The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach first appeared in 1992 and quickly became the standard source for information about Bach’s music for harpsichord and other stringed keyboard instruments. It provides introductory chapters on the development, sources, and performance of Bach’s keyboard music, as well as detailed discussions of interpretation, editions, analysis, and compositional history for every work Bach wrote for harpsichord or clavichord (as well as a number of doubtful or ambiguously attributed compositions). Pianists, organists, and piano teachers will find it useful, as will music historians, music theorists, and players of other instruments such as lute and guitar whose repertory overlaps with the works discussed here.

The current, second, edition, published in 2006, was completely revised, reflecting the great advances in Bach scholarship made during the intervening years. It includes expanded coverage of performance practice and of the Inventions and other frequently studied works. It also incorporates a thoroughly updated bibliography and revised versions of the author’s completions of several fragmentary compositions, including the famous incomplete Fuga a tre soggetti from the Art of Fugue. The second edition is available in paperback, as an e-book, and in hardcover from Routledge.

Bach scholarship moves quickly, and since the preparation of the second edition there have appeared further publications that reflect on the matter in the present volume. Click here for updates to The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach.