More than two centuries after his lifetime, J. S. Bach's work continues to set musical standards. Noted Bach scholar Christoph Wolff offers new perspectives on the composer's life and remarkable career.

Interpretive and biographical essays by a major authority on Bach and Mozart probe for clues to the driving forces and experiences that shaped the character and the extraordinary artistic achievements of these iconic composers.

J. S. Bach's musician son explains the technique for performing eighteenth-century compositions, discussing fingering, embellishments, bass, and accompaniment

Now available in paperback, this landmark biography was first published in 2000 to mark the 250th anniversary of J. S. Bach's death. Written by a leading Bach scholar, this book presents a new picture of the composer. Christoph Wolff demonstrates the intimate connection between Bach's life and his music, showing how the composer's superb inventiveness pervaded his career as a musician, composer, performer, scholar, and teacher.

In this wide-ranging set of original essays, musicologist and organist Russell Stinson investigates Johann Sebastian Bach's compositions for the organ, opening up a wealth of perspectives on the stylistic orientation and historical context of these timeless masterpieces. With a sweeping hand, Stinson sheds light on the entire corpus of Bach's organ chorales, and considers the reception of particular pieces not only by various luminaries in the classical music world, but also those within such disparate contexts as film, literature, politics, and rock music. Stinson's investigations include a revealing focus on a previously unpublished fugue by Bach pupil J. G. Schübler, unexplored techniques found in over twenty of Bach's chorale preludes, and the diverse ways in which Bach's organ works have been received from the composer's own lifetime to the present day. Individual essays are also devoted to Felix Mendelssohn as a performer; to Robert Schumann as an editor and critic; to César Franck as a performer, pedagogue, and composer; and to Edward Elgar as a performer, critic, and transcriber. Rich in archival data and filled with fascinating anecdotes, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument is entirely up-to-date, meticulously annotated and indexed, and eminently readable. This book is essential reading for anyone at all interested in Bach and "the king of instruments."

Presents current analytic views by established scholars of the traditional tonal repertoire, with essays on works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms. Bach to Brahms presents current analytic views on the traditional tonal repertoire, with essays on works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms. The fifteen essays, written by well-established scholars of this repertoire, are divided into three groups, two of which focus primarily on elements of musical design (formal, metric, and tonal organization) and voice leading at multiple levels of structure. The third groupof essays focuses on musical motives from different perspectives. The result is a volume of integrated studies on the music of the common-practice period, a body of music that remains at the core of modern concert and classroom repertoire. Contributors: Eytan Agmon, David Beach, Charles Burkhart, L. Poundie Burstein, Yosef Goldenberg, Timothy L. Jackson, William Kinderman, Joel Lester, Boyd Pomeroy, John Rink, Frank Samarotto, Lauri Suurpää, Naphtali Wagner, Eric Wen, Channan Willner. David Beach is professor emeritus and former dean of the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Yosef Goldenberg teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where he also serves as head librarian.

In part a translation, with new introd., of the author's dissertation, Johann Sebastian Bach im Zeitalter des Rationalismus und der Freuhromantik (University of Zurich, 1934)

In this new biography, Eidam brings the icon of baroque music into focus as never before. Through painstaking research and careful evaluation of existing documents, he debunks a number of myths that have surrounded Bach in the 250 years since his death. Illustrations.

Bach & God explores the religious character of Bach's vocal and instrumental music in seven interrelated essays. Noted musicologist Michael Marissen offers wide-ranging interpretive insights from careful biblical and theological scrutiny of the librettos. Yet he also shows how Bach's pitches, rhythms, and tone colors can make contributions to a work's plausible meanings that go beyond setting texts in an aesthetically satisfying manner. In some of Bach's vocal repertory, the music puts a "spin" on the words in a way that turns out to be explainable as orthodox Lutheran in its orientation. In a few of Bach's vocal works, his otherwise puzzlingly fierce musical settings serve to underscore now unrecognized or unacknowledged verbal polemics, most unsettlingly so in the case of his church cantatas that express contempt for Jews and Judaism. Finally, even Bach's secular instrumental music, particularly the late collections of "abstract" learned counterpoint, can powerfully project certain elements of traditional Lutheran theology. Bach's music is inexhaustible, and Bach & God suggests that through close contextual study there is always more to discover and learn.