Sex, Death, and Minuets

Anna Magdalena Bach and Her Musical Notebooks

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Music, Music Styles, Classical & Opera, Classical
Cover of the book Sex, Death, and Minuets by David Yearsley, University of Chicago Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: David Yearsley ISBN: 9780226617848
Publisher: University of Chicago Press Publication: July 11, 2019
Imprint: University of Chicago Press Language: English
Author: David Yearsley
ISBN: 9780226617848
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication: July 11, 2019
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Language: English

At one time a star in her own right as a singer, Anna Magdalena (1701–60) would go on to become, through her marriage to the older Johann Sebastian Bach, history’s most famous musical wife and mother. The two musical notebooks belonging to her continue to live on, beloved by millions of pianists young and old. Yet the pedagogical utility of this music—long associated with the sound of children practicing and mothers listening—has encouraged a rosy and one-sided view of Anna Magdalena as a model of German feminine domesticity.
Sex, Death, and Minuets offers the first in-depth study of these notebooks and their owner, reanimating Anna Magdalena as a multifaceted historical subject—at once pious and bawdy, spirited and tragic. In these pages, we follow Magdalena from young and flamboyant performer to bereft and impoverished widow—and visit along the way the coffee house, the raucous wedding feast, and the family home. David Yearsley explores the notebooks’ more idiosyncratic entries—like its charming ditties on illicit love and searching ruminations on mortality—against the backdrop of the social practices and concerns that women shared in eighteenth-century Lutheran Germany, from status in marriage and widowhood, to fulfilling professional and domestic roles, money, fashion, intimacy and sex, and the ever-present sickness and death of children and spouses. What emerges is a humane portrait of a musician who embraced the sensuality of song and the uplift of the keyboard, a sometimes ribald wife and oft-bereaved mother who used her cherished musical notebooks for piety and play, humor and devotion—for living and for dying.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

At one time a star in her own right as a singer, Anna Magdalena (1701–60) would go on to become, through her marriage to the older Johann Sebastian Bach, history’s most famous musical wife and mother. The two musical notebooks belonging to her continue to live on, beloved by millions of pianists young and old. Yet the pedagogical utility of this music—long associated with the sound of children practicing and mothers listening—has encouraged a rosy and one-sided view of Anna Magdalena as a model of German feminine domesticity.
Sex, Death, and Minuets offers the first in-depth study of these notebooks and their owner, reanimating Anna Magdalena as a multifaceted historical subject—at once pious and bawdy, spirited and tragic. In these pages, we follow Magdalena from young and flamboyant performer to bereft and impoverished widow—and visit along the way the coffee house, the raucous wedding feast, and the family home. David Yearsley explores the notebooks’ more idiosyncratic entries—like its charming ditties on illicit love and searching ruminations on mortality—against the backdrop of the social practices and concerns that women shared in eighteenth-century Lutheran Germany, from status in marriage and widowhood, to fulfilling professional and domestic roles, money, fashion, intimacy and sex, and the ever-present sickness and death of children and spouses. What emerges is a humane portrait of a musician who embraced the sensuality of song and the uplift of the keyboard, a sometimes ribald wife and oft-bereaved mother who used her cherished musical notebooks for piety and play, humor and devotion—for living and for dying.

More books from University of Chicago Press

Cover of the book Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality by David Yearsley
Cover of the book Does Science Need a Global Language? by David Yearsley
Cover of the book Backcasts by David Yearsley
Cover of the book The Book of Frogs by David Yearsley
Cover of the book The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville's Democracy in America by David Yearsley
Cover of the book Against Prediction by David Yearsley
Cover of the book The Sit-Ins by David Yearsley
Cover of the book The Quest by David Yearsley
Cover of the book Diving Seals and Meditating Yogis by David Yearsley
Cover of the book The Improbability of Othello by David Yearsley
Cover of the book Principles of American Nuclear Chemistry by David Yearsley
Cover of the book Infinite Nature by David Yearsley
Cover of the book Our Latest Longest War by David Yearsley
Cover of the book Intersectional Inequality by David Yearsley
Cover of the book Gogo Breeze by David Yearsley
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy