Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment James R. Gaines Fourth Estate 336 pp. ISBN: 0007156588 Available from Powell's Books.

When they meet, Frederick seems bent on challenging Bach beyond his abilities, giving him a theme on which to improvise (later appearing as the "Royal Theme" in the Musical Offering), which is composed, quite deliberately, to be fiendishly difficult for contrapuntal treatment (contrapuntal pieces involve significant independence of each individual line, making their composition an elaborate and often complicated discipline). Upon presenting the theme to Bach, Frederick insists that he improvise a fugue in three voices using it as the subject. This feat, according to Gaines, would have seemed almost ludicrously difficult to the assembled guests, which included several musicians -- but Bach creates a masterful fugue on the spot, no doubt to the chagrin of Frederick, who immediately insists that Bach top himself with a fugue for six voices. This Bach cannot do extemporaneously, much to his consternation. Frederick's cruel joke is over -- or so he thinks.

When Bach returns to Leipzig, he quickly composes a set of pieces, a Musical Offering for Frederick, including all manner of rigorous contrapuntal treatments of the Royal Theme; Bach makes a point of writing a six-voice fugue! He sends the piece to the king as a gift. While there is little evidence that Frederick gave it much thought or made any show of appreciation to poor Bach, the Musical Offering has become a signature example of masterful contrapuntal writing. Frederick might not have appreciated his gift, but posterity certainly has. However, if Frederick was so unimpressed with Bach's talents, why would he have invited him to Potsdam in the first place?

Gaines's principal thesis for the book is that Bach and Frederick each represent figures of different eras and philosophies. Frederick is a proponent of the Enlightenment, embracing reason, delighted by Voltaire, and skeptical of religion. Bach, on the other hand, is a devoted Lutheran who composes all of his music, be it for sacred or secular performance venues, "for the Glory of God". To further highlight the contrasts between the two, Gaines sketches out their biographies side by side. Bach loses his parents when he is young and has to struggle to make a living. Frederick grows up a wealthy prince, but he has an overbearing father who frequently beats him, has one of his best friends beheaded, and orders that another (a young woman) be flogged and sentenced to life in prison. Despite this tremendous difference in outlooks, as well as a significant difference in station, they share a love of music; the king plays the flute. Still, Bach's Baroque compositions, rigorously contrapuntal fugues, canons and other counterpoint are an old-fashioned anathema to Frederick, who prefers the simpler constructions of a new style, that of the Roccoco.

In some ways, Gaines sees Frederick's antagonism towards Bach to be related to issues with his own father. This seems like a bit of a stretch. Bach may have been stodgy and temperamental, but he was not a cruel sadist like Frederick's father. If anything, Gaines's most tantalizing point along Freudian lines is his postulation that Carl Philip Emanuel Bach might have been involved in devising the devilish difficulties of the Royal Theme as a way of one-upping dear old Daddy. No, it seems as if Frederick viewed Bach as yet another amusement, a temporary diversion to be dismissed once it was no longer a novelty. While it's saddening to see such a great composer treated in this manner, Gaines's biographical sketch of Bach gives an ample picture of the hardship and lack of appreciation he encountered throughout his life, of which Frederick's game is but a brief example. It's ironic that Bach, who was out of fashion for so much of his career, revered as a great organist but looked upon as a hopelessly outmoded composer by most of his contemporaries, should have created music that has withstood the test of time, and indeed become timeless.

Evening in the Palace of Reason is a fascinating glimpse at an important episode in Bach's biography. Don't be scared off by the words fugue and counterpoint; the book discusses the musical facets of the encounter with erudition, but use of jargon is kept to a minimum (where used, it is well-explained). Gaines's book is also a compelling portrait of the clash between the rationalism and scientific approach valued by proponents of the Enlightenment and the embodiment of spirituality and humanism often associated with the arts. Although the rhetoric has shifted and the battle lines have been blurred, this conflict still wages in our postmodern society. Gaines suggests that, "In this struggle, Frederick usually seems to have the upper hand". Fortunately, music allows us to transcend this dichotomy. As Gaines so eloquently puts it, "The beauty of music, of course, what sets it apart from virtually every other human endeavor, is that it does not need the language of ideas; it requires no explanation and offers none, as much as it may say ... Bach's music makes no argument that the world is more than a ticking clock, but leaves no doubt of it".

-- Christian Carey

An imprint of HarperCollins since July 2001, Fourth Estate publishes a broad list of fiction and nonfiction -- often edgy, sometimes radical and always with the kind of independent spirit you might expect from an imprint that derives its name from a term used to describe the media during the French Revolution.