polyphony

Counterpoint: A Memoir of Bach and Mourning

Life and music, life and death, are all polyphony. Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2020
"A profound memoir enhanced by elegant prose"
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Polyphony is a brave and honest book. The author chooses a particularly difficult path to overcome the pain of loss: a detailed recollection of her less-than-perfect relationship with her mother. Even amidst this heartbreaking memory lies a moving love and tenderness. And through her exploration of Bach's music, she finds a true harmony between the meaning of life and the essence of music.
——Zhi’an is poetic and unforgettable.
—Alex Ross
Polyphony is a thought-provoking and highly successful memoir that fully meets the standard set by Kennicott: the hope of redemption that lies within every good book and every great piece of music.
--NPR News Book Review Kennicott uses beautiful prose and meticulous observation to paint a subtle and profound picture of love, loss, and humanity itself.
—The Washington Post This book is not only an in-depth study of Bach’s masterpiece, the Goldberg Variations, but also a firm and humane meditation on the long process of human growth.
—Tim Page
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Introduction:
After his mother's death, Kennicott decided to start learning Bach's greatest and most complex work, the "Goldberg Variations", hoping to explore the meaning of music and even the meaning of life.
The mother was unhappy all her life, and treated her children with sharpness, harshness, and even hysteria. However, after death, looking back on her life, was she ever truly understood by her family?
The process of practicing the Goldberg Variations is full of hardships. It challenges the performer's confidence with its extremely high difficulty, and at the same time, it forces people to face the deepest, most private and loneliest self emotionally.
Kennicott wrote about his experiences dealing with grief and practicing music in this book, Polyphony, constantly exploring and trying to answer two crucial questions:
How do you know a piece of music? How do you know a person?
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Editor's Recommendation:
A Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece: A poignant and candid look back on life. Veteran classical music critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kennicott delivers this deeply moving work with astonishing candor and beautiful prose. As a child, he never truly understood his mother; as a music lover, he never truly grasped Bach. Ultimately, his profound grief finds some kind of resolution in Bach's masterpiece, the Goldberg Variations.
★Life and music are intertwined, an elegant polyphony written in words. Thoughts on music and memories on life flash alternately in the book, and the author's thoughts on the essence of music and life run through it, forming this literary movement that echoes and is related to each other like a polyphony.
Kirkus Reviews named it the best nonfiction of 2020, calling it "a profound memoir enhanced by elegant prose." Veteran American music writers Alex Ross and Tim Page also praised the book, praising its poetry and depth.

2023-01-01

北京联合出版公司

Unread · Literary Writer, Unread

320

9787559665270