Passionate Probing
The first of a few books that deal with anti-Semitism in music - Michael Marissen's Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism, and Bach's St. John Passion - arrived last week. It was an exciting read, quite unlike anything I have seen before, but did not completely satisfy. The field is obviously Marissen's specialism: not only is there a vast background knowledge of the life and works of Johann Sebastian Bach, but there is also a well-informed spine of key texts on anti-Semitism (some of these, such as those by Gavin Langmuir, I need to read myself). These two fields are integrated well and with obvious experience, but with this comes an over-conciseness which spoils both the argument and the reading experience of the book. Despite Marissen's claim that the text is for academics and hobbyists alike, there is a clear expectation of Christianity - or at least familiarity with Christian terminology. The word 'passion', for example (quite a key one in this book!) is never explain