ejoyed Richard Bach's works. This one came as a welcome surprise, as its content honors the "Reminders for the Advanced Soul" part of the title. It is a nice compendium of quotes by Bach that reflect his philosophy of life. The text speaks to the reader's Higher Self and invites to perform self-enquiry. I personally find it nourishes my spirit. And I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys inspirational quotes of a different kind.
Wisdom One Bite At A Time.......2007-06-22
Wonderful collection of wisdom. Not a book but a collection. Think of it not as bound pages but as individual scraps of wisdom.
Small, powerful, positive.
Aphorisms and Great One-Liners.......2007-05-07
I have enjoyed Bach's easy to read and remember books for over twenty years. I re-read "Illusions" a couple of times and year and then give it away. The "Messiahs Handbook" takes the most memorable quotes from Richard's writings and makes them accessable on numberless pages. While the "Messiah's Handbook" is central to "Illusions" this re-print gives the reader a quick kick out of the ordinary.
The subversive message of the book is that your life is yours and this book is much like word oriented "Roschart" ink blot. . .a place to go and look. . . and then see.
Read it laugh at yourself and enjoy the time.
If you love Illusions this book is a must!.......2007-03-31
I was ordering a few books one day and added this one to get free shipping. I am so glad I did I love it. My copy of Illusions is well worn.
Now I have this little book on my computer desk. It has fallen off my desk and magically opened to just the right page on more than one occasion.
Give yourself a gift and buy this wonderful little book.
A wonderful companion.......2007-03-14
After reading Illusions, I found myself constantly flipping back to find where the font differed in the text in order to find those precious words of wisdom that Richard Bach seems to come up with quite easily. I've found this book to be a great thing to have as it's easy to carry in a pocket or a back-pack and you can just sit yourself down, breathe for a few seconds, and ask a question of the Is. Of course, you don't have to believe in any magical side to it. It's also just a nice little book with great quotes. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Richard Bach.
Book Description
Why work for someone else when you can call your own shots, pursue your dreams, and find success on your terms by starting your own business? So many people end up bored with their jobs, stuck in the corporate grind, never following their true passions. As wildly successful young entrepreneur Cameron Johnson shows, you don't have to live that way. We've entered a new age of entrepreneurship, with the Web making it easier than ever to start and run your own company. As Johnson's remarkable story reveals, the entrepreneurial way of life is a great way to make sure you love what you do -- and it offers the potential to achieve extraordinary success by following your gut instincts and going for what you really want.
What about the risks? Don't you need lots of money? Don't most start-ups fail? Johnson shares his essential secrets to entrepreneurial success that show you how he got into the life at very low risk, and, with very little money, took an idea that excited him and ran with it, achieving great success and satisfaction with businesses he loved. He didn't have an MBA; he didn't even have a college degree. But he had learned the simple yet vital secrets he reveals.
Cameron Johnson is a seriously happy entrepreneur who started his first business when he was nine with $50 and a home computer. Before he'd turned twenty-one he'd started twelve successful businesses and was offered $10 million in venture capital to grow his hot Web company CertificateSwap.com -- praised by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the Web businesses helping the tech industry get its groove back -- even bigger. He has never taken out a loan or racked up any debt, and every one of his businesses has been highly profitable -- so profitable that he made his first million before graduating from high school, and he's put away enough cash so that he could retire today. But that's the last thing on earth he'd want to do; he's much too happy starting up new companies.
Through the story of his own impressive career so far, in You Call the Shots, Johnson takes you behind the scenes of entrepreneurial success and empowers you to hit the ground running with your own great business idea, no matter how young you are or how little money you have to invest.
Customer Reviews:
GREAT BOOK!!!.......2007-07-03
This book is really excellent. I've read so many that tell you ways to either get into businesses or how to structure a business... Cameron Johnson's book takes you from start to finish along his real-life business life - talks about the structuring, marketing, and sometimes, the sale of a business. He also gives you his 19 principles for young entrepreneurs which I implemented in my own business.
I would give this book more than 5 stars if I could. GREAT BOOK!!!
Great hands on.......2007-06-19
It's a great book. So many books tell you to have this great attitude and act like you're driving your mercedes and living in a mansion with servants - it's the attitude that makes the person. That being said, this man tells you to roll up your sleeves, look at what's around your neighborhood and get to work. He's practical and very level headed.
Excellent, actionable advice for starting and growing a business.......2007-06-04
I was given this book by my wife. She thought I would be interested in reading about a young entrepreneur who started and sold several businesses. I have to admit that I've read dozens and dozens of entrepreneurship books since I started my own company ten years ago, so--besides Cameron Johnson's age--I was wondering how this book was different from all the rest. After reading this book I realized that what makes it different is Cameron Johnson's straightforward "roll up your sleaves and do it" insight into how he started, grew, and sold his businesses--and his genuine enthusiasm for helping readers do the same. While many entrepreneurship books cover the generic high points of starting and running your own business, few books make this potentially daunting process as manageable and practical as You Call the Shots. As a winner of my city's Entrepreneur of Year Award, I feel comfortable recommending this book for soon-to-be entrepreneurs and those like me who have started the adventure.
Flawed.......2007-05-25
The cover of the book was intriguing enough to buy, but after reading the first 3 chapters, I came to a rather quick conclusion that this young man has been riding the coat tales of his entrepreneurial family and their successes. The "start from scratch" story is not evident in this book, but rather the perspective of a 23-year-old author following in the footsteps of his family's successful automotive dealership background, which his grandfather started. The author is very focused on his accomplishments, but they are businesses for which he claims 100% his own doing yet seem outlandish. For example: selling Beanie-Babies at age 12, over EBay, buying from wholesalers, with his own credit card; I beg to differ, but this must have required some family help. The author also makes claims that he did not need any funds for those early businesses, but yet he received a $2000+ computer system (given to him by his parents) to make holiday cards from Print Shop as the primary means of his "Cheers & Tears" business. Businesses require some level of capital to start, but if the author's perspective is to get free handouts from others to start his businesses (i.e. parents), then he has made his point.
On the other hand, this is a great book for teenagers and twenty-something's who still have the luxury of living with their parents with minimum expenses, and can take a dip in the entrepreneurial lifestyle, without having to burden the costs of normal life. Usually living expenses factor in much of the risk new entrepreneurs face, yet the author appears to have never been exposed to such risks. Growing-up with parents who own successful businesses and are millionaires, tend to skip the "start-from-scratch basics" and start careers at a different level. Readers who have careers and are looking to jump into a business of their own, this book is not for you as the author's approach to "don't take on too much you can't do" is flawed from the perspective of a person who lived at home while flipping his 12 young businesses. Overall, the book is easy to read, but does not provide the depth and guidance that more entrepreneurial and career-established readers may need to be motivated given the complexities and risks of life.
A Must!!.......2007-05-12
This is an excellent and well written book by Cameron Johnson. Inside you will discover a new way of thinking and perhaps challenge youself to call your own shots. I highly recommend this book!!
Book Description
* Details how to design and use Second Life content, covering such important skills as building, texturing, scripting, animating, and terraforming
* Follows a logical progression that builds upon a reader's skills so that new and intermediate content creators will quickly become experts
* Discusses how to create scripts to communicate and interact with the world and manage data
* Includes a CD with tutorial files, textures, clothing and character templates, machinima, demo software, and resources and references provided by Linden Lab
Average customer rating:
- Excellent!!!
- Brilliant Bach
- For the specialist, not first-timers
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J.S. Bach: A Life in Music
Peter Williams
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
Bach, Johann Sebastian
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Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work
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The New Bach Reader
ASIN: 0521870747 |
Book Description
Peter Wiliams approaches afresh the life and music of arguably the most studied of all composers, interpreting both Bach’s life by deconstructing his original Obituary in the light of new information, and his music by evaluating his priorities and irrepressible creative energy. How, though belonging to musical families on both his parents’ sides, did he come to possess so bewitching a sense of rhythm and melody, and a mastery of harmony that established nothing less than a norm in western culture? In considering that the works of a composer are his biography, the book's title 'A Life in Music' means both a life spent making music and one revealed in the music as we know it. A distinguished scholar and performer, Williams re-examines Bach’s life as an orphan and a family man, as an extraordinarily gifted composer and player, and an energetic and ambitious artist who never suffered fools gladly.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent!!!.......2007-06-27
Bach is my religion, and I am an adult beginner piano student, with roughly four years of classical piano lessons under my belt. Those two facts color my opinion of this biography and of other Bach biographies I have read, namely those by Christoph Wolff and Martin Geck. I do like the Peter Williams biography better than the other two. It is scholarly without being overly so, reverential without going overboard, analytical and informative on the music front without being exhaustive and boring. And I greatly enjoyed the approach of dissecting the obituary written at Bach's death, fleshing out the entries, and/or setting the record straight. The Wolff is very good but leaves me cold, and, to be honest, I couldn't make it all the way through the Geck. I am a tough grader -- hence the four stars. Though I found the Williams biography an extremely engaging read, I do think/hope that the definitive five-star Bach biography has yet to be written.
Brilliant Bach.......2007-05-22
J.S. Bach: A Life in Music was full of gorgeous pictures and information on Bach. The CD that came with it started with Bach's early music, then progressed to his final masterpieces. I liked hearing the progression. I used this book for information I needed for a graduate level psychology class. We had to do a case study on a famous person. Bach was a great study! Wonderful book.
For the specialist, not first-timers.......2007-05-18
This book provides a useful different way of looking at Bach's life and music by working almost sentence by sentence through the well-known Obituary of 1750/1754 by C.P.E. Bach and Agricola. Williams doesn't hesitate to grapple with thorny issues, nor to question interpretations/speculations we may have become comfortable with and wrongly begun to treat as if they were fact.
I bought the book because I greatly admire Peter Williams' previous writings on Bach and organ music. I was slightly disappointed with this book, however.
I'm an amateur musician who has read a lot about Bach. For me, core references are Christoph Wolff (2000) 'Johann Sebastian Bach; the learned musician' (scholarly and fascinating to read), and 'The New Bach Reader' (David & Mendel/ Wolff). I'd suggest not bothering with the Williams book unless you are already familiar with such books. You'll only value what Williams questions in a sentence or two if you're familiar with arguments over the same issue in other places.
Book Description
Two hundred and fifty years after his death, Johann Sebastian Bach remains one of the most compelling figures in the history of classical music. In this major study of the composer's life and work, Martin Geck follows the course of Bach's career in rich detail--from his humble beginnings as an organ tuner and self-taught court musician to his role as Kapellmeister and cantor of St. Thomas's Church in Leipzig. Geck explores Bach's relations with the German aristocracy, his position with regard to the Church and contemporary theological debates, his perfectionism, and his role as the devoted head of a large family.
The focus in this comprehensive, thoroughly researched book is on the extraordinary work that came of the composer's life. From the Goldberg Variations to the Brandenburg Concertos to the Art of the Fugue, Geck carefully analyzes Bach's innovations in harmony and counterpoint, placing them in the context of European musical and social history. Always fresh and stimulating, this definitive work reintroduces Bach's enormous oeuvre in all its splendor.
Customer Reviews:
Temporal schizophrenia?.......2007-03-16
Other reviewers (three at the time of writing) have adequately addressed the scholarly content of this book, so I shall confine myself to a stylistic problem that none of them mentions. Perhaps it didn't disturb them? It certainly did me; in fact, it drove me crazy.
And that is (if you will forgive me), that the author cannot make up his mind whether he spoke of Bach in the past or the present tense. For instance, on p. 38 we have:
`Eisenach not only provides his musical world but is also the site of his upbringing and education' (etc.)
But then:
`The hymnal, the catechism, Latin texts -- these elements dominated the early education of young Bach.'
Again:
`At all events, he sets out on foot in March 1700 for Lüneburg, to arrive there before Easter. His classmate at the Ohrdruf lyceum, Georg Erdmann, released from school several weeks earlier, may have accompanied him.'
These examples, perhaps not particularly egregious, are merely chosen at random from those that pervade the book.
German is sufficiently like English, that it seems safe to assume that this is a characteristic of the original, and not of the translation (especially since we're told that the translation is `skillful'). It would be interesting to know for sure; I looked at Amazon Germany's website, but Search Inside was not enabled.
Sad to say, the mannerism also affects the analysis portion of the book, contaminating not only syntax but semantics. On p.355 we read:
`Bach continues his experimenting. For the very next Sunday, the fourteenth Trinity Sunday, he writes an opening chorus for the cantata BWV 25...'
Since we have by now grasped the fact that Bach is dead, we can safely assign this event to the past. But then we have:
`Taking a broad view of Bach's music, the musicologist Gerd Rienäcker speaks of a "consciousness of catastrophe," located in Luther's theology but...' (etc.)
Is Rienäcker a denizen of the 18th century, or the 20th? Or is it the 19th? We have no easy way of telling.
I personally find all this, as Caligula supposedly found Gemellus's cough, very irritating. While I would not go so far as to suggest Caligula's remedy, I would certainly hope that enough people will expostulate with the author and/or publisher that it will be corrected in future editions.
The rating is a compromise between five stars for content and two for style. If you're a music student, this review probably won't -- and shouldn't -- affect your purchasing decision; but if you read merely for pleasure, you may want to take note.
A Biography and A Musical Analysis.......2007-02-19
It's strange that with someone as famous as Bach that we really know very little about his personal life. In this book Martin Geck has written as much as we know, and has had to expand that with some of the generally accepted rumors. He has done a very good job in this area. That takes about a third of this book.
The other two thirds of the book is on Bach's music. In this area, the book is absolutely supurb. Mr. Geck has been a professor of musicology at Dormund University. He has written about the other German major composers and now has produced this masterpiece on Bach.
He covers every aspect of Bach's music from technique, to the impact on the listener. Surprisingly his analysis is not too technical so the average enthusiast can understant what he is saying. The last section of the book is called Horizons, and while fairly short (30 pages or so) he offers some opinions on Back's art, theology, symbolism and other aspects of his work that are seldom covered.
Bach and Leipzig: So much in 1750; Today?.......2007-01-15
This book came to my attention from a long review of it that appeared in the
Intl. Herald Tribune by William F Buckley of all people. It is all that he said and then some. It is clearly written for the expert, and so there is a lot that is beyond both my interest and abilities, but there is enough that I seek to keep me engaged. Now, I admit my interest in Bach is highly specialised: I am a novelist and seek to place Bach alongside Caspar David
Friedrich, Germany's great romantic painter, and Goethe all in various settings, but mostly in Dresden, Leipzig and Luebeck, which this book turns out to be highly useful. Handsomely bound and highly readable. A wonderful addition to a serious reader's library.
A very thorough biography that focuses on his musical thought.......2006-12-17
This is a very thorough biography that does a good job of tracking the evolution of this composer's creative genius. It has a lot of biographical detail and this is both a plus and minus. There is so much material that unless you are a very serious music person with a strong interest in Bach, you may drown in detail. A lot of the content is not new and one wouldn't say this is a revisionist biography.
If you are looking for musical details this book delivers. It analyzes many compositions and does so in-depth. Casual readers will most likely find this a problem, musicians with an interest in music theory will most likely love it. What is a potential problem, however, is paralysis by analysis. I don't think Bach's genius can be fully understand by analyzing his music just as the beauty of a sunset can not be fully understood by graphing the intensity and wavelength of the various colors in it.
This could be a great book or a dud depending upon what you are looking for in a biography. If you are a non-musician with a casual interest in Bach, you might be better off with something else. If you are doing a thesis on Bach, you probably don't want to miss this one. Ditto if you are a serious musician who wants to understand his music more deeply on a theoretical level.
I am a big Bach fan and a musician and I found the detail overwhelming. For my purposes, this is a good reference to augment what I already know about the composer, but it's a bit too detailed for me as a thoroughly enjoyable read. That is not to say the book is bad, just that it seems to be trying to appeal to two different audiences and that is a difficult task to pull off.
Book Description
"The finest picture-star biography I have read"
-Peter Bogdanovich, Los Angeles Times
In an achievement as grand and sweeping as Dietrich's own life, Steven Bach reveals the woman and examines her myth in a biography that will stand as the ultimate authority on a singular star. Based on six years of research and hundreds of interviews-including conversations with Dietrich herself-this is the last, best word on one of the century's greatest movie actresses and performers, an icon who embodied glamour and sophistication for audiences around the globe.
Customer Reviews:
Dietrich: the Lord of Discipline.......2002-06-26
Having read Maria Riva's book on her mother along with Dietrich's own autobiography, I didn't really expect any new revelations from this book -- but I couldn't have been more wrong! Mr. Bach is to be congratulated on his fascinating and respectable work honoring Miss Dietrich and her life. What a remarkable performer and a remarkable human being. We could sure use a few more like her in today's world. This is a must read for fans of the Lady and the Legend!!
Customer Reviews:
nyahh.......2007-03-13
Maybe it was just the edition I purchased, but yuck. Not visually compelling me and my son to sit down and take all the tests.
great resource!.......2004-08-11
We live our whole childhood trying to figure out who we really are, and now there is a book to help our kids explore their personalities even deeper. It contains 40 fun and easy-to-follow psychological tests that offer a wide range of insights into a child's personality. At the end of the book, there is a summary sheet to tie together all the results in a nice and easy to understand manner. This is a great book for parents to share with their grade-school kids, and the best thing about these tests is that there are NO WRONG ANSWERS!!
not what I hoped.......2002-11-09
This book does have a lot of self-discovery experiments- in fact that's pretty much all it has. There isn't much information included to validate the experiments or to explain why they are significant to psychology. However, the book does refer you to other sources. I ordered the book, hoping to use it with my High School Gifted class but found that the text was a bit too juvenille. This book could be a good supplement to a psychology unit, but it is not something from which to teach.
An excellent way for your students to discover themselves!.......1998-07-28
This book is an excellent resource for your classroom. A learning tool for your children to discover who they really are!
Book Description
The monumental work of J. S. Bach—some 250 cantatas, 280 organ compositions, the great Passions, oratorios and masses, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Brandenburg Concertos, the Art of the Fugue—stands as a high-water mark of Western civilization. Yet that work is understandable only in light of Bach's profound Christian faith, asserts Hans Conrad Fischer. Born under the shadow of Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther in seclusion had translated the New Testament into German, Bach saw his work as a daily engagement with Christian mysteries, often signing his manuscripts SDG-soli deo gratia or for God's glory alone.
This lavish volume celebrates Bach unabashedly. The engrossing text, enhanced with dozens of portraits, photos of locales and artifacts, maps and manuscripts, brings Bach, his faith, and his achievements directly to the reader. So too does the accompanying CD-ROM, including 17 key selections sampling Bach's best-known pieces from each genre and period of his life. It conclusively presents J. S. Bach's genius as not only musical but also religious, one that still effectively presents Christian faith to today's largely secular public.
Customer Reviews:
short and sweet.......2007-01-18
In this simply written and beautifully appointed volume Hans Fischer has provided a general overview of the life and times of one of the greatest composers ever to live. This is no substitute for the likes of Christoph Wolff's massive (600 pages) intellectual biography Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, but for that very reason it is all the more accessible and enjoyable for the non-specialist. Fischer concentrates on Bach's life and times, and there is little analysis of his music per se. Born in Eisenach, home of the famous Wartburg Castle where Luther translated the Bible into German while imprisoned, Bach (1685-1750), was the youngest son of a family of eight children (four of whom survived). By age 10 both his mother and father died within a year, so the orphan Bach was raised by his brother. In his own two marriages he fathered 17 children.
Fischer insists that to understand Bach you must move beyond mere technical or intellectual analysis and grasp the centrality of Bach's deeply held (Lutheran) Christian faith. His organizing theme is that, in Bach's own words, the composer's lifelong goal was a "regulated sacred music to God's honor." His life was centered around the daily prayers, life, and worship of the local church. Indeed, writes Fischer, Bach "completely subordinated himself to the liturgy." At the top of many of his compositions Bach wrote the letters "JJ" (Jesu juva, Jesus help), and at the end, of course, the three letters "SDG" (Soli Deo Gloria, for the glory of God alone).
The subtitle of this book is important. Perhaps a full third of the book includes gorgeous plates of autographed manuscripts, engravings of churches and towns, period portraits of people close to Bach, along with important primary documents. For example, it is common knowledge that Bach came from a long line of family musicians; Fischer includes the entire Origin of the Musical Bach Family in which Bach documented what he knew about his 53 ancestors back to the sixteenth century and Vitus Bach, a baker in Hungary. Or again, it is fun to read the city council of Leipzig's Contract of Employment as the Cantor of St. Thomas's (where Bach spent 27 years). Among the 14 enumerated points: "That I will make music in the two major city churches as well as I can" (#2), and, "That I will not leave town without the Mayor's permission" (#13). For about $1300 you might purchase Hänssler Classic's 172 CDs of the Edition Bachakademie (the complete works of Bach). Or buy this book and enjoy the delightful CD that comes with it, A Musical Journey Through the Life of Johann Sebastian Bach, which includes 17 extracts from the Hänssler edition.
Bach: His Life.......2007-01-05
H. C. Fischer has given in his book a helpful, informative and well reseached view of the man J. S. Bach whose music we hear yet in this time and enjoy no less than when he wrote.
The glory of Bach.......2006-01-13
It really is impossible to capture the glory that is the music of J.S. Bach in the printed page, but this book comes very close. Coupled with a CD of music samples taken from the Edition Bachakademie (a 172-CD set that is the only complete recording of the music of J.S. Bach), this book is a wonderful introduction and survey of the Bach's life and music.
The CD itself is a wonderful collection of seventeen pieces, ranging from just a little over a minute to nearly ten minutes, excerpts or complete renderings of Bach compositions. These include a generous sampling of organ pieces such as the Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor, harpsichord pieces including The Art of the Fugue, and pieces for other instruments and combinations. Included also are portions of the Brandenberg Concertos, the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B-Minor, arguably his best piece (and argued by some as the best music ever written).
Bach's work was primarily liturgical and religious in nature. At the conclusion of a great many of his manuscripts, he inscribed the letters SDG, which stand for Soli Deo Gloria, for God's glory alone. Bach was employed as a church organist in Germany, having come from a distinguished musical family (in fact, figuring out which Bach is which can sometimes be a struggle even for scholars). Living a few generational after the Reformation, Bach brought the fullness of the theological impulses together with the richness of the Baroque tradition of music, then in full flower, together in a magnificent form.
This book gives insight into the spiritual and historical forces that helped shape Bach and his music. It has a lavish presentation style, with full-colour portraits of people and places of significance in generous number throughout the text. There are photographs of some of the great organs of the time, too. It is a uniquely fortunate work of fate that J.S. Bach's career should coincide with that of the Silbermann family's ascendancy in organ building, for they reached heights in craftsmanship rarely reached even today.
Bach was a man of strong passions - such is obvious from his music, but also is demonstrated in various aspects of his life apart from music. He was more than once called before church councils to answer for his behaviour, and was involved in physical brawls that required police and court interventions. Bach was very opinionated, to the point of exasperation of those around him, but often got his way.
This book introduces in a very inviting manner. Author Hans Conrad Fischer writes in a lively, interesting fashion for beginners and experienced music fans alike. This book makes a wonderful introduction to Bach, a good refresher for Bach, and is especially good for exploring the historical and spiritual contexts that surround Bach's music.
Wonderful!.......2005-11-24
Nearly everyone is familiar with the joyous music of Bach, from the Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring often heard at weddings to Air, the musical ambiance of many fine restaurants. Such smooth and lyrical melodies can put us into an immediate state of calm and tranquility, but what is the source of these treasures? What is the story behind the music?
Hans Conrad Fischer sets out to tell us exactly that through words, pictures and the music itself. In this illustrated biography which includes a CD, Bach's life comes alive in a way not seen before. Listening to the gorgeous music while sifting through the images of Bach's life transports the reader to a time when creating heavenly music was truly the highest form of worship.
Bach was a Lutheran Christian and a mystic. His music is imbibed with devotion and awe of God. Bach's music, during his lifetime and continuing to the present, has been a unifying source of interdenominational worship. The pure melodies are able to transcend divisions within religious communities, as if reaching a unifying connection much deeper than squabbles about doctrine. Today much of Bach's music is used for clearly secular purposes, however Fischer reminds us of the deep Christian roots beneath all of Bach's works.
This beautifully illustrated biography gives a fuller understanding to both the music of Bach and to the man himself. Listening to the CD, while perusing the text and illustrations gives a fully sensuous experience that truly transcends time and place.
Armchair Interviews says: This biography is best enjoyed with a glass of wine while lounging on a luxurious sofa enveloped in the melodic.
A gorgeous tribute to Bach's life and musical contributions to Western Civilization.......2005-11-13
Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life in Pictures and Documents, with CD is a gorgeous tribute to Bach's life and musical contributions to Western Civilization. Internationally recognized biographer and filmmaker Hans Conrad Fischer offers a religious perspective upon Bach's works, claiming that it is only through Bach's profound Christian faith that the message and essence of his music can be understood. Bach himself wrote three letters at the end of many of his music manuscripts: "SDG", meaning "Soli Deo Gloria", or, "for God's glory alone." In addition to chronicling Bach's life and faith, the text enhances dozens of black-and-white and color portraits, photographs of locales and artifacts, maps, manuscripts, and more. The accompanying CD offers a "musical journey" of Bach's works; samples of 17 of his compositions, from 1 1/2 minutes to 8 1/2 minutes apiece, allows the listener to experience a range of Bach's auditory creations. Highly recommended for lay readers interested in experiencing Bach in a multiplicity of media.
Average customer rating:
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The Life of Bach (Musical Lives)
Peter Williams
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0521533740 |
Book Description
Like Shakespeare, J.S. Bach is known largely by his works. Peter Williams asks many questions in this examination of the man as well as the composer. What was Bach like as a youth, father, and, eventually, church elder? What music did he know and how did he compose and perform such an amazing amount? Ultimately, Williams questions the effects of unremitting acclaim on objective evaluations of J.S. Bach.
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