Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity [Hardcover]

`the main job of art before it became fully modern was to give sensuous embodiment to the eternal: order and truth; since that time, by contrast, the aim has been to proclaim human autonomy, for the moderns, for us, art is a tool for self-affirmation...'

Berger's book is one of, if not the most fascinating, erudite, passionate, learned, scholarly tracts on the evolution of modern music available. For those interested in the tumult between the Baroque and the classical proper, you need not look any further: the amount of information presented in this brilliantly-crafted book is enough to overwhelm and entertain the most die-hard critic! Indeed, the title alone is a stroke of genius. The book itself is no less disappointing.

Split into three main sections, this beautifully written epistle delineates how the character of time (temproal to atemporal) has changed across the centuries - how our reaction to the meanings of time has altered, specifically in composers' music. Berger employs two of our most established figures in this sphere - Bach and Mozart - to describe and explain this vast but gradual upheaval of Europe's worldview. [Essentially, Bach's music displays time as a circular movement, a spiral, indicating the unchanging aspects of the world. Bach sought to neutralise this time and in its stead evoke the infinite time of god. In favour of the permanent over the temporal human time, we can see Bach's music as an attempt to invest in the time without time, ie god's time. Mozart, on the other hand, epitomizing the new galant era, the classical period proper, on the horizon of the new world, unravels this circular notion of time, into an arrow.] The middle section of the book, its bridge, is focused on the enlightenment, and provides the platform on which to see these two contrasting bodies of belief before linking them together. Making use of personalities as varied as Kant and Hegel to Plato and St Augustine to scholars from Mozart's time, eg Koch et al, this is a journey visiting the most distinguished ideas from the finest minds within Europe. Evidently a knowledgable writer, Berger has assimilated his information in such a way as to make a truly irressistible read.

Berger incorporates the entire history of Christian Europe to explore this theme. It is a remarkably ambitious book, written in a manner that is at once superbly erudite and accessible, which seeks to come to terms with the impossible shifts in how man views his world - it seems that our two greatest composers were almost just the most convenient way to give structure to this monumental shift! - with the changing view of time as the crux of the issue. Picking at Bach's Well Tempered Clavier and Mozart's piano concertos especially - as these pieces symbolise each time period's relative sympathies with the notion of human time in contrast to god's time - with a fine tooth comb, dissecting their meaning, it is clear that Berger has both the understanding of the mechanics of this aforementioned music as well as recognizing the reasons in the composers' minds for generating them. (The opening of the book treats Bach's St Matthew's Passion with remarkable acerbity; illuminating how Bach's stance towards the story is evidently one-sided but mind-bogglingly effective in its narrative style and genius. It is here Bach manages to dissolve time, completely, to express the eternal of the passion of Christ!)

In the end, this is a work about permanence and impermanence. The very reasons which spur man to create are revealed with excellent academic skill; but it is the variety of reasons, here explored, which truly make for enlightening reading. In particular, we can see Bach's music as a wish to immortality; Mozart, to pave a path of positive light to the future! Reading this book, we can see that man has moved himself from the confines of the old testament - the locale of the harsh god - to the new world, where he has taken it upon himself to fulfill his own destiny, on his own terms. A remarkable achievement. Indispensable for anyone interested in classical music or the Enlightenment in general.