Bach

Music in the Castle of Heaven

By: John Eliot Gardiner

Narrated by: Antony Ferguson

Length: 21 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who (when we can discern his personality at all) seems so ordinary, so opaque - and occasionally so intemperate? John Eliot Gardiner grew up passing one of the only two authentic portraits of Bach every morning and evening on the stairs of his parents’ house, where it hung for safety during World War II. He has been studying and performing Bach ever since, and is now regarded as one of the composer's greatest living interpreters. The fruits of this lifetime's immersion are distilled in this remarkable book, grounded in the most recent Bach scholarship but moving far beyond it, and explaining in wonderful detail the ideas on which Bach drew, how he worked, how his music is constructed, how it achieves its effects - and what it can tell us about Bach the man.

Gardiner's background as a historian has encouraged him to search for ways in which scholarship and performance can cooperate and fruitfully coalesce. This has entailed piecing together the few biographical shards, scrutinizing the music, and watching for those instances when Bach's personality seems to penetrate the fabric of his notation. Gardiner's aim is "to give the reader a sense of inhabiting the same experiences and sensations that Bach might have had in the act of music-making. This, I try to show, can help us arrive at a more human likeness discernible in the closely related processes of composing and performing his music." It is very rare that such an accomplished performer of music should also be a considerable writer and thinker about it. John Eliot Gardiner takes us as deeply into Bach’s works and mind as perhaps words can. The result is a unique book about one of the greatest of all creative artists.

©2013 John Eliot Gardiner (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Great insights, unfortunate narration

As a lover of Bach, especially his choral music, Gardiner's insights deepened my appreciation of his genius. I kept wishing for a musical soundtrack that would bring these insights to life alongside the author's written words. On the other hand, I was utterly frustrated by the reader's butchered German and (often) Latin, and his consistent mispronunciation of "affect," so different in meaning from "effect." A book about J. S. Bach read by someone who hasn't the foggiest about how to pronounce German words??? The production people should hang their heads--and, even at this late date, re-record this book. (I'd be happy to volunteer.) The text is certainly worth it!

Fire the Reader!!!

Gardiner's book is fascinating, personal and based on current research, but it would be hard to imagine a reading that was less cognizant of musical or theological terms. In nearly every paragraph, the reader mispronounces terms in Latin, Italian, German and even English! It was infuriating at times, making it a struggle to listen to the end.

A Deep History of Bach

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I listen to about three books a week, so I have a broad experience in the varying qualities of books of various genres. I've listened to longer histories, Toland's biography of Hitler, for example, and I have to say that this history of Bach must be one of those books that just needs to be read, not heard. The narration is very precise, which does not necessarily equal pleasant reading. I ended up returning this book, simply because there was not enough movement in the narrative to maintain my interest.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I did appreciate the scholarship in this book, but it does not make for interesting listening.

Did Antony Ferguson do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

None at all.

Could you see Bach being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Not a chance.

Narration debacle

It was hard to listen to for straight sentences in this book because the narrator knows neither German nor music. It seems both of these topics would’ve been at the top of a list when looking for somebody to narrate Gardeners. It’s laughable, Really

A mixed bag

This is a wonderful book. Not a traditional biography, but with plenty of insight into the music from a famous conductor who turns out to be a great writer, too.
However the narration by Anthony Ferguson is pedestrian. He’d be entirely fine with a book that has no foreign words. However, the production on this “Audible Only” recording is unbelievably shoddy. There are - surprise! - many German words in this book, as well as Latin, Italian, and French ones. Mr. Ferguson renders the German words unintelligible, butchers the Latin, mangles the names of French composers, and can’t even get some of the musical terms right. A trip to the dictionary could have fixed many of these errors. It’s the “we don’t care” attitude from the entire production team I find most lamentable. No quality control. Did anybody listen to this? Apparently the Hollywood-movie-approach was applied. The words sound foreign, so it’s good enough.
In my opinion, a disservice was done to this book.

Great insight, ok reading

The book itself gave a fresh perspective on JS Bach - the man behind the music. Will be purchasing the physical book to reference the excellent content.

The reading was good except for several errors in pronunciation - especially Latin.

Brilliant book badly presented

Gardiner's brilliant investigation of the man through the music is thrilling and moving. Ferguson's reading could be worse, but not much. His intonation is generally passable, but he is clearly not competent to read this book. Technical music terms, but also multisyllabic academic expressions flummox him, receiving weird emphases and pauses that force the reader to guess what is really being said, not to mention disrupting the illusion that the reader is speaking with understanding. That's not even to count the sporadic errors like "Bach finds the means to take the string out of the aggression".

Worst of all is his pronunciation of German, which is crucial to a biography of Bach. One wonders why Ferguson didn't look at the text and just decide that it would be too embarrassing: Either he should pass on the job, or spend an hour or two at least learning some of the basics of German pronunciation. He sounds like a computer programmed to pronounce English written text, fed with German writing and just ploughing through it. It would be barely less comprehensible -- and less disruptive to the reader -- if the German expressions and texts were simply cut out and replaced with silence or white noise..

3 Stars for Being Too Deep for Me

I'm trying, as an adult beginner, to learn something about music by taking violin lessons. Even playing a few Bach things, on an elementary level. The instrument is a beast and I was hoping to glean some insight into the musical process by listening to this tome.

Unfortunately, this is the second book I have had to abandon. (The first, "The Night Circus", was ended mid-listen because of lack of plot movement and character development -- it was a novel, unlike this history/biography. That abandonment was due to the author's superficial approach to the novel's structure, unlike this book's profile: way too technical and fathoms too deep for my understanding.) So alas, "Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven" is too esoteric for me, a mere musical bimbo, wanting to hear about a genius I have only recently begun to appreciate.

Someone who has a firm foundation in musical studies and performance will probably find this book accessible. I was unable to intellectually crack the musical terminologies and references to Bach and other artists' works-- through my own unfamiliarity, not because the book was poorly written or faulty in its structure. I often thought while listening that the one advantage of this audio production was (maybe) the musical references should have actually been played and incorporated into the text since there would be a reference to a passage, not only by Bach but by some other composer, and I would be lost. I just didn't know the piece and the thread of purpose in its mention was meaningless to me.

I don't know German, either, so there was nothing to forgive on my end for mispronunciation of German terms by Mr. Ferguson, something mentioned in other reviews.

But that was me. If you know music and didn't study French for your art history degree, you might really get into this work. Because chewing through and ingesting this information is real work.

And by the way, great title, Mr. Gardiner.

Appropriate readers?

How could the performance have been better?

A book that is very much for a musically sophisticated audience requires a reader whose understands music. The unintelligible German, the gaps before any musical term, the mangled Latin (jubilate is you-bee-lat-teh, not jew-bi-late), all made the listening painful. Was there a director? Did no one notice the different pronunciation of even numbers? Please view my one star as a negative one.

Written by an Artist for Artists and Connoisseurs

Any additional comments?

An excellent biographical treatise on the complex life circumstances that go into creating the sublime. Any creative will be grateful to the author for fleshing out the details of Bach's life and music with purity of intent and love for our artistic evolution....skg