I have not read this book from cover to cover. Although, with it's wonderful index, it has provided me with an excellant resource manual for Baroque music.

Articulation, aesthetics, phrasing, ornamentation, character, tempo, practicing, accompaniment, style, notation, how to give a concert, how to breathe when you're nervous, how to play in an orchestra, ... it's all here. This book from 1752 covers the art of being a musician, not just a flute player.

Quantz' text is for anyone who cares about any music from about 1720 into the time of Mozart and Haydn. And it's essential performance practice material for anyone who would play this music: required reading for any serious student. It gives an indispensable window into German, French, and Italian taste.

Modern flautists, string players, keyboard players, and singers can learn a tremendous amount here. The pages about "good" and "bad" notes and varied articulation/tongueing are worth the whole price of the book. They describe the sound that composers were thinking of, the expressive range, the tremendous variety of effects *within* melodic lines. Take Quantz seriously: he was there, and he was a good player and writer.

What more needs to be said, except to thank the publisher for this edition? The previous issue by Schirmer has been out of print for far too long. This book should NEVER be out of print.

Nancy Dixon has done a very good job of piecing together the experiences of those of her ancestors who came among the Palatine Germans around 1710, to upstate New York. This is not a general work of genealogy with passenger lists and lists of families, but is more specific to her own clan. This in no way takes away from the book as her history may be extrapolated to cover the experiences of many of the Palatine families who were in similar straits. Nancy knows when she can take the liberty of poetic description, and has not turned this book into historical fiction. It is a decent work of history, and if you have Palatine roots, I strongly recomend it.

A formal review of this book appears in the January, 1996, issue of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register

this play was hilarious. Rough Crossing is wonderful, and in usual Stoppard form, filled with quirky characters. Dvornechek (sp?), the waiter who keeps drinking the cognac he brings for his passengers, is one of the funniest characters i've come across. the others have their little "traits," too, adding up to a wonderfully confusing show.

These two plays (in one volume) are ones that only true Stoppard devotees have read. When Stoppard's "accomplishments" are listed, they always include ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, JUMPERS, ARCADIA, and the likes. But they almost never include these two plays. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved all of the plays listed above (and just about everything else Stoppard has written), and I heartily recommend them. But "ROUGH CROSSING" AND "ON THE RAZZLE" certainly ought to be on the list. Both are adaptations of other plays (but in the same way that ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD is an adaptation of HAMLET -- that is, Stoppard takes the other plays as a starting point and goes from there) and both are absolutely hilarious. "ROUGH CROSSING" is the story of a producer, director, musician, and a couple of actors on a boat bound for New York and a Broadway theater. The only glitch is that they have to write the musical before they get there! In typical Stoppard form, the lead actor (Adam) has a speech impediment, so that he is always responding to a character after several other characters have already said something. Stoppard's genius lies in his ability to make Adam's statements mean different things depending on what they are responses to! The writing is difficult to describe, but a true treat to read. "On the Razzle" is equally complicated and equally funny. If you are a Stoppard fanatic or have never heard of the man before, GET THIS BOOK! You WILL enjoy it

True peace is controversial and hard-won, even attacked at times. The centerpiece for Arnold's book is the words of Jesus: "My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you." Unfortunately, the vast majority of us seek peace, happiness and fulfillment with a vengeance in all the wrong places. With hearts burdened by worry and care and a nagging sense of dread, our lives end up becoming a hectic morass of unpeace and disenchantment. The answer, says Arnold through the real life experiences of many friends, lies outside of ourselves. True peace is found by not trying to find it; by forgetting about oneself and devoting one's life to the service of others. Only the reading of the many personal accounts in this book will do these thoughts justice. Give yourself and others a true education, far above the din of saccharine self-help manuals and the watery spiritual soup served up in tomes everywhere. Read this book!

I suspected I'd love this book from the humility apparent in the title phrase "SEEKING Peace": not "having" or "finding" but simply seeking. On the face of it, Johann Christoph Arnold's latest appears to promise less than the forgettable multitude of self-help titles which claim to offer easy methods of achieving peace--with their implication not only that peace is a commodity you can own, but also that once attained it will become a permanent attribute of your character. Arnold promises less, but what this book gives is something infinitely more valuable and original than a quickie peace fix.

This book offers and demands honesty with ourselves and others in our search for peace. Beginning with a section called "Paradoxes", Arnold recognizes that peace is a slippery concept that's easily warped by doublespeaking politicians, New Age gurus, or self-righteous activists. The center piece of the book is a section of fifteen "stepping stones" on the way to piece, including forgiveness, humility, honesty, conviction, and realism. The final section of the book expresses a vision of true peace: peace is creative force whose characteristics are justice, wholeness, and joy.

If I have one argument with the book, it is that the chapter on "Justice" might have been given a more prominent place in the structure of the book. A deepgoing meditation on the slogan "No justice, no peace", this chapter stands alone as an awesome statement of spiritual truth, which takes full account of the horrors of oppression while reaffirming the power of reconciliation. For me, this moment of synthesis is the heart not only of the book, but also of all sincere religious and social movements.

No one said it better than the author Jonathan Kozol, who is quoted on the back cover of Arnold's book: "SEEKING PEACE is a tough, transcendent envisioning of peace: neither fatuous nor sentimental, but arduous and courageous." Every person of good will, of whatever denominational or political stripe, owes it to themselves to embrace, and act on, Arnold's message.

It'an excellent book. It can be very technically challenging at times but don't give up!! I recomend starting with "Nun freut euch, lieben Christen gmein" [Rejoice, beloved Christians] an then go with "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" [Awake, the Voice commands]. I hope you enjoy it as much a I do.

Busoni was famous for his transcriptions of Bach's organ music. The true genius of his work becomes evident when one can see the adjustments Busoni made to the originals. These works are a very rewarding challenge for any serious pianist. I personally am quite fond of the Tocatta in C Major.

An absolutely fascinating read, at a level suitable for both professional scientists and academics but easily accessible to the layperson as well. This is essential reading for anyone with an interest in holism, holistic science and the limits of science. Bortoft provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of Johan Wolfgang von Goethe's approach to science, clearly showing the contemporary relevance of his entirely different way of coming to an understanding of the natural world. He underpins this analysis by his own philosophical research on the relationship between the whole and its parts.

In our daily thinking we tend to be stuck in what Bortoft calls analytic consciousness, through which we try to understand the phenomena in our world by analysing them into parts and then building them up again from those parts. In this way, the whole becomes an entity, which stands alone, albeit constituted from its parts. Goethe's way of science, however, draws on a very different conception of the whole, as being intimately entwined with its parts, in such a way that, in a sense, the whole comes into being through the parts, while at the same time the parts come into being through the whole. We can only really understand this by experiencing it and drawing on our intuitive mode of consciousness.

Bortoft shows how Goethe dwelled in the phenomena he studied to such degree that he was able to understand these phenomena, without needing to explain them. Moreover, Bortoft does an excellent job at showing how this mode of science is objective in the exact same way as conventional science is objective, in that it is verifiable by others, but dependant on a shared way of seeing the world.

Having read many parts of the book over again, I am in awe of the wholeness of this work, in the Goethean sense, so that each section forms both a part of the whole, but at the same time contains the entire work within itself. Once read as a whole, each section brings to life again the entire work, revealing each time new aspects and helping me to think afresh, with thought-provoking ideas. Striking in all this is how Bortoft has managed to bring the entire subject to life by showing so clearly how Goethe's science comes into being.

The relevance and importance of this work will no doubt increase over the years.

I don't know when I will have the chance to sing this books praises with more details, so here I will just say the following:

This book is a masterpiece on several fronts. Here we have the best articulation yet as to why modern science must reject the healing tonic which lives in Goethe's approach. Here we have the best articulation yet of how an alternative approach to science is possible- one that is systematic and exact, yet open and participative with nature.

The methodology presented in this book is epistemologically sound, unlike the on-looker/representational epistemology that modern natural science is necessarily bound to.

This book shows us how to begin taking a step in a beautiful, true and necessary direction. more later

No praise is adequate for this book with its strong unsentimental philosophical approach tempered with a relaxed style and exceptionally clear explanations of the material. It opens up a completely new way of viewing and doing science one not easily acceptable to a rigid interpretaion as it stands today. Very broad in its scope discussing very deeply the idea of world view, it is an essential read for any scientist even applied mathematicians such as myself. Unlike other books in the same vein eg metaphysical etc, in whose domain it does not belong, there are no fantastical explanations with no grounding but rather well researched arguments in favour of an almost a Socratic perspective, refering here to Socrates's character and life rather than Plato's use of him in his arguments. Recommended for all open minded readers and those who would like to have theirs opened.

Far from being a mind unconscious that it is calculating, Chafe convincingly argues that Bach carefully set his canata texts to illuminate their theological meaning. Beginning with simple devices such as triads to represent the trinity, Chafe describes Bach's use of more subtle musical ideas such ascending or descending lines and harmonies to represent, for example, God's incarnation (descent to earth) and mankind's redemption (ascent to heaven). Bach's use of numerology, for example in his use of extended musical patterns repeated ten times to represent the Ten Commandments, strongly belies the notion that this composer was uncalculating. While the musical power of Bach's cantatas touch us even though we may not understand the significance -- or even the meaning -- of the text, Chafe's insights reveal for us the many ways in which Bach's music expresses Lutheran theological ideas, allowing us to appreciate Bach on an entirely different level. Highly recommended.

This is a jewel; a paperback (with Dover's usual great binding quality) that contains both the Art of Fugue and the Musical Offering.

The Art of Fugue was originally written in open score, to emphasize that the performance instrument was not specified. This edition gives the open score with a two-stave (piano-type) reduction below.

Of course, with a solid binding like that, it's not going to stay open on your piano.

If you want to play / doodle the great Contrapunctus 1 from TAOF (like I did), and if you've got the hairclips to keep the pages down (like I wish I did), this book is for you! Gofer it. Arch

Germany's No.1 in hematological morphology provides the reader with a first class book on the microscopy of peripheral blood and bone marrow smears of normal and malignant hematology. It's one of the books you will look at regularly, even as a skilled morphologist. Whether looking for acute megakaryoblastic leukemia, NK-cell leukemia or epitheloid granulomas, you will find excellent pictures and a short but precise explanation of the most important cytological features. Covering the whole spectrum of hematology, this book is a valuable companion to every practising hematologist

Bach scholarship has mostly been positivistic: Chafe's attmept here is to approach the music with a greater critical stance through a submersion in the contrasts between the concepts surrounding keys and tonality and those which are applicable to lutheran dogmatic principles. Chafe bases his thesis, which is essentially that the tonal processes of the bach's sacred vocal music work in conjunction with the text, and, as such, form a highly important part of Bach's musical-religious exegesis.

Interesting, and plausible though this may seem, there is really very little evidence provided into which Chafe can mould his ideas:he finds consolation in the writings of Johann Kunhau who, he claims, endorses a hermeneutic approach, thus seemingly giving the go ahead to chafe's theory. It is not suprising that nowhere in the book does Chafe actually quote at length from Kuhnau, and this rightly sets the alarm bells ringing. The fact is that Kuhnau is not talking about the kind of hermeneutic's that chafe suggests - Kuhnau is concerned with linguistic and semantic musical adoptions (i.e. musical-rhetorical device), which is of course a world away from large scale tonal symbolism.
If Chafe's evidence is virtually nonexistant, then his interpretations are also misleading. Whilst, from time to time, his readings are convincing, there are others during which his reasoning borders on the asinine. He suggests that, in one cantata, the relative attributes of sharps and flats (and their related tonal procedural progressions - anabasis and catabasis) and reversed - i.e. instead of anabasis = positive, and catabasis = negative, the antithesis is true. The reversal is supposed to take place not uniformally across an entire piece, but rather between the arias and the recits across the whole work. Such tortuous logical patternings force his interpretations, and do little for their credibility, especially given the paucity of therotical documentation.
It is a bold attempt, but before such drawn out and complex interpretations should be attempted a greater effort should have been made to secure the facts that we actually have: what a pity.

One of the most popular books in the Netherlands about the St. Matthew Passion is called 'His Lightning, his Thunder', written by Martin van Amerongen. His basic line of thought is : forget about the texts, they're silly, weird and unimportant. This book proves the contrary is true. It makes you understand what the texts are saying, it makes you understand the religious ideas of Bach's time and it makes you understand why Bach wrote his works the way he did. Doing so, the book fills a missing link, as usual writings concentrate on the music only and the comments are usually superficial.

This is a scholarly study that will appeal to Bach scholars and choral conductors who are interested in the tonal underpinnings of Bach's vocal music and the world of affection as a rational statement of emotion. (This sounds like an oxymoron, but Bach's vocal music does reconcile faith and reason, and Chafe's intriguing study supports this view of Bach's music.) This book is most noteworthy for its discussion of anabasis (ascent toward sharp keys) and catabasis (its opposite, descent to flat keys) and the emotional-rhetorical meaning of this. It is well-written, very detailed, and makes a compelling case for re-thinking Bach's use of key structure. This book has limited appeal --- mostly to musicologists and theorists --- but is an excellent study for those so inclined. I consider it to be one of the best discussions of musical-rhetorical structure in Bach.