J. S. Bach: A Life in Music (review)

With the flurry of Bach biographies and interpretations of his works generated around the anniversary of 2000, there is no obvious way in which a new biography can present much factual content that is not available elsewhere. There have been some spectacular new source discoveries, both in Kiev and, closer to home, in Weimar, but these tend to confirm, rather than radically alter, the picture that is already in place. Recent biographies distinguish themselves most by their style and approach; a different set of priorities or questions can present the same facts in surprisingly different lights and can fill in the many gaps in diverse ways. The most popular biographies tend to treat Bach as the traditional 'monumental hero', and also usually assume that there is no significant difference between the human condition of Bach's time and that of our own. Others have veered more towards understanding Bach in relation to the history of ideas, culture, politics, philosophy, and theology. None of these approaches necessarily leads to a specific way of analysing, describing, or assessing the music, but, conversely, there must be something about Bach's output that makes it worth studying the life and historical context of such an elusive figure.

Peter Williams's approach tends to avoid the more naive adulation of much Bach biography, and strikes an individual note that places him somewhat apart from the German-American mainstream of Bach scholarship. It is noticeable, for instance, that when new discoveries were made in Weimar while his book was already well into production,Williams's source of information was an article in Die Zeit (see pp. 375-6) rather than direct contact with the Bach Archive in Leipzig. Yet there is never the sense that Williams is ill-informed about his subject and his long critical (and practical) engagement with this music gives many of his observations considerable substance. By taking the individual passages of the original Obituary of Bach as the supporting pillars for his entire narrative,Williams constructs his biography by inferring what might have been left out (using other documentary evidence, as appropriate) and what the motives of the writers might have been (the Obituary was largely written by Bach's own son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, together with his pupil J. F. Agricola). This approach brings the considerable advantage of generating a sort of 'charge' between what Bach's son knew and what he didn't, between how he wanted to portray his father and the 'truth' as he knew it, and between our needs and priorities and those of the mid-eighteenth century. As Williams correctly notes, Emanuel tends to leave out references to his father's 'youthful pranks' or the anecdote about Sebastian boxing Johann Christian's ears for leaving a six-four chord unresolved (p. 42); these would not have fitted into the image the son was trying to create. What thus becomes immediately evident is that there can be no such thing as a 'correct' biography and that our needs and interests are always at a premium, however covert these may be. Williams notes the similarity between certain elements of the Obituary and Camerarius's life of Melanchthon, still very influential during Bach's life: these include contentment with one's home country, studying by moonlight, and the general culture of self-improvement (pp. 7, 20). Thus much of the Obituary's narrative was conditioned by existing cultural models, which profoundly influenced the selection (and perhaps even the creation) of facts relating to Bach's life and character.

Taking the Obituary as the narrative frame brings some obvious disadvantages: it dominates the narrative when there is less music to discuss (such as at the beginning of Bach's career); but it almost disappears at times when Bach was producing the greatest amount of music (during the early Leipzig years); and it ends with a collection of observations and descriptions of Bach's music, personality, and skills that do not necessarily...