Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, Wolff

Although we have heard the music of J. S. Bach in countless performances and recordings, the composer himself still comes across only as an enigmatic figure in a single familiar portrait. In this award-winning biography, author Christoph Wolff presents a picture that brings to life this towering figure of the Baroque era, revealing Bach as the living, breathing and sometimes imperfect human being that he was, while bringing to bear all the advances of the last half-century of Bach scholarship. Wolff demonstrates the intimate connection between the composer's life and his music, showing how Bach's superb inventiveness pervaded his career as musician, composer, performer, scholar and teacher. And throughout, we see Bach in the broader context of his time: its institutions, traditions and influences.

Finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, this landmark book has been updated and expanded with recent scholarship.

Christoph Wolff is Adams University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, where he taught from 1976 to 2012. A former director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, Germany, he is the author of numerous works of music history including Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography, and Mozart at the Gateway to His Fortune: Serving the Emperor, 1788–1791, winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award.