front cover of Bach Perspectives, Volume 10
Bach Perspectives, Volume 10
Bach and the Organ
Matthew Dirst
University of Illinois Press, 2016
The official publication of the American Bach Society, Bach Perspectives pioneers new areas of research into the life, times, and music of the master composer. In Volume 10 of the series, Matthew Dirst edits a collection of groundbreaking essays exploring various aspects of Bach's organ-related activities. Lynn Edwards Butler reconsiders Bach's report on Johann Scheibe's organ at St. Paul's Church in Leipzig. Robin Leaver clarifies the likely provenance and purpose of a collection of chorale harmonizations copied in Dresden. George Stauffer investigates the ways various independent trio movements served Bach as an artist and teacher. In separate contributions, Christoph Wolff and Gregory Butler seek the origins of concerted Bach cantata movements spotlighting the organ and propose family trees of both parent works and offspring. Finally, Matthew Cron provides a broad cultural frame for such pieces and notes how their components engage in a larger discourse about the German Baroque organ's intimation of heaven.
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front cover of Bach Perspectives, Volume 6
Bach Perspectives, Volume 6
J. S. Bach's Concerted Ensemble Music, The Ouverture
Edited by Gregory Butler
University of Illinois Press, 2005

The sixth volume in the Bach Perspectives series opens with Joshua Rifkin's seminal study of the early source history of the B-minor orchestral suite. Rifkin elaborates on his discovery that the work in its present form for solo flute goes back to an earlier version in A minor, ostensibly for solo violin. He also takes the discovery as the point of departure for a wide-ranging discussion of the origins and extent of Bach's output in the area of concerted ensemble music. 

In other essays, Jeanne Swack presents an enlightening comparison of Georg Phillip Telemann's and Bach's approach to the French overture as concerted movements in their church cantatas. Steven Zohn views the B-minor orchestral suite from the standpoint of the "concert en ouverture." In addition, Zohn responds to Rifkin by suggesting Bach may have scored the early version of the B-minor orchestral suite for flute.

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front cover of Bach Perspectives, Volume 7
Bach Perspectives, Volume 7
J. S. Bach's Concerted Ensemble Music: The Concerto
Edited by Gregory Butler
University of Illinois Press, 2007
J. S. Bach's creativity is so overwhelming his compositions in some genres eclipse his work in others. His glorious choral works, profound organ compositions, and exquisite solo compositions for violin and cello attract the most attention. Volume Seven of Bach Perspectives restores Bach's concertos to their rightful place of honor.

Gregory Butler focuses on Bach's Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings in E Major (BWV 1053) as a pastiche created by a process of assemblage of three earlier heterogeneous movements. Pieter Dirksen delves into the source history of the Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings in F Minor (BWV 1056) and concludes it represents a transcription of an earlier violin concerto in G minor. David Schulenberg investigates the generic ambiguity of the concerto in the early eighteenth century and how it diverged from the sonata to become a distinct genre. Completing the volume is Christoph Wolff's examination of the ""Siciliano"" as a slow movement in Bach's concertos and its implications for the source history of his Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings in E Major (BWV 1053).

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