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Evening in the Palace of Reason
Monumental historical figures like Bach, can sometimes cease to be human beings in our minds. We forget that they were real people, not just tic marks on a history time-line. I often think of Bach as that famous frozen portrait of him, in which he is holding out a manuscript. I recently read a book that animates Bach (and the time and place in which he lived), to real entities, rather than mere abstractions. The book is Evening in the Palace of Reason, by James R. Gaines. The main event that is alluded to in the title is the occasion of Bach’s meeting with Frederick the Great in which the Musical Offering was spawned.
Part ot what the book deals with, is the unbelievable brutality of life under a monarch in the 17th and 18th centuries. What is made so real, is the disciplinarian environment, with no artistic freedom, no due process, no civil rights, no rights at all. Kings really DID say, “OFF WITH HIS HEAD” and it happened.
The author explains how the “Enlightenment” supplanted the draconian Church doctrine, and how Bach and Frederick the Great were of two totally different times and mind-sets. Bach grew up in a rigid, orthodox Lutheran setting in rural Germany, while Frederick (about 20 years his junior) was a crown prince in the royal family. He was also one of the first monarchs of the Enlightenment (characterized by philosophers like Descartes and Leibnitz). His enlightenment was mostly a rebellion against his father, as Frederick was also brutalized in the most unimaginable ways by his insanely sadistic father, Frederick William.
Did you know Bach composed most of Book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier while in jail for about a month, with NO ACCESS to ANY MUSICAL INSTRUMENT!!? By the way, he was in jail because he wanted to change jobs. Can you imagine life under such iron rule? Here and now, we can say, “Take this job and shove it!” and walk out. There, you would be tortured and killed for such behavior.
In Bach's time, HELL was a real place you were going to if you messed up - and the unimaginable tortures of HELL were feared by all. And it was threatened by the Church regularly. That was unless you paid off the Church to be forgiven for your sins. This practice of "indulgences" was one of the practices that Martin Luther rebelled aginst a century earlier.
While Bach and his contemporaries were busy avoiding HELL, Newton was formulating his laws of physics. Nobody in rural, Lutheran Germany could care less about Newton or the science he was discovering. They were terrified of going to HELL.
The strict rules of composition forbade excessive voicing, or even excessive beauty in music. The music (especially for a Church service) HAD to reflect the text of the service. You could not have a descending scale if an angel was ascending to heaven. You had to avoid certain keys that were considered un-religious (like B flat minor for some weird reason). Certain numbers (like 10) were considered holy. You had to avoid unholy numbers in intervals, groupings of voices, etc. You could not just compose a tune that was in your head. The fact that Bach still wrote such incredible masterpieces laboring under these LAWS makes them even more stunning.
This book has blasted from my mind, ANY notion that it might have been fun to be Bach – or anybody else in those times. I knew about this stuff before, from my reading and courses I took, but it was never made so real to me. I highly recommend, Evening in the Palace of Reason by James R. Gaines.
Monumental historical figures like Bach, can sometimes cease to be human beings in our minds. We forget that they were real people, not just tic marks on a history time-line. I often think of Bach as that famous frozen portrait of him, in which he is holding out a manuscript. I recently read a book that animates Bach (and the time and place in which he lived), to real entities, rather than mere abstractions. The book is Evening in the Palace of Reason, by James R. Gaines. The main event that is alluded to in the title is the occasion of Bach’s meeting with Frederick the Great in which the Musical Offering was spawned.
Part ot what the book deals with, is the unbelievable brutality of life under a monarch in the 17th and 18th centuries. What is made so real, is the disciplinarian environment, with no artistic freedom, no due process, no civil rights, no rights at all. Kings really DID say, “OFF WITH HIS HEAD” and it happened.
The author explains how the “Enlightenment” supplanted the draconian Church doctrine, and how Bach and Frederick the Great were of two totally different times and mind-sets. Bach grew up in a rigid, orthodox Lutheran setting in rural Germany, while Frederick (about 20 years his junior) was a crown prince in the royal family. He was also one of the first monarchs of the Enlightenment (characterized by philosophers like Descartes and Leibnitz). His enlightenment was mostly a rebellion against his father, as Frederick was also brutalized in the most unimaginable ways by his insanely sadistic father, Frederick William.
Did you know Bach composed most of Book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier while in jail for about a month, with NO ACCESS to ANY MUSICAL INSTRUMENT!!? By the way, he was in jail because he wanted to change jobs. Can you imagine life under such iron rule? Here and now, we can say, “Take this job and shove it!” and walk out. There, you would be tortured and killed for such behavior.
In Bach's time, HELL was a real place you were going to if you messed up - and the unimaginable tortures of HELL were feared by all. And it was threatened by the Church regularly. That was unless you paid off the Church to be forgiven for your sins. This practice of "indulgences" was one of the practices that Martin Luther rebelled aginst a century earlier.
While Bach and his contemporaries were busy avoiding HELL, Newton was formulating his laws of physics. Nobody in rural, Lutheran Germany could care less about Newton or the science he was discovering. They were terrified of going to HELL.
The strict rules of composition forbade excessive voicing, or even excessive beauty in music. The music (especially for a Church service) HAD to reflect the text of the service. You could not have a descending scale if an angel was ascending to heaven. You had to avoid certain keys that were considered un-religious (like B flat minor for some weird reason). Certain numbers (like 10) were considered holy. You had to avoid unholy numbers in intervals, groupings of voices, etc. You could not just compose a tune that was in your head. The fact that Bach still wrote such incredible masterpieces laboring under these LAWS makes them even more stunning.
This book has blasted from my mind, ANY notion that it might have been fun to be Bach – or anybody else in those times. I knew about this stuff before, from my reading and courses I took, but it was never made so real to me. I highly recommend, Evening in the Palace of Reason by James R. Gaines.
