Availability
Availability Label | Location | Shelfmark | Availability | Reservations |
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Central Branch | Biography Kenni-K | Copies Available |
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Summary & Details
Full Record Details Table
Title Statement | Counterpoint: a memoir of Bach and mourning / Philip Kennicott. |
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Author | Kennicott, Philip |
Publication | New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company,[2020]©2020 |
Edition | First edition. |
Extent of Item | 244 pages |
ISBN | 0393635368 9780393635362 |
Other Number | 3736094 |
Bibliography | Includes bibliographical references. |
Summary | "A Pulitzer Prize- winning critic reflects on the meaning and emotional impact of a Bach masterwork. As his mother was dying, Philip Kennicott began listening to the music of Bach obsessively, and spent the next five years trying to learn one of the composer's greatest keyboard masterpieces, the Goldberg Variations. In Counterpoint, he recounts his efforts to rise to the challenge, and to fight through his grief by coming to terms with memories of a difficult, complicated childhood. He describes the joys of mastering some of the pieces, the frustrations that plague his understanding of others, the technical challenges they pose, and the surpassing beauty of the melodies, harmonies, and counterpoint that distinguish them. While exploring Bach's compositions, he sketches a cultural history of playing the piano in the twentieth century. And he raises two questions that become increasingly interrelated, not unlike a contrapuntal passage in one of the variations itself: What does it mean to know a piece of music? What does it mean to know another human being?"--Provided by publisher. |
Subjects & Genres | |
By Topic | Pianists--Biography--United States |
Grief | |
By Name | Kennicott, Philip |
Bach, Johann Sebastian,1685-1750--Appreciation | |
Bach, Johann Sebastian,1685-1750.Goldberg-Variationen |