Bach: Mass in B Minor

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List of illustrations
List of abbreviations
Preface
1. The musical genre of the mass ordinary
2. Genesis and purpose
3. Reception history
4. Text and music: the process of adaptation and composition
5. Ritornello forms
6. The influence of the dance
7. Counterpoint
8. Figurae and the motivic texture
9. Patterns and proportions: large-scale structuring and continuity in the Mass in B Minor
Afterword.

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The Mass in B Minor is arguably Bach's greatest single work. In this short guide John Butt considers the work from many angles offering the reader basic information in a concise and accessible form. The Mass in B Minor is fraught with difficulties regarding its origin, and ambiguities concerning its function. John Butt looks again at the historical sources and provides an up-to-date summary of existing research and opinions together with new insights of his own. He gives a vivid account of the work's genesis, its historical context, and its reception by later generations. One chapter considers the work movement by movement providing the text in both Latin and English. The final group of chapters on the music itself suggests some new approaches to the work - its forms, style and overall structure - which are both critically and historically based. This is an informative and lucid guide, valuable for student and music lover alike.

Reviews

outstanding. Into a mere 100 lucid pages, this most stimulating of our younger Bach scholar-performers has managed to pack accounts of the work's background, composition and reception history ... this little book serves to illuminate not only the Mass itself, but the entire sweep of current thinking about Bach

this little book serves to illuminate not only the Mass itself, but the entire sweep of current thinking about Bach

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