“Johann Sebastian Bach in the Baroque Era and in Our Time” is a four-week school teacher institute for twenty-five participants, held in Germany, on the music of J. S. Bach and its Baroque Era social, cultural, intellectual, and religious context. Building on the success of three previous NEH summer programs, project director Hilde Binford leads an institute on the life and work of J. S. Bach (1685-1750) within the context of his social, intellectual, cultural, and religious milieu. An audience of teachers of history, German, art, literature, and other disciplines, asserts the project director, is likely to find Bach “a perfect vehicle for an analysis of . . . changes in Europe from the 17th to the 18th centuries.” Topics include the emergence of the court, rather than the church, as the center of musical life; the growth of absolute monarchies; the rise of the commercial bourgeoisie; the growth of secularism and materialism; and the coming of the Scientific Revolution. Participants spend time successively in Eisenach, Bach’s birthplace; Leipzig, where Bach spent the last decades of his life as a church choirmaster; and Potsdam, the seat of the Prussian monarchy where an elderly Bach met with Frederick II. They visit historical sites, tour museums and musical instrument collections, and attend performances of Bach works. In addition to project director Binford, faculty include musicologists Larry Lipkis (Moravian College), Michael Marissen (Swarthmore College), and George Stauffer (Rutgers University), and scholars of German culture Allen Viehmeyer (Schwenkfelder Library; Youngstown State University) and Peter Wollny (Bach-Archiv Leipzig). History teacher Louise Forsyth (Poly Prep Country Day School) leads curricular-development sessions.
