The Gospel According to Bach Issue 95 | 2007 Purchase this issue

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• Andrew Wilson-Dickson, The Story of Christian Music (Fortress Press; originally pub. by Lion, 1992)
• Patrick Kavanaugh, Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers (Zondervan, 1996)

• Luther's hymns and prefaces to hymnbooks can be found in Luther's Works, vol. 53: Liturgy and Hymns, ed. Ulrich S. Leupold (American Edition, Fortress, 1965).
• Robin Leaver, Luther's Liturgical Music (Eerdmans, 2007)
• Carl Schalk, Music in Early Lutheranism (Concordia, 2001)
• Kerala J. Snyder, Dietrich Buxtehude, Organist in Luebeck (Schirmer Books, 1987)

The definitive biography is Christoph Wolff's Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (Norton, 2000). The best shorter "life and works" book is Malcolm Boyd's Bach (Master Musicians Series, Oxford, 3rd ed., 2006). The New Bach Reader, edited by Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel and revised by Christoph Wolff (Norton, 1998) is a superb collection of letters and other documents. Another unique and captivating biography is James R. Gaines's Evening in the Palace of Reason (Fourth Estate, 2005), which interweaves the lives of Bach and Frederick the Great leading up to their meeting in 1747—a clash between the Age of Faith and the Age of Reason.

The starting point for understanding the theology of Bach's music is Jaroslav Pelikan's Bach Among the Theologians (Wipf and Stock, 2003), as well as his book From Luther to Kierkegaard: A Study in the History of Theology (Concordia, 1950). Calvin R. Stapert's My Only Comfort: Death, Deliverance, and Discipleship in the Music of Bach (Eerdmans, 2000) is a listener's guide organized according to theological themes. Another listener's guide, though less explicitly theological, is Melvin Ungar's J. S. Bach's ...