Bachanalia: The Essential Listener's Guide to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier
Eric Lewin Altschuler
Little Brown, 1994
ISBN 0-316-03529-7

I have been reading Altschuler's book for years. That might not be the most inviting statement to begin a review. But it is true: like the Well-Tempered Clavier itself, Altschuler's book is dense, compact, enjoyable in small yet complete portions, stunning in overall architecture, brimming with details small and large to ponder, savor and re-evaluate. It is wise, witty, challenging and refreshing. It is infinitely renewable. What a book!

Who is the audience for this book? Anyone! Anyone that wants to discover new music, discover more about music they may already know, discover that the pleasures and puzzles of Bach's magnificent fugues are available primarily just by listening with an alert and curious mind. Practically no technical knowledge is required, musical or otherwise. Of course, Altschuler has done all the work to serve you admirably as an enlightened tour guide, coach, teacher and just plain DJ. He'll help you through it. He loves the music and want you to also. Armed with a good recording of the Well-Tempered Clavier, a copy of this book, and a desire to really explore the territoriy, you will find yourself enjoying the experience. Likely for years.

Altschuler has a prodigious gift for simple, vivid, entertaining metaphor. With his humor, his clarity and his unmistakable admiration for Bach and the Well-Tempered Clavier, Altschuler delivers a compelling narrative that you can navigate in a myriad ways. Much as the earsense presentation of the same content attempts to do, Bachanalia approaches each of the 48 fugues in the collection with a multi-faceted approach. It raises a number of good questions. What is central to the unique character of each fugue; what makes it distinctive? How does each fugue relate to others in the collection? What facet of each fugue provides a good opportunity for exploring a term, topic or concept in the general art of immitative counterpoint, music theory or even psychological phenomena. In what way or ways is each fugue an opportunity to play, to ponder, to be actively and creatively entertained. Central to Altschuler's fundamental posture is the attitude that experiencing Bach is essentially a delightful game. It is a game that you can play for a long time.

You can get rolling with Part One, the Prelude. Here, you can cruise through a good long read that sets the context: the point of the book, Bach's life, the initial ideas about counterpoint, fugue,and even good reccomendations for recordings to obtain (definitely a requirement: it is all about listening to the music). From there, you can dip into the heart of the book at will: a catalogue presenting each and every one of the 48 fugues in modest chapters, each an essay and a perparation for listening, each a little taste of theory, anecdote, metaphor and humor, each a little jewel. Begin anywhere. From there, go anywhere. Everywhere, Altschuler breaks out side bars, tables, cross-references and suggestions for further exploration. The range and scope is as wide as your own curiosity and energy. Don't get something the first time around? Listen some more. Let it stew. Pursue something else. Come back after a while and try again. What a game!

For a long time, I challenged myself to listen to one fugue a day. Something like this: set 1/2 hour a side every day. Pick a fugue. Listen once or twice. Relax. Maybe listen on more time. Read the matching chapter in Bachinalia. Listen again. Let it go until the next time. Sometimes you don't feel like it, you skip some days, forget all about it. Other times, you listen for two hours, to multiple fugues. Often, you fall deeply into some of the most rich and compelling music imaginable. Listen in pairs: major and minor. Listen in pairs: both fugues in the same key. Pick one of Altschuler's topics, say, stretto, and, using his tables, treat yourself to batch of fugues that all feature that topic prominently (or not at all). Take a holiday and relax with a handful or even just one of your favorites. What a discipline!

Tables, rankings, baseball fanatics.

Numerology.

In the style of Altschuler, I propose my own ranking summary, a list of my top X concepts in his book. Each one is clearly presented (often multiple times so that these simple but powerful postulates become the motives throughout the reading process), revealed by vivid example in Bach's work, and most kindly summarized again (natrually within the entertaining flow of the book's narrative). To my thinking, they are indeed funamental axioms of musical rhetoric (psychology, aesthetics and just life) and wonderful stock for the well-prepared musical mind. They are all brilliant points to ponder. It is left as a rich exercise for the reader to explore these topics through Altschuler's fantastic book. [work on this]

The Because-Of Model

The Just looking Method

Bach's Big Secret: Motivecness (1st, 2nd and 3rd order)