Reviewed by: Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century by Andrew Talle Barbara M. Reul (bio) Andrew Talle. Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century (University of Illinois Press, 2017). 376 pp. What do the following individuals have in common: a mechanic and a tax collector, a silver merchant’s daughter, a dark-haired dame and her Scottish admirer, two teenage countesses, a blacksmith’s son, and little-known organists from small-town Germany? They are the seemingly motley crew of musically inclined individuals from eighteenth-century Germany on whom Andrew Talle focuses in his book. Alternating between general discussions and case studies, the author’s aim is to clarify the role that music played in regular people’s daily routines, specifically the keyboard and its repertoire (as signaled by the book’s cover, but not its title). “The intense focus on famous composers—especially J. S. Bach—and the institutions with which they were associated has skewed our understanding of the era,” the author argues in the Introduction and emphasizes that “if we are to truly know the world Bach inhabited, we need to devote far more attention to the musical lives of ordinary people.” Talle wants his readers to care about the “men and women who walked the same cobblestones as J. S. Bach [but] did not think of themselves as [his] ‘contemporaries’ . . . [and] paid less attention to his artful fugues and chorales than they did to their children’s toothaches, their uncles’ drinking habits, and their neighbours’ church attire” (2). The unassuming title of chapter 1, “Civilizing Instruments,” sets the scene for the many “private dramas” to be examined later. Talle begins by expertly painting a comprehensive, highly contoured picture of how the galant style informed “Bach’s world,” i.e., society in general and musical life. Then he discusses the increasing popularity of the keyboard, which appealed to the galant era consumer like none other. As a physically undemanding luxury item with a “mechanical nature” (25), the instrument was, according to C. P. E. Bach in 1753, simply “perfection” and enabled players “to explore music’s more fundamental mysteries” (26); it belonged in every household. Keyboard repertoire, in particular Galanterien, presented “an opportunity for renovation of a staid musical culture” (29) to some and the end of civilized music-making (and teaching) to others. The central question at the time, however, was “where to draw the boundary between innocent diversion and nefarious indulgences” (31) in certain acts of music, which the author examines in the remainder of the book. [End Page 164] In chapter 2, Talle highlights the achievements of the Braunschweig-based instrument maker Barthold Fritz (1697–1766). Over the course of three decades he constructed, sold, and repaired hundreds of keyboards. Fritz’s mostly male buyers were typically wealthy, highly educated amateur musicians “who worked with their minds, not with their hands” (37), including at least one tax collector. In 1751 Fritz was commissioned to build a clavichord for a performance by C. P. E. Bach and managed to tune the instrument up a quarter tone in less than thirty minutes (!). Bach’s son was impressed with Fritz’s innovative method, which involved “mechanical means” (39) based on careful listening. When the Lobenstein organist Georg Andreas Sorge mocked him publicly for being “a mere ‘mechanic’” (39), Fritz reciprocated by publishing an overview of the 322—arguably satisfied—customers for whom he had built instruments between 1721 and 1757 (Table 1, 35–36). These clavichords had not only been “engineered for compliance with galant social norms,” but also “built to avoid inspiring listeners to tap their feet, nod their heads, or otherwise abandon corporeal discipline,” argues Talle (42). The “silver merchant’s daughter” Christiane Sibÿlla Bose (1711– 1749) is introduced in chapter 3. She lived in the house across from the Thomaskantor’s family in Leipzig (the location of the Bach Archive today) and was a close friend of Anna Magdalena Bach. “Beyond mastering household skills, exhibiting a tractable demeanor, and cultivating an unshakable fear of God” (50), women were to present themselves as galant by filling their spare time with, and spending money on activities such as...