Part I. The Historical Context: Society Beliefs and World-View: 1. The Bach family Malcolm Boyd; 2. Johann Sebastian Bach in the context of domestic politics in Electoral Saxony Ulrich Siegele; 3. Music and Lutheranism Robin A. Leaver; 4. Bach's metaphysics of music John Butt; 5. 'A mind unconscious that it is calculating'? Bach and the rationalist philosophy of Wolff, Leibniz and Spinoza John Butt; Part II. Profiles of the Music: 6. The early works and the heritage of the seventeenth century Stephen A. Crist; 7. The mature vocal works and their theological and liturgical context Robin A. Leaver; 8. The instrumental music Werner Breig; 9. The keyboard works: Bach as teacher and virtuoso Richard D. P. Jones; 10. Composition as arrangement and adaptation Werner Breig; 11. Bachian invention and its mechanisms Laurence Dreyfus; Part III. Influence and Reception: 12. Bach as teacher and model Stephen Daw; 13. Changing issues of performance practice George B. Stauffer; 14. Bach reception: some concepts and parameters Martin Zenck; 15. Reinterpreting Bach in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Martin Zenck.