Of all instruments of musical expression Bach preferred the organ. At the time when he was employed as court organist and chamber musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst in Weimar, Bach had to perform on the organ a great deal. He prepared a repertory for those performances which includes some of his greatest works as for instance: Fantasia & Fugue in G minor (The Great) Passacaglia in C minor, Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, 8 Little Preludes & Fugues and the wonderful Orgelbuechlein. Most of his organ works date from around 1708 to 1717, through the “Little” fugue in G minor was composed in 1700. This volume contains various Choral Preludes and a composition called 4 Duets. A “Duet” really means 2 part music, and not music for Clavier 4 hands.

Larry Sitsky, professor emeritus at The Australian National University, is an internationally known composer, pianist, scholar, and teacher. His books are fundamental reference works on subjects such as Australian piano music, the 20th-century avant-garde, the piano music of Anton Rubinstein, the early 20th-century Russian avant-garde, and the classical reproducing piano roll. The Compleat Busoni is the result of Sitsky’s lifelong focus on the composer Ferruccio Busoni. Over three volumes, Sitsky surveys Busoni’s vast output, provides an ending to the unfinished opera Dr. Faust, and presents definitive realisations of the Fantasia Contrappuntistica in two-piano and orchestral versions. New insights into Busoni’s style and aesthetics are an integral aspect of this work.

The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and DVDsis the largest and most comprehensive survey of classical music on digital audio and video discs ever published. It covers thousands of recordings, offering candid evaluation of their relative artistic and technical merits, highlighting notable performances, and pinpointing the best buys. This guide takes into account the many hundreds of new and reissued CDs and DVDs that have appeared in recent years while also including all the major recordings of each work-from remastered vintage recordings to the latest releases. This essential reference work is designed to help select the very best video and music discs available today.

Regarded as the standard guide to classical music on CD, the 2002/3 edition of The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs has a new wider trim size to allow for even more updates. This guide takes into account the many hundreds of new and reissued CDs that have appeared in recent years while also including all the highlights from the back catalog. Arranged by composer, the guide lists all major recordings from each work-from remastered vintage recordings to the latest releases-with evaluations of interpretation and performance by the authors, as well as assessments of recording accuracy and advice on the best buys for cost and quality. This essential reference work is designed to help select the very best recorded classical music available today.

A concentrated study of Johann Sebastian Bach’s creative output and greatest pieces, capturing the essence of his art. Throughout his life, renowned and prolific composer Johann Sebastian Bach articulated his views as a composer in purely musical terms; he was notoriously reluctant to write about his life and work. Instead, he methodically organized certain pieces into carefully designed collections. These benchmark works, all of them without parallel or equivalent, produced a steady stream of transformative ideas that stand as paradigms of Bach’s musical art. In this companion volume to his Pulitzer Prize–finalist biography, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, leading Bach scholar Christoph Wolff takes his cue from his famous subject. Wolff delves deeply into the composer’s own rich selection of collected music, cutting across conventional boundaries of era, genre, and instrument. Emerging from a complex and massive oeuvre, Bach’s Musical Universe is a focused discussion of a meaningful selection of compositions—from the famous Well-Tempered Clavier, violin and cello solos, and Brandenburg Concertos to the St. Matthew Passion, Art of Fugue, and B-minor Mass. Unlike any study undertaken before, this book details Bach’s creative process across the various instrumental and vocal genres. This array of compositions illustrates the depth and variety at the essence of the composer’s musical art, as well as his unique approach to composition as a process of imaginative research into the innate potential of his chosen material. Tracing Bach’s evolution as a composer, Wolff compellingly illuminates the ideals and legacy of this giant of classical music in a new, refreshing light for everyone, from the amateur to the virtuoso.