Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment

A Review of Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment

In the Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment, James R. Gaines skillfully explores the personalities and historical significance of both J.S. Bach and Frederick the Great by intertwining stories of both their backgrounds into a cohesive work that captures the extraordinarily unique intersection of these two individuals. The novel dramatizes the collision of the strongly Lutheran, belief-based world of Bach and the enlightened, reason-based world of Frederick the Great through the techniques of non-linear storytelling, historical analysis, and objective character study. Going against the tradition of a single protagonist structure, this novel encouraged me to perceive both Bach and Frederick on a more personal level and expanded my knowledge of an intermediary point in history that is rarely studied in detail.

Utilizing a non-linear form of storytelling, Gaines starts and ends the novel with the description of Bach and Frederick meeting in his royal residence at Potsdam while the chapters in the middle expand upon their personal life stories and characters. In the very first chapter the tale of how “Frederick gave Bach an impossibly long and complex musical figure and asked to make a three-part fugue out of it” is outlined briefly (9). In the last chapter, how “Frederick sat down at one of the keyboards, played a tune of twenty-one notes, and so presented Bach the most difficult improvisational challenge of his life,” is described in a much more full-fledged manner in order to bring the storytelling to a satisfying close (223). The effect of bookending the narrative with the story of The Musical Offering serves to tie two vastly different time periods and individuals into one common meeting point that provides cohesion to the book. Throughout the novel, Gaines opts for the form of a double biography. The book delves into their respective family history’s, detailing “Ambrosius and Marian Elisabeth Bach’s” moving “west to Eisenach” (25) and the Bach family’s continual involvement in music while also depicting Frederick the Great’s father, Frederick William, whose “flagrantly manic-depressive and violently abusive” personality made for a disturbing parental relationship (1). The book then analyses their respective childhoods: with Bach’s early life in Eisenhorf, training in St Michael School in Luneberg, and his job as a lackey in Weimar court and Frederick’s experiences of being beaten and humiliated by his father, his academic passion for the arts, and his fondness for his sister Wilhelmina. This narrative structure serves as a foundation for their remaining life histories and foreshadows the men these boys will become. Gaines then describes Bach and Frederick the Great in their heyday and lays out their perennial importance as the principal composer of the Baroque era and the “philosopher-king” who led Prussia into the modern age respectively (5). However, this is complemented with a look into Bach’s marriages and his strong Lutheran faith contrasted with Frederick’s fluid sexual identity and transformational relationship with his father that makes their histories more accessible to the readers’ empathy.

This novel utilizes these two monumentary figures as the lenses through which to analyse the passage of history from the deeply religious Baroque era to the secular Enlightenment era. Gaines illustrates the effect of history on their taste in music by describing Bach’s “platonic idea of music as evidence of divine order” (81)  while Frederick did not hold music to “any higher theory or objective than that of sensual, aural pleasure” (123).  While Bach saw celestial meaning in every note and truly felt his work was in alignment with Lutheran beliefs, Frederick was also passionately involved in arts, but due to aesthetic and creative pleasure rather than spiritual reasons. In order to further our understanding, Gaines gives us an overview of Bach family history, the church-centric social life,the fragmented nature of Germany, and the difficult lives of the lower class at that time. In fact, “Sebastian Bach’s mother came from strong-minded people who were dead serious about religion” and thus Bach’s own religious sentiments tie him inextricably to his time in history and his community (23).  While Frederick’s royal upbringing seems more luxurious, the novel also illustrates the immense pressure of being a European prince due to the persistent issues of conquest, power, and diplomacy. The extreme disapproval of “Frederick’s effeminate French tastes”(60) is made clear when the audience is made aware of the historical context of the time, in which princes who had “the most imposing powers” (63) were applauded. When these two individuals meet at the time of The Musical Offering, the moment is symbolic of not only a clash of men but of ideologies as the ancient world transitions into the modern era.

By delving deep into the characters and exploring their flaws, insecurities, and idiosyncrasies, Gaines gives us an insight into Bach and Frederick that few historical books would.  By characterizing Bach as “irascible and deeply principled” and Frederick as “flashy and self-regarding,” Gaines conveys the absurdity and tension in the two characters’ meeting (6). As a “devout Lutheran householder”, Bach was a family man and always had a strong network of support as he scaled an increasingly busy professional career (7). Frederick as a “bisexual misanthrope in a childless, political marriage” faced consistent emotional identity struggles and thus his journey to success seems far more nonlinear (7). On the hand, Bach was never truly recognized in his lifetime and was probably even suffocated by the fact that he was simply one of an entire family of musical Bachs. In contrast, when Frederick’s father died and he took the throne, he finally found his own and proved to lead a far more successful life reign than his troubled childhood would have predicted.Gaines perfectly encapsulates the complexities of their lives and provides the reader with a far more memorable experience than most traditional biographies. 

In totality, this book was the rarest of combinations: a work of literature that is entertaining, educational, and complex at the same time. So often, books of this nature focus on brevity and simplicity and illustrate history in a manner that is scholarly and ordered. Gaines decided to take a more anecdotal, emotional approach and thus engages with a far wider audience as a result. While the novel is more dramatic than academic in nature, it retains a strong basis of historical evidence. It is possible to accurately and completely understand the concrete historical facts behind the story and I ended the reading with more knowledge about the subject than when I started. The majority of biographies tell the story of one individual. The majority of dramatized historical pieces focus on one time period. This complex novel intertwines two individuals, two time periods, and both the writing styles of biographies and historical literature. This potentially confusing narrative structure is made seamless by the central point of the meeting of the two characters, their ideologies, and their time periods. Even while reading, I found this to be a masterful way of structuring a novel and it expanded my appreciation for different narrative structures. Gaines could not have chosen a more fascination transition in history. The move from the ancient to the modern is brushed over in most studies, making it seem like the two periods never intersect instead of presenting the gradual and difficult transition between the two eras. These meeting points of history are the most fascinating moments of all and Gaines’ decision to focus his attention so uniquely on this intermediary period is certainly a praiseworthy risk as a writer. Author James R. Gaines successfully presents the intersection of two individuals, Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick the Great of Prussia, with an enjoyable narrative, scholarly accuracy, and inventive writing style and makes the Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment a must-read.