Table of Contents

Bach as cantor and "Director Musices" in Leipzig; repertoire; concertists and ripienists; copies and copy-sharing; Bach's use of ripienists; the "Entwurff"; additional resources; instrument/singer ratios; balance. Appendices: Bach's written undertakings to the Leipzig Town Council (1723); Bach's audition reports (1729); the "Entwurff" (1730), text and translation; some contemporary accounts of concerted music-making; sources of Bach's vocal ensemble music; Bach's chorus (1981), Joshua Rifkin; 20th-century commentaries on Bach's choir.

Reviews

This utterly fascinating and ultimately convincing book can only do his cause good in the best of all possible years. INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW (Simon Heighes) As restated here (...with additional material and with admirable clarity), the arguments are utterly convincing... The book is a pleasure to read, fluently written and clearly set out with many illustrations and musical examples. EARLY MUSIC REVIEW A brilliant piece of research...a superb book - and it is going to lead us all to think more carefully about how we approach the performance of Bach. DAVID HILL, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL I was gripped by this book; it is compulsive reading. If you profess the faith of Bach you simply cannot afford to be without it. CLASSICAL MUSIC Highly recommended for anyone interested in Bach's vocal works. MUSICAL TIMES (Yo Tomita) Utterly fascinating and ultimately convincing. GRAMOPHONE A work of careful and judicious scholarship. OXFORD TIMES What Parrott has delivered is a document which will itself no doubt be a subject of study in years to come. TLS (Andrew Manze)