Rethinking Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach has loomed large in the imagination of scholars performers and audiences since the late nineteenth century.This new book edited by veteran Bach scholar Bettina Varwig gathers a diverse group of leading and emerging Bach researchers as well as a number of contributors from beyond the core of Bach studies. The book's fourteen chapters engage in active 'rethinking' of different topics connected with Bach; the iconic name which broadly encompasses the historical individual the sounds and afterlives of his music as well as all that those four letters came to stand for in the later popular and scholarly imagination. In turn challenging the fundamental assumptions about the nineteenth-century Bach revival the rise of the modern work concept Bach's music as a code and about editions of his music as monuments. Collectively these contributions thus take apart scrutinize dust off and reassemble some of our most cherished narratives and deeply held beliefs<br>about Bach and his music. In doing so they open multiple pathways towards exciting future modesof engagement with the composer and his legacy.<br>