Bach

This superb reference work on Johann Sebastian Bach is the first volume in a new species of Oxford Companion that will focus on major composers.
Illustrated with twenty-four black-and-white plates, this volume boasts over a thousand alphabetically arranged entries that cover Bach's music, his life and times, scholarship on Bach, and the performance of his music. Readers will find entries on the various genres that Bach worked in (including chorales, fantasia, sonata, concerto, missa), his many individual works (such as St. John's Passion, The Goldberg Variations, Brandenburg Concertos, Passacaglia, Well-Tempered Clavier, The Christmas Oratorio, and The Art of Fugue), places important to his career (such as Muhlhausen, Weimar, and Leipzig), and important contemporaries (Handel, Rameau, Vivaldi, Telemann, among others). There are also entries on instruments (harpsichord, organ, clavier, and so on), Bach performance practice, stylistic influences on his work, and other biographical details. The book concludes with a family tree, a chronology of Bach's life, a list of his works, and a glossary of terms.
Bach was one of the giants of classical music, a composer of astonishing powers of invention. In The Oxford Composer Companion: J.S. Bach, music aficionados will have at their fingertips a treasure chest of information on this major figure.

"Want to know everything about Bach and his music but are afraid to look? Fear no longer. In this impressive first volume of a new series from Oxford University Press, music researchers and aficionados alike will find information on every imaginable topic relating to Bach. Detailed, technical, and authoritative, over 1,000 alphabetically arranged entries cover Bach's life, family, pupils, and patrons as well as musical and technical terms. The lenghthier essays cover his major works, compositions, recordings, and impact on various musical traditions. Current Bach festivals are also noted. The text is enriched with illustrations of Bach, his family tree, and manuscripts. An extremely useful annotated list of Bach's compositions by category and title completes the volume. This compilation is destined to be a standard source for years to come."----"Outstanding reference sources 2000", American Libraries, May 2000. Comp. by the Reference Sources Committee, RUSA, ALA.

Malcolm Boyd is the author of numerous books on music, particularly on Bach. He was a member of the editorial team for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and is a frequent contributor to periodicals and reviews. He lives in the United Kingdom.