The Faber Pocket Guide to Bach

The music of J.S.Bach has a unique power and attraction some 300 years after it was written. From annual performances of the great Passions to its use in adverts, films and popular arrangements, the imaginative strength of Bach’s music continues to draw listeners to explore its mysteries.

This new Pocket Guide looks at all Bach’s music, sacred and secular, and explores why he speaks so profoundly to our age about both the spiritual and the sensual in life.

Among the features of this easy-to-use book:

The Bach Top Ten

Bach: The music work by work

Performing Bach today

Bach: The life year by year

What people said about Bach

Accessible and easy to use, Nicholas Kenyon provides for the first time an up-to-date survey of all Bach’s major works in the light of the latest research, from Masses to Cantatas, Concertos to Suites, and recommends the best CDs and further reading.

Author Biography

Sir Nicholas Kenyon, CBE, has been Managing Director of the Barbican Centre since 2007. He was Director of the BBC Proms from 1996 to 2007, and Controller, BBC Radio 3, from 1992 to 1998. He has written The Faber Pocket Guide to Mozart, The history of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the biography of Simon Rattle, edited the influential volume Authenticity and Early Music and co-edited Proms: A New History. He was knighted in 2008. He lives in London with his wife and four children.