What do you think?
Rate this book
Master Musicians Series
BACH 3E MMU
Published in its first edition in 1983, Boyd's treatment of this canonical composer is essential reading for students, scholars, and everyone interested in Baroque music. In this third edition, biographical chapters alternate with commentary on the works, to demonstrate how the circumstances of Bach's life helped to shape the music he wrote at various periods. We follow Bach as he travels from Arnstadt and Muhlhausen to Weimar, Cöthen, and finally Leipzig, these journeys alternating with insightful discussions of the great composer's organ and orchestral compositions. As well as presenting a rounded picture of Bach, his music, and his posthumous reputation and influence, Malcolm Boyd considers the sometimes controversial topics of "parody" and arrangement, number symbolism, and the style and meaning of Bach's late works. Recent theories on the constitution of Bach's performing forces at Leipzig are also present. The text and the appendixes (which include a chronology, personalia,
bibliography, and a complete catalogue of Bach's works) were thoroughly revised in this edition to take account of more recent research undertaken by Bach scholars, including the gold mine of new information uncovered in the former USSR.
bibliography, and a complete catalogue of Bach's works) were thoroughly revised in this edition to take account of more recent research undertaken by Bach scholars, including the gold mine of new information uncovered in the former USSR.
312 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 1967
7 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Malcolm Boyd
73 books1 followerLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
Please note there is a different entry for Malcolm Boyd (priest and civil rights activist)
Please note there is a different entry for Malcolm Boyd (priest and civil rights activist)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 16, 2022
This is a musician's biography of Bach. And that's a good thing and a bad thing.
It's a good thing in several respects. Boyd provides lots of well-informed discussion of Bach's career as a composer with numerous musical examples. I found that my eight years of piano lessons and three years of music theory barely equipped me, however, to follow some of what he said and demonstrated. I had to look up a number of terms along the way—to my benefit, to be sure, but also at the cost of ready reading. Well-trained musicians and particularly keyboard players and conductors will not, however, find anything but delight in what Boyd says about Bach's music.
It's a good thing also in that Boyd deals with Bach's life as a teacher, director, and performer. Bach's career difficulties—often getting passed over for jobs for which he clearly was the best candidate (he was, after all, JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH)—will give more than a few readers some solace even as his crankiness with unappreciative and uncooperative students, peers, and superiors will be met with sympathy by many.
This biography, with its useful map, also demonstrates the catholicity and receptivity of Bach's musical mind even as he rarely left a rather restricted German region. His life was literally provincial even as his mind ranged over many influences, including quite recent ones.
Finally, Boyd's remarks on Bach's personal and musical qualities seem judicious, given the sources available, and appreciative, while avoiding hagiography. The last chapter is worth the price of the book.
Alas, however, this musician's biography gives us very little "times"—as in "life and times." The reader is gifted with a "Personalia" appendix, but one is still on one's own to know and understand the German political and social world of the day, on which Bach's career depended. Nothing is taught about Lutheranism in general or the Lutheran liturgy in particular, to which so much of Bach's career was devoted. And both musical terms and German and Latin phrases and titles are not defined for the reader, so keep a dictionary and Google Translate nearby.
Most frustrating, alas, is a problem facing every Bach biographer: a truly paltry supply of correspondence. We simply have too little to go on in trying to understand Bach's mind and heart—and where the sources leave lacunae, too many imaginative interpreters have rushed in. Boyd remains commendably circumspect. But as one stares at the single solidly attested portrait of Bach, reproduced on the book's cover, one still wonders about the man himself.
And then this one, at least, puts on the soothing "Sheep May Safely Graze," or the energetic third Brandenburg Concerto, or the sweet "Bist Du Bei Mir," or the stirring Praeludium in E major, or even the whole Passion according to St Matthew and St John, and one truly hears what the man most wanted to say.
It's a good thing in several respects. Boyd provides lots of well-informed discussion of Bach's career as a composer with numerous musical examples. I found that my eight years of piano lessons and three years of music theory barely equipped me, however, to follow some of what he said and demonstrated. I had to look up a number of terms along the way—to my benefit, to be sure, but also at the cost of ready reading. Well-trained musicians and particularly keyboard players and conductors will not, however, find anything but delight in what Boyd says about Bach's music.
It's a good thing also in that Boyd deals with Bach's life as a teacher, director, and performer. Bach's career difficulties—often getting passed over for jobs for which he clearly was the best candidate (he was, after all, JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH)—will give more than a few readers some solace even as his crankiness with unappreciative and uncooperative students, peers, and superiors will be met with sympathy by many.
This biography, with its useful map, also demonstrates the catholicity and receptivity of Bach's musical mind even as he rarely left a rather restricted German region. His life was literally provincial even as his mind ranged over many influences, including quite recent ones.
Finally, Boyd's remarks on Bach's personal and musical qualities seem judicious, given the sources available, and appreciative, while avoiding hagiography. The last chapter is worth the price of the book.
Alas, however, this musician's biography gives us very little "times"—as in "life and times." The reader is gifted with a "Personalia" appendix, but one is still on one's own to know and understand the German political and social world of the day, on which Bach's career depended. Nothing is taught about Lutheranism in general or the Lutheran liturgy in particular, to which so much of Bach's career was devoted. And both musical terms and German and Latin phrases and titles are not defined for the reader, so keep a dictionary and Google Translate nearby.
Most frustrating, alas, is a problem facing every Bach biographer: a truly paltry supply of correspondence. We simply have too little to go on in trying to understand Bach's mind and heart—and where the sources leave lacunae, too many imaginative interpreters have rushed in. Boyd remains commendably circumspect. But as one stares at the single solidly attested portrait of Bach, reproduced on the book's cover, one still wonders about the man himself.
And then this one, at least, puts on the soothing "Sheep May Safely Graze," or the energetic third Brandenburg Concerto, or the sweet "Bist Du Bei Mir," or the stirring Praeludium in E major, or even the whole Passion according to St Matthew and St John, and one truly hears what the man most wanted to say.
May 12, 2023
I read the version of Malcolm Boyd’s biography of Johann Sebastian Bach that was published in 2000. Malcolm Boyd’s biography of Bach was first published in 1983. Malcolm Boyd is a leading expert on the works of Johann Sebastian Bach when many of the cities associated with Bach such as Eisenach and Leipzig were in East Germany (Boyd x). I agree with the Goodreads reviewer, John review of Boyd’s biography. I do not have much knowledge about music, so I did not understand much about the sections about the music of Bach. I think the Goodreads reviewer named John is right that those parts of the book were mainly written for people with knowledge of music. The biographical chapters are mostly divided by which Bach lived at that time in his life. Boyd mostly tries to focus on what is known about Bach’s life without too much speculation. Due to the length of Boyd’s book, Boyd is mainly focused on the life of Bach without too much of the context of the times in which Bach lived. Boyd lives in the United Kingdom. This book includes appendices and indexes. There is a general index and an index of Bach’s works of music. The book includes a section of black and white pictures. Malcolm Boyd’s book is an interesting biography of Johann Sebastian Bach. I found the review of Bach by Malcolm Boyd useful when writing this ‘review.’
August 11, 2025
I never realized that Bach's happiest years were while he worked for the Calvinist prince in Cöthen, but there you have it right there in his letter as he begs his old friend to get him a new position so he can get out of Leipzig. Boyd goes too far in asserting/assuming that an interest in writing non-liturgical music means Bach did not have a fundamentally religious worldview. This too, can be done S.D.G.
January 27, 2014
I stumbled upon this book by accident, but I had always wished to read a comprehensive biography. After having read it, I think that there just is not very much information to help understand what Bach was like and what he was thinking about -- everything that is known is in his music. There is a real paucity of correspondence or text.
Boyd did well to intersperse the historical events of Bach's life with his music. Either, told without a break, would become tedious. In a way, discussing Bach's music in a book in any comprehensive form is really hopeless. There is so much music, and it is so complex, that even scholarly analyses have to be abbreviated to the point that they cover little more than the organizational structure and instrumentation of the music. It seems like the goal should be to describe what it is about Bach's music that has made it so exquisitely durable. Instead, a description of the music and its relation to music written by Bach's contemporaries appears to neutralize it, as if it were really not that special. In the final chapters, Boyd makes it clear that Bach's music does reach a level of sophistication that his contemporary's never did, but the descriptions of the music itself, don't really show why or how. So Boyd did not achieve the impossible. He did provide a lot of information and correct many misconceptions. I am very glad that he wrote the book, and that I read it, and I do feel that I am at least now aware of what there is to be known.
Being an instrumentalist, I do wish that more attention were paid to the instrumental works. The concerto for violin and oboe is a very popular and frequently performed work, and if it is mentioned at all, it was so fleeting that I missed it. Perhaps, there is really not much that can be said, and perhaps the instrumental music is not really significant from the standpoint of Bach's progression with his music.
I also have to question the remark stating that the 4th Brandenburg Concerto is taken over from the recorders by the violin. This is one of the pinnacles of the recorder repertoire, and while the violin does have an important role in the piece including a 'double', it never takes over the piece (as, for instance, the harpsichord does in the 5th Brandenburg). One wonders why the author would make a remark like that, and how one should then take comparable remarks about less familiar works.
Overall, I am very glad that I came upon this book. It stimulated my interest, and made me wish to travel to Thuringia and Lepzig to see what remains of the churches where Bach played and the instruments that he used.
Boyd did well to intersperse the historical events of Bach's life with his music. Either, told without a break, would become tedious. In a way, discussing Bach's music in a book in any comprehensive form is really hopeless. There is so much music, and it is so complex, that even scholarly analyses have to be abbreviated to the point that they cover little more than the organizational structure and instrumentation of the music. It seems like the goal should be to describe what it is about Bach's music that has made it so exquisitely durable. Instead, a description of the music and its relation to music written by Bach's contemporaries appears to neutralize it, as if it were really not that special. In the final chapters, Boyd makes it clear that Bach's music does reach a level of sophistication that his contemporary's never did, but the descriptions of the music itself, don't really show why or how. So Boyd did not achieve the impossible. He did provide a lot of information and correct many misconceptions. I am very glad that he wrote the book, and that I read it, and I do feel that I am at least now aware of what there is to be known.
Being an instrumentalist, I do wish that more attention were paid to the instrumental works. The concerto for violin and oboe is a very popular and frequently performed work, and if it is mentioned at all, it was so fleeting that I missed it. Perhaps, there is really not much that can be said, and perhaps the instrumental music is not really significant from the standpoint of Bach's progression with his music.
I also have to question the remark stating that the 4th Brandenburg Concerto is taken over from the recorders by the violin. This is one of the pinnacles of the recorder repertoire, and while the violin does have an important role in the piece including a 'double', it never takes over the piece (as, for instance, the harpsichord does in the 5th Brandenburg). One wonders why the author would make a remark like that, and how one should then take comparable remarks about less familiar works.
Overall, I am very glad that I came upon this book. It stimulated my interest, and made me wish to travel to Thuringia and Lepzig to see what remains of the churches where Bach played and the instruments that he used.
August 9, 2017
Nothing written, performed, or listened to today comes within light-years of Bach's genius, nor even deserves to be called "music" when compared to Bach.
The musical experience in Bach's time was different than today, more people were more musically literate, and a Bach composition was read like a good book as well as performed. But more than that, music touched something deeper, beyond sensuality, personal feelings, and the visceral reaction (though that was part of it). It engaged the mind and the soul. During the intervening centuries, something has been lost, our humanity slowly drained away, until the musical experience today has been reduced to mindless thumping on drums and sexualized grunting.
If I were forced to choose between either listening to only Bach for the rest of my life, or listening to rock'n'roll and other popular forms of music but never again being allowed to listen to Bach, I would choose "only Bach", without hesitation.
The musical experience in Bach's time was different than today, more people were more musically literate, and a Bach composition was read like a good book as well as performed. But more than that, music touched something deeper, beyond sensuality, personal feelings, and the visceral reaction (though that was part of it). It engaged the mind and the soul. During the intervening centuries, something has been lost, our humanity slowly drained away, until the musical experience today has been reduced to mindless thumping on drums and sexualized grunting.
If I were forced to choose between either listening to only Bach for the rest of my life, or listening to rock'n'roll and other popular forms of music but never again being allowed to listen to Bach, I would choose "only Bach", without hesitation.
July 15, 2015
While I enjoyed the sections about Bach's actual life and it was obviously a well-researched book, I do have to admit that I did get a bit lost in sections discussing more of the technical aspects of Bach's work. Overall though, I do feel like I know and understand a great deal more about one of my favorite composers after this read. I also have a better grasp of how Bach related to other composers, both preceding and succeeding him, and have since been expanding my listening habits to other composers (Couperin, etc.) mentioned in the biography that I had not heard previously.
June 21, 2016
Thorough, if brief, mix of biography and musical discussion. Boyd assumes the reader can read music, but he doesn't assume an extensive technical background. Particularly useful as an introduction to the various genres Bach composed in, and also for its focus on specific items from each of those genres. I thought the discussions of the organ works and the cantatas were especially good.
April 9, 2007
I read this for a class, but after reading it, I thought Bach was one cool dude!
April 30, 2013
This was more matter-of-fact than really interesting.
February 17, 2015
A book that talked about Bach's music and life in equal balance. Probably suited for a musically literate audience.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews