Bibliogr. p. 294-305.

Historical context : society, beliefs and world-view: Bach family / Malcolm Boyd. Bach and the domestic politics of electoral Saxony / Ulrich Siegele. Music and Lutheranism / Robin A. Leaver. Bach's metaphysics of music ; 'Mind unconscious that it is calculating'? Bach and the rationalist philosophy of Wolff, Leibniz and Spinoza / John Butt -- Profiles of the music: Early works and the heritage of the seventeenth century / Stephen A. Crist. Mature vocal works and their theological and liturgical context / Robin A. Leaver. Instrumental music / Werner Breig. Keyboard works : Bach as teacher and virtuoso / Richard D.P. Jones. Composition as arrangement and adaptation / Werner Breig. Bachian invention and its mechanisms / Laurence Dreyfus -- Influence and reception: Bach as teacher and model / Stephen Daw. Changing issues of performance practice / George B. Stauffer. Bach reception : some concepts and parameters ; Reinterpreting Bach in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries / Martin Zenck.

The Cambridge Companion to Bach goes beyond a basic life-and-works study to provide a late-twentieth-century perspective on J. S. Bach the man and composer. Benefiting from the insights and research of some of the most distinguished Bach scholars, this Companion covers cultural, social and religious contexts, surveys and analyzes Bach's compositional style, traces his influence, and considers the performance and reception of his music through the succeeding generations.