Julian Shuckburgh

"...Most biographies of Bach have been tremendously hagiographical and, broadly speaking, treated him as if he was God. Julian Shuckburgh’s approach is to treat him like any composer now, as it were: to study him in his living conditions, in his contracts and his disagreements with his employers – which were constant. The interesting thing about Bach is that he was actually, in career terms, not very successful, and the book shows the struggles that he had – for example, to support his (very large) family. Bach was essentially a local church musician who was also a schoolmaster – it’s very surprising when you think like that.



This is an integrated biography and very much a story of his actual life, as opposed to the sanctified version that was spread during the 19th century when Bach was rediscovered – largely by Mendelssohn. Before Mendelssohn, Bach was only really known to professionals – he wasn’t forgotten as a name, but his music was no longer performed. Mendelssohn, to his eternal credit, spent a lot of his career bringing Bach’s work to public attention. In 1829 Mendelssohn conducted the first performance of the St Matthew Passion since Bach’s death in 1750, and he was the first to perform the Mass in B Minor, which Bach had never heard..." (reviewed by Giles Swayne in FiveBooks).


The full interview is available here: http://fivebooks.com/interviews/giles-swayne-on-composers%E2%80%99-lives… (más)