{
    "id": 497909,
    "slug": "evening-in-the-palace-of-reason-james-gaines",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "Evening in the Palace of Reason",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire\u2019s heralded \u2018philosopher-king\u2019, the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of \u2018outdated\u2019 music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age.\n\nBehind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged \u2018old Bach\u2019 to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son).\n\nBach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write \u2018A Musical Offering\u2019 in response. A stirring declaration of faith, it represented \u2018as stark a rebuke of his beliefs and world view as an absolute monarch has ever received,\u2019 Gaines writes. It is also one of the great works of art in the history of music.\n\nSet at the tipping point between the ancient and the modern world, the triumphant story of Bach's victory expands to take in the tumult of the eighteenth century: the legacy of the Reformation, wars and conquest, the birth of the Enlightenment. Brimming with originality and wit, \u2018Evening in the Palace of Reason\u2019 is history of the best kind \u2013 intimate in scale and broad in its vision.",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 360,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "2005-01-01",
    "publication_date_latest": "2005-01-01",
    "cover_url": null,
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    "created_at": "2025-09-19T14:35:23+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-10-30T00:42:25+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 4371,
        "slug": "harper-perennial",
        "name": "Harper Perennial",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:12:33+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:03:51+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": [],
    "campaigns": []
}