Activity framed within the Biennial of the Open City Thought

Lecture given by Ramón Andrés, essayist, thinker and poet

Ramón Andrés presents the figure J.S. Bach, not only as one of the great composers of history, but also as a fundamental pillar of Western culture, forming part of a context with the variables that allow explaining a whole continent about to be transformed. Far from the stereotype of isolated genius, immersed in the titanic task of calling God's door through art, Bach cultivated and absorbed his Zeitgeist through mathematics, theology, alchemy, political, social and religious avatars of a Europe that walked from Baroque to the Century of Lights. Ramón Andrés proposes an intellectual cartography of Bach: from his private library in public spaces where ideas changes took shape.

Ramón Andrés is essayist, thinker and poet. He has written numerous articles on music and literature, and has published books such as the Diccionario de Instrumentos Musicales (1995-2001), W. A. Mozart (2003-2006), El oyente infinito (2007), Johann Sebastian Bach. Los días, las ideas y los libros (2005), El mundo en el oído. El nacimiento de la música en la cultura (2008), No sufrir compañía. Escritos místicos sobre el silencio (2010), Diccionario de música, mitología, magia y religión (2012), El luthier de Delft. Música, pintura y ciencia en tiempos de Vermeer y Spinoza (2013), Semper dolens. Historia del suicidio en Occidente (2015), Pensar y no caer (2015) and Claudio Monteverdi. «Lamento della Ninfa» (2017),  in addition to the edition of Oculta filosofía. Razones de la música en el hombre y la naturaleza (2004), by Juan Eusebio Nieremberg. In 2015 he was awarded the Prince of Viana Prize for Culture.