Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Amazon.com

Twenty years after it topped the bestseller charts, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is still something of a marvel. Besides being a profound and entertaining meditation on human thought and creativity, this book looks at the surprising points of contact between the music of Bach, the artwork of Escher, and the mathematics of Gödel. It also looks at the prospects for computers and artificial intelligence (AI) for mimicking human thought. For the general reader and the computer techie alike, this book still sets a standard for thinking about the future of computers and their relation to the way we think.

Hofstadter's great achievement in Gödel, Escher, Bach was making abstruse mathematical topics (like undecidability, recursion, and 'strange loops') accessible and remarkably entertaining. Borrowing a page from Lewis Carroll (who might well have been a fan of this book), each chapter presents dialogue between the Tortoise and Achilles, as well as other characters who dramatize concepts discussed later in more detail. Allusions to Bach's music (centering on his Musical Offering) and Escher's continually paradoxical artwork are plentiful here. This more approachable material lets the author delve into serious number theory (concentrating on the ramifications of Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness) while stopping along the way to ponder the work of a host of other mathematicians, artists, and thinkers.

The world has moved on since 1979, of course. The book predicted that computers probably won't ever beat humans in chess, though Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997. And the vinyl record, which serves for some of Hofstadter's best analogies, is now left to collectors. Sections on recursion and the graphs of certain functions from physics look tantalizing, like the fractals of recent chaos theory. And AI has moved on, of course, with mixed results. Yet Gödel, Escher, Bach remains a remarkable achievement. Its intellectual range and ability to let us visualize difficult mathematical concepts help make it one of this century's best for anyone who's interested in computers and their potential for real intelligence. --Richard Dragan

Topics Covered: J.S. Bach, M.C. Escher, Kurt Gödel: biographical information and work, artificial intelligence (AI) history and theories, strange loops and tangled hierarchies, formal and informal systems, number theory, form in mathematics, figure and ground, consistency, completeness, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, recursive structures, theories of meaning, propositional calculus, typographical number theory, Zen and mathematics, levels of description and computers; theory of mind: neurons, minds and thoughts; undecidability; self-reference and self-representation; Turing test for machine intelligence.

Book Description

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this book applies Godel's seminal contribution to modern mathematics to the study of the human mind and the development of artificial intelligence.

Customer Reviews:

Down the Rabbit Hole..........2007-05-18

This is a difficult book.

Difficult to read. Difficult to understand. And, I'm finding, difficult to review. What's it about? Good question. The author, himself, isn't very clear on this point, describing it as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll." I'm not sure I can do better than that. I will tell you this, however: if the book has a "point," it does seem to be that man's consciousness is ultimately mechanical and, therefore, that there is no reason that machines cannot finally be intelligent in the same sense that man is. (And, in fact, be as man in just about every internal way.)

While I take issue with this conclusion, and some of Hofstadter's reasoning along the way, I don't think that my debating his points is the basis on which a prospective reader should decide whether or not to pick up this book. Instead, the prospective reader should know: that this is a lengthy and deep work. It will take a *long* time to read properly, and most readers should not read more than a chapter a day. Many of the sections, and especially the various dialogues that preface the chapters, are quite clever. (These dialogues are usually between Achilles and the Tortoise, of Zeno's paradoxes, and their friends.) Some of the chapters grow incredibly technical. The subject matters vary, wildly and rapidly, and there will be points in reading where you will question your investment.

In the end, you will feel good for having pushed through the hard bits. It will coalesce, more or less, into a whole. Whether you finally agree with Hofstadter's conclusions or not, you'll have learned much and thought about important topics you might otherwise not have.

A good book, certainly not for everyone... but, if you're the "right" audience--someone deeply interested in questions of intelligence, mathematics, computer science and free will, and possessed of a bit of an ironic sense of humor--then this book cannot be recommended highly enough.

Five stars, for the work it represents, and the doors it opens to the reader.

Come one, come all.......2007-05-16

As you can see from other reviews, people tend to walk away from this book with a variety of different impressions. Math, Art, Logic, Philosophy, Human Perception and Thought, it has it all. This is second to the Bible in my collection as a book I've read multiple times and can still come back to a read again for even more insight and perspective.

Bound with the "braid"?.......2007-05-14

Can someone tell me, in plain English, what this book is about? On the little matter of determinism--is he for it or against it? He does not seem to have come to praise Godel, Escher, Bach for their strangeness but rather to bury strangeness and its resistance to materialism. He seems to be saying that strangeness is hardwired and can be programmed into a formal system by someone who sees it for what it is--in short, that computers will some day rise to the level of consiousness and self-reference. But wouldn't such a system be curved in upon itself and lack strangeness? If strangeness could be hard-wired into AI, would it still seem strange? Nothingness annihilates strangeness, but then the absense of strangeness is the actual limit of the theories of value seen in those who follow Heidegger. In order to eliminate the difference between soul and matter, they must give up the resistance of soul to the limitations of material existence; at which point "strangeness" becomes a matter of verbal virtuosity and conceptual sleight of hand. "Strangeness" becomes the same thing as cleverness. Or am I misreading this fascinating book?

Excellent book!.......2007-05-14

Hofstadter combines the awe in math, music, art, artificial intelligence, language and computers into one big book called GEB. Its takes the reader on an ecstatic journey with a clever use of parallels between the structure of math, music and finite but endless loops that appear in Escher's works. Dialogs between Achilles and Tortoise are very interesting.

"This sentence is false.".......2007-03-19

A simple example of recursiveness in music is the song "row, row, row your boat." The song becomes recursive as each new line is started when the original line makes it to "gently down the stream." In this way, we have a musical example of the artistic portrayals of Maurits Cornelius Escher whose paintings invariably fosuc on recursive visual themes such as two hands in the process of drawing each other.

In each case, the depiction challenges our ability to pidgeon hole the phenomenon we are examining. Which line is the harmony, which is the melody in "row, row, row your boat"? Which hand is drawing which in the Escher print?

Liguistically, the same effect occurs when we examine the statement "This sentence is false." Logically if we accept the statement at its face value being false then it becomes an accurate representation (in that it correctly asserts its falseness). On the other hand, we are also drawn to the conclusion that the statement is true (again because it is self referentially accurate).

Ultimately, we are forced to logically conclude that we can neither bracket the statement "This sentence is false" with either all true statements or all untrue statements. As indicated previously, like the song "row, row, row your boat" or an Escher painting, the sentence defies pidgeon holing owing to its recursive quality.

Back in 1931, Kurt Godel shocked the mathematics community with his assertion that mathematically consistent systems themselves necessarily produce formally undecideable propositions (the math equivalent of "This sentence is false"). At the time of presenting his paper, it was Godel's intent to demonstrate the unique nature of human intellect because if we can resolve undecideable propositions then there must be something unique to the process of human intellect.

While Godel certainly brought undeniable genius to the creation of his theorem, it doesn't follow that the theorem proves the uniqueness of human intellect. And the reason Godel's theorem doesn't prove the uniqueness of human intellect is because its logical limitations are our own.

Just as Godelian mathematics can't prove undecideable propositions, neither can we "prove" them.

However, we can "believe" undecideable propositions. (In this regard, two easy cases in point are Goldbach's conjecture -- that all even numbers are the sum of two primes -- and that parallel lines really are parallel.) In this way, Godel's theorem, in combination with modern research on artificial intelligence, shows that it is the emotive side of reason that defies the strict logical limitations of Godelian constructs.

These hard won discoveries have combined to make for some surprising findings.

Probably the first among these most observable to the general public through the misconception of science fiction is that emotion somehow stagnates the operation of intellect. In this way, it was HAL 9000's personality as much as the creepiness of that personality that was surprising to 1968 movie goers watching "2001: A Space Odessy." As demonstrated in the movie, it was the fact of HAL's emotive connections with the ongoing actions of his crew that prompted "him" to formulate and act on plans.

Second, modern research has shown that human intellect is not best characterized as being a "blank slate" but rather a delicate combination of various systems that survey reality in the own ways. An easy example is the human eye which uses a combination of three different light cones to measure redness, greenness and blueness. It is the relative comparisons of these cone findings that nudges your visual perception to observe the color of an object. At the intellectual level, one system is entirely devoted to our understanding of artifacts. How do they work? How can they be modified for use in a situation? Another system comprehends animate creatures. Yet another system recognizes faces. Still another system is devoted to language acquisition.

And significantly all these systems acquire information emotively. We see the face of a parent and emotively appreciate it (unless we suffer from a particular cognitive disorder that has disabled our ability to do so as for example discussed by Oliver Sacks in his great book "The man who mistook his wife for a hat"). We remember a concept learned and emotively evaluate it. In this way, freedom, communism, taxes are not just intellectual constructs but ideas that spark real feelings on our part.

In creating Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter displayed true genius in linking three domains wherein recursiveness seems to play such a pivatol role. As he indicated, they are three shadows cast from the same source.

In re-concluding this book, however, I couldn't help but think of other possible titles that could be added to a Godel, Escher, Bach type encyclopedia: "Phi, Di Vinci, Bach" -- the story of the "golden ratio" of phi which plays a role in Di Vinci's art work and as it so happens also in the music of Bach; "Pascal, State Lotteries, Happy Birthday" -- the story of Pascal's wager and how an appreciation of statistics will make us understand why states will never lose money running a state lottery for reasons akin to why relatively small groupings of people will have at least two that share the same birthday; and "Klein, Carroll, Kubrick" -- the story of Oscar Klein's bottle which can resort to the fourth dimensionj to fill itself up and how speculations by the physicist J Richard Gott suggest that Alice and all of us may have originallyu gone down the rabbit hole for a real space odessy through time itself.

The point here is not that Hofstadter was incorrect but (no pun intended) merely incomplete in his survey when he said that Godel's proof, Escher's paintings and Bach's music were but three shadows cast from the same source. The point here is that -- properly examined -- those three shadows, together with the encyclopedia I've suggested, would direct us not only to the origins of consciousness but also the origin of origins itself.

Average customer rating:

Excellent!!!
Brilliant Bach
For the specialist, not first-timers

J.S. Bach: A Life in Music
Peter Williams
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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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.

The Cambridge Companion to Bach (Cambridge Companions to Music)

Average customer rating:

Johann Sebastian Bach - The Bottom Line
another great oxford companion

The Cambridge Companion to Bach (Cambridge Companions to Music)

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521587808

Amazon.com

Fifteen varied essays by 11 authors provide a thoughtful, broad introduction to the music and person of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Cambridge Companion is divided into three main sections: the first concentrates on the biographical and historical details of Bach's life; the second aims at a general discussion of the music; and the last evaluates Bach's continuing influence on modern music. Representative topics in each section include a recounting of Bach's position as a supporter of monarchical absolutism ("Bach and the Domestic Politics of Electoral Saxony"), a discussion of scholarship throwing light on the authenticity of some of the early works ("The Early Works and the Heritage of the Seventeenth Century"), and an outline of developments in performance practice of Bach's music from his time to ours ("Changing Issues of Performance Practice"). The book provides valuable background material for those who may have casually encountered and enjoyed Bach's music, and the variety of viewpoints helps readers avoid an oversimplified impression of the great composer.

Book Description

The Cambridge Companion to Bach goes beyond a basic life-and-works study to provide a late-twentieth-century perspective on J. S. Bach the man and composer. Benefiting from the insights and research of some of the most distinguished Bach scholars, this Companion covers cultural, social and religious contexts, surveys and analyzes Bach's compositional style, traces his influence, and considers the performance and reception of his music through the succeeding generations.

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Customer Reviews:

Johann Sebastian Bach - The Bottom Line.......2002-12-11

The life of Johann Sebastian Bach - straddling two centuries and placing an indelible mark on the development of symphonic music - is a complex and multifaceted saga, but Professor John Butt and his talented crew of co-authors get straight to the bottom of it. Bach grew up at the tail end of the 16th century. As a young student at the Latin Grammar School (where Martin Luther himself once studied) he was a classic child prodigy, dismissed by jealous teachers as excessively cheeky, and simultaneously made the butt of cruel jokes concocted by the lesser students who were deeply behind him. To make things far worse, both of his parents died when he was only nine, and for a period he was reduced to selling buns in the street and living in an abandoned caboose. However opportunity opened the door just a crack when he was a late teen. This came when he moved to the small town of Arnstadt to try his hand as an organist - a fateful journey during which illness and hunger almost took him, until a kindly cattle-farming family nursed him back to health on a hearty diet of potatoes, rump roast, and healthy dairy air. At Arnstadt he wrote most of his best-loved early pieces, and while he toiled in seeming anonymity at the rear of the church, the congregation was truly over the moon about him, often straining to hear his gentle melodies over the odious sound of the preacher muttering darkly about Sodom and Gomorrah. At the time the town was a real hole, but Bach's uplifting passion for music rectified the situation for him and kept him from going under. Soon many of his most famous baroque pieces were in the can. Bach's longest residence was of course in the city of Leipzig from 1723 to 1750, where he progressed from early middle age until his doddering later years as an old duffer. It was in Leipzig that his met his longtime Welsh companion, Fanny W. Tokus, who was to so ease his journey into the ranks of the elderly. Professor Butt's thoughtful scholarship made this book a real gas to read, and it's uplifting to think that someone so handicapped by his very nom de plume could persuade such an erudite and impressive group of credentialed co-writers to hitch their wagons to his tailpipe.

another great oxford companion.......2000-04-01

For those familiar with the "Oxford Companion to ..." series, you will see that this lives up to the name. There is a lot of good information on his works and life here. I only give it 4 stars because it works better as a reference-type book to scroll through once in a while, and not quality literature to read in a few sittings.

Average customer rating:

Temporal schizophrenia?
A Biography and A Musical Analysis
Bach and Leipzig: So much in 1750; Today?
A very thorough biography that focuses on his musical thought

Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work
Martin Geck
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0151006482

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.

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician

Average customer rating:

Lifetime accumulation of knowledge by a great scholar
fascinating biography of Bach
well written, interesting...not "textbook-ish"
A True Scholar
Impressive!

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician
Christoph Wolff
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393322564

Amazon.com

The Learned Musician is an apt subtitle for this intellectual biography, which assesses the career of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) with the scholarly rigor one would expect from a Harvard professor. Opening with a 1737 attack by a critic who labeled Bach a pedant who spoiled the natural beauty of his creations with "an excess of art," Christoph Wolff cogently compares the German composer to English scientist Isaac Newton. Both men "brought about fundamental changes and established new principles" in their chosen fields, he argues; both sought to reveal God's harmonious ordering of their world. While Wolff conscientiously covers the basics of Bach's life, including his two marriages and the musical achievements of his gifted family, the author's primary focus is on his performing (Bach was an unrivaled organist) and composing. From the Goldberg Variations through the Brandenburg Concertos to Art of the Fugue, Wolff carefully analyzes Bach's innovations in harmony and counterpoint, placing them in the context of European musical and social history rendered in nicely atmospheric detail. Casual readers may find this dense tome a bit daunting, but serious music lovers will relish the deeper understanding it conveys of a genius who transformed Western music. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

Finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. A landmark biography of Bach on the 250th anniversary of the composer's death, written by the leading Bach scholar of our age. Although we have heard the music of J. S. Bach in countless performances and recordings, the composer himself still comes across only as an enigmatic figure in a single familiar portrait. As we mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, author Christoph Wolff presents a new picture that brings to life this towering figure of the Baroque era. This engaging new biography portrays Bach as the living, breathing, and sometimes imperfect human being that he was, while bringing to bear all the advances of the last half-century of Bach scholarship. Wolff demonstrates the intimate connection between the composer's life and his music, showing how Bach's superb inventiveness pervaded his career as musician, composer, performer, scholar, and teacher. And throughout, we see Bach in the broader context of his time: its institutions, traditions, and influences. With this highly readable book, Wolff sets a new standard for Bach biography. 42 b/w illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

Lifetime accumulation of knowledge by a great scholar.......2007-06-24

We should all thank Christoph Wolff for putting his thoughts and knowledge of Johann Sebastian Bach in print. Christoph Wolff is the world's leading authority on Bach. He is currently Director of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig, an appointment given to the person who presumably knows Bach best. He is University Professor at Harvard Univesity, a title given to those of retirement age that Harvard wishes to keep. A previous example of a University Professor is Paul Tillich. Christoph Wolff himself is a repository of knowledge about Johann Sebastian Bach that is unmatched in the world.

Christoph Wolff still teaches the course on Bach at Harvard that I audited during the 1975 academic year, except that now it is taught every other year. What a great intellectual experience that course was, to learn what Bach was trying to do, while contending with multiple personal and situational problems without a mentor, coping with the changing situation in Leipzig and the Thomaskirche and Thomasschule, all the while developing the intricacies of his music! I have experienced nothing intellectually to match his course.

Sometime after I audited his course, Christoph Wolff became Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University, and upon achieving retirement age, was made University Professor.

In the course, Christoph Wolff discussed Die Kunst der Fuge. He emphasized that, to write a fugue one must resolve its closure or ending first. In his book, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, Christoph Wolff described Bach's early skills in German tablature, an early form of music notation used in north and central Germany in the 17th century. A musical score, written by Bach in tablature during his stay in Weimar, has recently been found. This finding emphasizes Bach's mastery of this form of music notation. A thought has gradually come to me, based upon information gathered from the writings and lectures of Christoph Wolff. When Bach resolved the ending of Die Kunst der Fugue, he may have written it down in tablature. It was a sort of shorthand for him, and, most importantly, it was beyond the scrutiny of the casual observer. Upon Bach's death, his sons may have recognized the resolution of the ending of Die Kunst der Fugue as tablature, but they did not recognize that bit of tablature as the resolution of the ending of Die Kunst der Fugue. I shared these ideas with Christoph Wolff during a visit with him with my wife, Julie Moll, at the Bach-Archiv Leipzig in May, 2007. It would be a most rewarding experience to hear the end of Die Kunst der Fugue. If the end of Die Kunst der Fugue is found, I strongly expect that Christoph Wolff will play a pivotal role in it.

There is no other book to match this one on Bach. I enjoyed it thoroughly.I found it refreshing and stimulating and had difficulty putting it down. This book represents the lifetime accumulaton of knowledge about an important topic, Johann Sebastian Bach, by a world-class scholar, Christoph Wolff. That is enough for five stars for me any day.

fascinating biography of Bach.......2006-06-30

I have read other biographies of Bach, but none more detailed or insightful than this. He really comes alive as a person.

well written, interesting...not "textbook-ish" .......2006-02-24

This book is really well written. It doesn't feel like a textbook when I read it, instead, it's as if you're reading a story. I don't feel as bored when reading for my class assignments. I'm able to read and remember what was said in the book.

A True Scholar.......2006-02-24

Hours of research on the part of the author pass by you in a few simple sentences. My recommendation comes from the value reflected in the nomination for the Pulitzer Prize. I agree and am grateful to hold in my hands ONE book so complete in information.

Impressive!.......2005-09-11

Wolff certainly has done the research and then written a passionate account of this "learned musician" for the ages. Among the fine qualities of this biography is a clear, concise writing style with erudite thinking demonstrated sorting out the historical sources surrounding Bach's life.

Tracing his life chronologically, the book's theme is one of a composer/virtuoso/organ expert who develops out of self-interest and passion for music and especially his family background of musicians. He certainly had some ins because of this family heritage, but certainly on the same hand earned his way by his demonstrated abilities on the organ, pipe organ construction and maintenance and finally composition.

Revolutionizing the music craft by his counterpoint and harmonization, his influence both to those who come after him including his two older sons, this man continues to play vital role in unfolding world of music.

Minor missing element which certainly is understandable for the non-theologically inclined is the major influence that Bach's theology played in his music. From the surviving Cavlov Bible that we have from J.S., we know this as certainty.

Dance and the Music of J. S. Bach: Expanded Edition

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Dance and the Music of J.S. Bach, Expanded Ed.
Dance rhythms and Bach's music
Interesting background for musicians, but be careful
Bach and Baroque dance

Dance and the Music of J. S. Bach: Expanded Edition
Meredith Little , and Natalie Jenne
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0253214645

Book Description

Stylized dance music and music based on dance rhythms pervade Bach's compositions. The original edition of this addressed works that bore the names of dances--a considerable corpus. In this expanded version of their practical and insightful study, Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne apply the same principals to the study of a great number of Bach's works that use identifiable dance rhythms but do not bear dance-specific titles.

Customer Reviews:

Dance and the Music of J.S. Bach, Expanded Ed........2007-01-05

Only book of its kind - especially for the serious musician and performer.

Dance rhythms and Bach's music.......2006-08-21

This book provides a fine survey of the rhythms associated with the most prevalant Baroque dances. Although stylized dance pieces and other instrumental works beyond the dance hall might not strictly follow the rhythm of the original dance, this book provides a solid grounding for any person interested in the topic and wishing to flexibly apply dance rhythms to their own interpretations of Bach's music. Thus, this book is important to any performers serious about playing Baroque music and especially Bach's.

I recommend the book for its information but also because it is so easy to read.

Interesting background for musicians, but be careful.......2005-04-11

It certainly broadens one's knowledge and appreciation to study the physical dances that so much of Bach's instrumental music was based on. But there's a difference between music written to literally accompany dance and music stylized in the form of dances, meant primarily for listening. Bach did not play Saturday night dance gigs in Leipsig nor did Chopin play his waltzes in Parisian ballrooms. Tempos (and flexibility within those tempos) need not be based on realistic assumptions of how people may have actually danced bourees and minuets. There were enough differences in style among Italian, French and German strains of late Baroque music (and dance) that one should be cautious about any definitive rules here. That being said, the book is well written, illustrated and an interesting read.

Bach and Baroque dance.......2002-04-30

This book is a must for all serious performers of Bach's music. It is the only book that details not only of most of the dances that appear in Bach's works, but provides a fundamental vocabulary for a discussion of rhythm. After that has been provided, dances are discussed with clarity and precision, with a wealth of original sources for the reader. There is nothing on the market like it.

The Cantatas of J. S. Bach: With Their Librettos in German-English Parallel Text

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contains original German alongside English translations
Outstanding Resource
Costly but useful

The Cantatas of J. S. Bach: With Their Librettos in German-English Parallel Text
Alfred Durr
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198167075

Book Description

This is the only English translation of this important book by the world's most distinguished Bach scholar. This work is widely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive treatment of the Bach cantatas. It begins with a historical survey of the seventeenth-century background to the cantatas, and performance practice issues. The core of the book is a work-by-work study in which each cantata in turn is represented by its libretto, a synopsis of its movements, and a detailed analytical commentary. This format makes it extremely useful as a reference work for anyone listening to, performing in, or studying any of the Bach cantatas. In this edition all the cantata librettos are given in German-English parallel text. The most recent (sixth) German edition appeared in 1995. For the English edition the text has been carefully revised to bring it up to date, taking account of Bach scholarship since that date.

Customer Reviews:

contains original German alongside English translations.......2007-08-23

This is a dense and rewarding book for classical music fans as well as those interested in the German language. Worth the price.

Outstanding Resource.......2007-02-07

Alfred Durr's The Cantatas of J.S. Bach is the "bible" for any conductor, artistic director, church musician or music performer and listener that is interested in performing or understanding Bach's canon. Hi give it my highest recomendation.

Costly but useful.......2006-05-09

This is a very expensive, but wonderfully useful book. It gives the libretto to every single cantata plus information on the liturgical occasion for the cantata and a good, albeit brief discussion of the meaning of the piecel I quailed when I first bought it, because it is expensive. But it is my vade mecum. I use it constantly.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

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No other word for it: Amazing.
Excellent book
GEB - A must read for all aspiring thinkers
Must for Math Majors and Enlightened Individuals
One of the biggest influences in my life, and a classic.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Douglas Hofstadter
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0394745027
Release Date: 1980-09-12

Customer Reviews:

No other word for it: Amazing........2006-07-23

It is quite likely that the hardest question I've ever been asked is, "What's that book about?" This book manages to discuss, coherently, cohesively, and interestingly, everything from molecular biology to quantum physics to computer science to music theory to philosophy to advanced mathematics to Elizabethan literature and beyond. Reading this will definitely change the way you see the world, and if you read one book this entire year, this should probably be it. VERY highly recommended.

Excellent book.......2006-04-26

As far as the layout and design of the book go, I find this piece to be particularly structured in a way that one studying abstract and modern mathematics might find appealing. It gives specific axioms for use with each topic and in doing so defines more than just what the topic might imply. As the content goes, for those taking an introduction course in abstract algebra, this book may be slightly heavy and unwieldy, however, for those well-learned in some of its background material, this book is enjoyable and pleasurable to read. The author even makes use of antecdotes to enforce his topics. Overall, this book has been one of the most pleasurable assigned readings I have endured.

GEB - A must read for all aspiring thinkers.......2004-06-15

The Atlanta Journal Constitution describes Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB) as "A huge, sprawling literary marvel, a philosophy book, disguised as a book of entertainment, disguised as a book of instruction." That is the best one line description of this book that anybody could give. GEB is without a doubt the most interesting mathematical book that I have ever read, quickly making its place into the Top 5 books I have ever read.
The introduction of the book, "Introduction: A Musico-Logical Offering" begins by quickly discussing the three main participants in the book, Gödel, Escher, and Bach. Gödel was a mathematician who founded Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which states, as Hofstadter paraphrases, "All consistent axiomatic formulations of number theory include undecidable propositions." This is what Hofstadter calls the pearl. This is one example of one of the recurring themes in GEB, strange loops.
Strange loops occur when you move up or down in a hierarchical manner and eventually end up exactly where you started. The first example of a strange loop comes from Bach's Endlessly rising canon. This is a musical piece that continues to rise in key, modulating through the entire chromatic scale, ending at the same key with which he began. To emphasize the loop Bach wrote in the margin, "As the modulation rises, so may the King's Glory."
The third loop in the introduction comes from an artist, Escher. Escher is famous for his paintings of paradoxes. A good example is his Waterfall; Hofstadter gives many examples of Escher's work, which truly exemplify the strange loop phenomenon.
One feature of GEB, which I was particularly fond of, is the `little stories' in between each chapter of the book. These stories which star Achilles and the Tortoise of Lewis Carroll fame, are illustrations of the points which Hofstadter brings out in the chapters. They also serve as a guidepost to the careful reader who finds clues buried inside of these sections. Hofstadter introduces these stories by reproducing "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" by Lewis Carroll. This illustrates Zeno's paradox, another example of a strange loop.
In GEB Hofstadter comments on the trouble author's have with people skipping to the end of the book and reading the ending. He suggests that a solution to this would be to print a series of blank pages at the end, but then the reader would turn through the blank pages and find the last one with text on it. So he says to print gibberish throughout those blank pages, again a human would be smart enough to find the end of the gibberish and read there. He finally suggests that authors need to write many pages more of text than the book requires just fooling the reader into having to read the entire book. Perhaps Hofstadter employs this technique.
GEB is in itself a strange loop. It talks about the interconnectedness of things always getting more and more in depth about the topic at hand. However you are frequently brought back to the same point, similarly to Escher's paintings, Bach's rising canon, and Gödel's Incompleteness theorem. A book, which is filled with puzzles and riddles for the reader to find and answer, GEB, is a magnificently captivating book.

Must for Math Majors and Enlightened Individuals.......2003-03-08

This book is a must for math majors (as well as many logic and philosophy majors). Anyone else in the hard sciences should also read this book, at least to be enlightened. Initially, it is easy reading, then becomes slightly foggy, but pushing through is rewarding. Of the three, my favorite is Godel and I always mention his Incompleteness Theorem whenever his name comes up. It his probably actually best mentioned by Rudy Rucker in his book "Infinity and the Mind". I think it is significant enough to mention here:

---
The proof of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is so simple, and so sneaky, that it is almost embarassing to relate. His basic procedure is as follows:

1. Someone introduces Gödel to a UTM, a machine that is supposed to be a Universal Truth Machine, capable of correctly answering any question at all.

2. Gödel asks for the program and the circuit design of the UTM. The program may be complicated, but it can only be finitely long. Call the program P(UTM) for Program of the Universal Truth Machine.

3. Smiling a little, Gödel writes out the following sentence: "The machine constructed on the basis of the program P(UTM) will never say that this sentence is true." Call this sentence G for Gödel. Note that G is equivalent to: "UTM will never say G is true."

4. Now Gödel laughs his high laugh and asks UTM whether G is true or not.

5. If UTM says G is true, then "UTM will never say G is true" is false. If "UTM will never say G is true" is false, then G is false (since G = "UTM will never say G is true"). So if UTM says G is true, then G is in fact false, and UTM has made a false statement. So UTM will never say that G is true, since UTM makes only true statements.

6. We have established that UTM will never say G is true. So "UTM will never say G is true" is in fact a true statement. So G is true (since G = "UTM will never say G is true").

7. "I know a truth that UTM can never utter," Gödel says. "I know that G is true. UTM is not truly universal."

Think about it - it grows on you ...

With his great mathematical and logical genius, Gödel was able to find a way (for any given P(UTM)) actually to write down a complicated polynomial equation that has a solution if and only if G is true. So G is not at all some vague or non-mathematical sentence. G is a specific mathematical problem that we know the answer to, even though UTM does not! So UTM does not, and cannot, embody a best and final theory of mathematics ...

Although this theorem can be stated and proved in a rigorously mathematical way, what it seems to say is that rational thought can never penetrate to the final ultimate truth ... But, paradoxically, to understand Gödel's proof is to find a sort of liberation. For many logic students, the final breakthrough to full understanding of the Incompleteness Theorem is practically a conversion experience. This is partly a by-product of the potent mystique Gödel's name carries. But, more profoundly, to understand the essentially labyrinthine nature of the castle is, somehow, to be free of it.
---

This is the kind of mental freedom you will gain by reading this book. Highly recommended.

One of the biggest influences in my life, and a classic........2001-08-25

Douglas Hofstadter uses the art of M.C. Escher, the music of J.S. Bach, and Kurt Goedel's mathematics as the centerpieces for a magnificent inquiry into the nature of the mind. Along the way you will encounter Bertrand Russel, Carroll Lewis, particle physics, molecular biology, Magritte's paintings, and Zen koans. These are all used to probe recursion and the mystery of how we form thoughts. But the list of topics alone is not what makes this book great, it's the playful, joyful sense that characterize's Hofstadter's treatment of this. This sense of wonder is critical, as without it this highly challenging book would be very frustrating. The book's style itself is based on Bach's canons, and the chapters are interspersed with dialogues between the Tortois and the Hare, in the style of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. The result is an artistic as well as scientific or philisophical masterpiece. I am currently a triple-major in molecular biology, physics, and philosophy, and much of my curriculum has been influenced by the beauty of Hofstadter's book. This will go down as one of the 20th Century's bests books.

The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach: Music to Delight the Spirit Volume 1: 1695-1717

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The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach: Music to Delight the Spirit Volume 1: 1695-1717
Richard Jones
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198164408

Book Description

This book gives an account of the individual works of one of the greatest composers. The first volume of a two-volume study of the music of J. S. Bach covers the earlier part of his composing career, 1695-1717. By studying the music chronologically a coherent picture of the composer's creative development emerges, drawing together all the strands of the individual repertoires (e.g. the cantatas, the organ music, the keyboard music). The volume is divided into two parts, covering the early works and the mature Weimar compositions respectively. Each part deals with four categories of composition in turn: large-scale keyboard works; preludes, fantasias, and fugues; organ chorales; and cantatas. Within each category, the discussion is prefaced by a list of the works to be considered, together with details of their original titles, catalogue numbers, and earliest sources. The study is thus usable as a handbook on Bach's works as well as a connected study of his creative development. As indicated by the subtitle Music to Delight the Spirit,, borrowed from Bach's own title-pages, Richard Jones draws attention to another important aspect of the book: not only is it a study of style and technique but a work of criticism, an analytical evaluation of Bach's music and an appreciation of its extraordinary qualities. It also takes account of the remarkable advances in Bach scholarship that have been made over the last 50 years, including the many studies that have appeared relating to various aspects of Bach's early music, such as the varied influences to which he was subjected and the problematic issues of dating and authenticity that arise. In doing so, it attempts to build up a coherent picture of his development as a creative artist, helping us to understand what distinguishes Bach's mature music from his early works and from the music of his predecessors and contemporaries. Hence we learn why it is that his later works are instantly recognizable as 'Bachian'.

Johann Sebastian Bach (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers)

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Johann Sebastian Bach (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers)
Mike Venezia
Manufacturer: Children's Press (CT)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0516263528

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