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Hearing Bach's Passions.

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Hearing Bach's Passions. By Daniel R. Melamed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. [xi, 178 p. ISBN 0-19-516933-6. $24.95.] Index, bibliography, tables.

In 1925, in the preface to two short books on J. S. Bach's Passion settings, Charles Sanford Terry wrote: "This volume and its sequel exceed the requirements of those whose interest in Bach's Passions is confined to the two that survive. I preferred to treat the subject exhaustively because there is no other book on the subject, in English or foreign literature, accessible to the student, whose needs ... [The Musical Pilgrim] Series serves." (Bach: The Passions, Book I 1723-1725 (The Musical Pilgrim) [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926], 3). Daniel Melamed's Hearing Bach's Passions, while different in its approach, serves a very similar function and will undoubtedly stand the test of time as well as Terry's work has.

In contrast to the problem faced by Terry, there exist today an excessive number of books on Bach's Passions. While some have made valuable contributions to the general body of knowledge about the history of the musical Passion and of Bach's Passions in particular, an unnecessarily large number of them provide no more information than Terry did in 1925. Fortunately, Melamed's book belongs to that group of writings on Bach's Passions that are accessible to a general audience while at the same time offering valuable additions to scholarship. Moreover, Melamed constructs...

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