Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment (Harper Perennial, James Gaines), 2006.

Gaines' book discusses two of history's greatest men, each of whom became great for a different reason. One was a political leader and statesman the other a musician. The biography of each could not have been more different. Both had tough lives and both fought against enormous stakes but one lived in a palace and the other travelled from place to place living in some at most only 3 years. One sampled jail and the other saw his partner killed and was saved by being sent to the military. One was homosexual and the other happily married in love. Bach's love in contradistinction to that of Frederick was more serene and meaningful. His music absorbed him and made him happy. He was focused; his life purely devoted to cantatas...
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