THE TRUE LIFE OF JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Munich-based TV documentary scriptwriter Eidam offers a new interpretation of the great organist and composer, Bach. His writing can be clunky, such as when he refers to his own change of interest: "I had long since distanced myself from the organ as thoroughly as Offenbach had distanced himself from the synagogue." Such pretentious stretches aside, this new book provides a plainspoken reexamination of basic conditions of the composer' s life. Eidam reminds readers repeatedly that Bach, considered today to be a divinely inspired and peerless composer, did not make enough money to pay for his own gravestone. Treated as a lackey by noble employers, Bach was also saddled with lazy and inept musicians who were uninterested in his perfectionist goals: he got into a street brawl with one whom he termed "a prick bassoonist." As an organist, Eidam offers a particularly interesting account of Bach's most famous organ work, the mighty Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, pointing out that it was most likely written for an organ inspection, which explains the work's great instrumental range, and how the very title of the piece is a misnomer, "since the fugue is seamlessly integrated with the toccata." He also praises Bach for controlling his anger on many occasions, while other biographers have found the composer too hot-tempered. A provocative, if sometimes flawed, alternative to standard studies by scholars like Malcolm Boyd and John Butt. (Aug. 1)