This is the second of a two-volume study of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Taking into account the vast increase in our knowledge of the composer due to the Bach scholarship of the last sixty years, Richard Jones presents a vivid and in some respects radically new picture of his creative development during the Cothen (1717-23) and Leipzig years (1723-50). The approach is, as far as possible, chronological and analytical, but the author has also tried to make the book readable so that it may be accessible to music lovers and amateur performers as well as to students, scholars, and professional musicians. There are many good biographies of Bach, but this is the first, fully-comprehensive, in-depth study of his music making it indispensable for those who want to study specific pieces or learn how he developed as a composer. "This book qualifies immediately as a towering work of outstanding musical analysis...Jones's new volume continues also to be a valuable digest of the thoughts of other scholars; spanning the Cöthen years as well as Leipzig, it is a masterpiece of compression and precision, yet finds time to ventilate the most interesting aspects of Bach Scholarship." --Bach Notes Journal 05/03/14 Richard Jones is a music writer and editor.