A Pulitzer Prize–winning critic’s “lyrical and haunting” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) reflection on the meaning and emotional impact of a Bach masterwork.
As his mother was dying, Philip Kennicott began to listen to the music of Bach obsessively. It was the only music that didn’t seem trivial or irrelevant, and it enabled him to both experience her death and remove himself from ...
A Pulitzer Prize–winning critic’s “lyrical and haunting” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) reflection on the meaning and emotional impact of a Bach masterwork.
As his mother was dying, Philip Kennicott began to listen to the music of Bach obsessively. It was the only music that didn’t seem trivial or irrelevant, and it enabled him to both experience her death and remove himself from it. For him, Bach’s music held the elements of both joy and despair, life and its inevitable end. He spent the next five years trying to learn one of the composer’s greatest keyboard masterpieces, the Goldberg Variations. In Counterpoint, he recounts his efforts to rise to the challenge, and to fight through his grief by coming to terms with his memories of a difficult, complicated childhood.
He describes the joys of mastering some of the piano pieces, the frustrations that plague his understanding of others, the technical challenges they pose, and the surpassing beauty of the melodies, harmonies, and counterpoint that distinguish them. While exploring Bach’s compositions he sketches a cultural history of playing the piano in the twentieth century. And he raises two questions that become increasingly interrelated, not unlike a contrapuntal passage in one of the variations itself: What does it mean to know a piece of music? What does it mean to know another human being?
作者简介
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Philip Kennicott, the senior art and architecture critic of the Washington Post and a former contributing editor for the New Republic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2013. He lives in Washington, DC.
Greatly resonate with the author in some sense to the degree that I don’t want to rate it. Alas. (Some of his ideas seem too rigid and tedious to me but then I could see the shape of his soul; it show...Greatly resonate with the author in some sense to the degree that I don’t want to rate it. Alas. (Some of his ideas seem too rigid and tedious to me but then I could see the shape of his soul; it shows an upward movement and always orients the gaze onto the celestial air. It is touching)(展开)
Greatly resonate with the author in some sense to the degree that I don’t want to rate it. Alas. (Some of his ideas seem too rigid and tedious to me but then I could see the shape of his soul; it show...Greatly resonate with the author in some sense to the degree that I don’t want to rate it. Alas. (Some of his ideas seem too rigid and tedious to me but then I could see the shape of his soul; it shows an upward movement and always orients the gaze onto the celestial air. It is touching)(展开)
彭悦
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你好阿唐
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酒渍荔枝
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未读
北京联合出版公司2023版
0 有用 无脊椎 2024-03-22 12:43:56 上海
没有预期的那么好。行文有些地方感觉有点拖沓，音乐方面我应该不是目标读者，讲得比较浅，基本上没有得到新的信息；引着我读完的是他对母亲的回忆和评述，这部分经常在刀尖上行走，对过世的至亲的回忆的这种直率我在别的地方都没见过，比如描述母亲精神世界的“small”（这是个很重的词），比如直白地描写母亲对孩子的近乎蛮横无理的情绪化和教条……直到最后，巴赫提供的也不是亚洲影视作品里常见的“大团圆”，作者是向前看... 没有预期的那么好。行文有些地方感觉有点拖沓，音乐方面我应该不是目标读者，讲得比较浅，基本上没有得到新的信息；引着我读完的是他对母亲的回忆和评述，这部分经常在刀尖上行走，对过世的至亲的回忆的这种直率我在别的地方都没见过，比如描述母亲精神世界的“small”（这是个很重的词），比如直白地描写母亲对孩子的近乎蛮横无理的情绪化和教条……直到最后，巴赫提供的也不是亚洲影视作品里常见的“大团圆”，作者是向前看了，但过去的事，一点没有为尊者讳的意思。 (展开)
0 有用 Raisman 2023-08-25 20:42:26 广东
Greatly resonate with the author in some sense to the degree that I don’t want to rate it. Alas. (Some of his ideas seem too rigid and tedious to me but then I could see the shape of his soul; it show... Greatly resonate with the author in some sense to the degree that I don’t want to rate it. Alas. (Some of his ideas seem too rigid and tedious to me but then I could see the shape of his soul; it shows an upward movement and always orients the gaze onto the celestial air. It is touching) (展开)
2 有用 苇间疯 2023-01-08 15:14:32 上海
新年认真读的第一本书就有可能成为我的年度最爱。前几天去十多年未至的老房整理东西，看到奶奶当年在地板上留下的发油渍，发现有些悲伤永远也无法退变为怀念，只是安份地隐藏起来了而已。
0 有用 无脊椎 2024-03-22 12:43:56 上海
没有预期的那么好。行文有些地方感觉有点拖沓，音乐方面我应该不是目标读者，讲得比较浅，基本上没有得到新的信息；引着我读完的是他对母亲的回忆和评述，这部分经常在刀尖上行走，对过世的至亲的回忆的这种直率我在别的地方都没见过，比如描述母亲精神世界的“small”（这是个很重的词），比如直白地描写母亲对孩子的近乎蛮横无理的情绪化和教条……直到最后，巴赫提供的也不是亚洲影视作品里常见的“大团圆”，作者是向前看... 没有预期的那么好。行文有些地方感觉有点拖沓，音乐方面我应该不是目标读者，讲得比较浅，基本上没有得到新的信息；引着我读完的是他对母亲的回忆和评述，这部分经常在刀尖上行走，对过世的至亲的回忆的这种直率我在别的地方都没见过，比如描述母亲精神世界的“small”（这是个很重的词），比如直白地描写母亲对孩子的近乎蛮横无理的情绪化和教条……直到最后，巴赫提供的也不是亚洲影视作品里常见的“大团圆”，作者是向前看了，但过去的事，一点没有为尊者讳的意思。 (展开)
0 有用 Raisman 2023-08-25 20:42:26 广东
Greatly resonate with the author in some sense to the degree that I don’t want to rate it. Alas. (Some of his ideas seem too rigid and tedious to me but then I could see the shape of his soul; it show... Greatly resonate with the author in some sense to the degree that I don’t want to rate it. Alas. (Some of his ideas seem too rigid and tedious to me but then I could see the shape of his soul; it shows an upward movement and always orients the gaze onto the celestial air. It is touching) (展开)
2 有用 苇间疯 2023-01-08 15:14:32 上海
新年认真读的第一本书就有可能成为我的年度最爱。前几天去十多年未至的老房整理东西，看到奶奶当年在地板上留下的发油渍，发现有些悲伤永远也无法退变为怀念，只是安份地隐藏起来了而已。