More than any other part of Bach's output, his keyboard works conveyed the essence of his inimitable art to generations of admirers. The varied responses to this repertory - in scholarly and popular writing, public lectures, musical composition and transcription, performances and editions - ensured its place in the canon and broadened its creator's appeal. The early reception of Bach's keyboard music also continues to affect how we understand and value it, though we rarely recognize that historical continuity. Here, Matthew Dirst investigates how Bach's music intersects with cultural, social and music history, focusing on a repertory which is often overshadowed in scholarly and popular literature on Bach reception. Organized around the most productive ideas generated by Bach's keyboard works from his own day to the middle of the nineteenth century, this study shows how Bach's remarkable and long-lasting legacy took shape amid critical changes in European musical thought and practice.

In Bach in America, volume 5 of Bach Perspectives, nine scholars track Johann Sebastian Bach's reputation in America from an artist of relative obscurity to a cultural mainstay whose music has spread to all parts of the population, inspired a wealth of scholarship, captivated listeners, and inspired musicians.

More than a hundred years passed after Bach's death in 1750 before his music began to be known and appreciated in the United States. Barbara Owen surveys Bach's early reception in America and Matthew Dirst focuses on John Sullivan Dwight's role in advocating Bach's work. Michael Broyles considers the ways Bach's music came to be known in Boston and Mary J. Greer offers a counterpoint in her study of Bach's reception in New York.

The volume continues with Hans-Joachim Schulze's essay linking the American descendants of August Reinhold Bach to J. S. Bach through a common sixteenth-century ancestor. Christoph Wolff focuses on Bach's descendants in America, particularly Friederica Sophia Bach, the daughter of Bach's eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. Peter Wollny evaluates several manuscripts not included in Gerhard Herz's study of Bach Sources in America. The book concludes with examinations of Bach's considerable influence on American composers. Carol K. Baron compares the music of Bach and Charles Ives and Stephen A. Crist measures Bach's influence on the jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck.

The official publication of the American Bach Society, Bach Perspectives pioneers new areas of research into the life, times, and music of the master composer. In Volume 10 of the series, Matthew Dirst edits a collection of groundbreaking essays exploring various aspects of Bach's organ-related activities. Lynn Edwards Butler reconsiders Bach's report on Johann Scheibe's organ at St. Paul's Church in Leipzig. Robin Leaver clarifies the likely provenance and purpose of a collection of chorale harmonizations copied in Dresden. George Stauffer investigates the ways various independent trio movements served Bach as an artist and teacher. In separate contributions, Christoph Wolff and Gregory Butler seek the origins of concerted Bach cantata movements spotlighting the organ and propose family trees of both parent works and offspring. Finally, Matthew Cron provides a broad cultural frame for such pieces and notes how their components engage in a larger discourse about the German Baroque organ's intimation of heaven.