Although written to accompany Ton Koopman's complete recorded cycle of Bach's cantatas, this is a valuable resource for any scholar of liturgical music, especially those predisposed to the Baroque. In two sections, The World of the Bach Cantatas provides an insight into just about every minutia concerned with his early works, through a series of essays by leading Bach authorities. Thus, we are provided with a background through 'The composer and his world' as well as examinations of the works themselves, under the general heading 'The works and their world'.

The first section is perhaps the least informative to the initiated, and its relevance in this context is somewhat in question: there are countless volumes that deal with the same generalities that appear in, for example, Claus Oefner's 'Musical life of the towns and courts in Central Germany', much of which has appeared in Wolff's own extensive writings. Nevertheless, they are prepared accurately and, given the intended target audience of the volume, in a user-friendly tone that facilitates easy reading, but which also retains a degree of scholarly intent.

In particular, the first part of George Stauffer's 'Bach the organist' makes an interesting and valuable reading, since it is one of only a few attempts made in recent years to tie up Bach's duties as town organist with his duties as a church composer. However, he goes slightly off the rails in the second section, where he provides an overview of similarities between the figuration of the organ music and the cantatas. Stauffer has failed to consider the influence that string writing brought to bear on both keyboard and vocal forms at that time; consequently, his attempts to relate one to the other are somewhat forced and valueless. Instead, I would point readers in the direction of Jonathan Baxendale's masterful 'Figure this' in the Autumn 2000 issue of The Musical Times, where he discusses the importance of string figuration on the development of other late Baroque genres.

The second section of the book contains essays that, although again lacking in fresh information, are nevertheless drawn together in one easily readable source: subjects such as theology and liturgy and the placing of the cantatas with a liturgical context, provide particularly interesting reading. Also contained in this section is an essay by Wolff that examines the organisation of the choir and its accompanying instrumental forces, referring to the principles laid down in Praetorius's 1619 Syntagma Musicum and comparing these with the practices of nearly a century later.

Ulrich Leisinger's contribution, that examines the influences of opera as a model for church music, is an essay that should be read by most of today's period-instrumental conductors. His consideration of the whole business of affection, rhetoric and expression, placing it into a liturgical context by reference to contemporary authorities, is both erudite and, considering the subject, reader-friendly. It would have been particularly useful to place it into a performance-oriented context, since in Ton Koopman's essay, which closes the volume, not one word concerning the doctrine of the affections is found. Instead, we are treated to a series of dreary lists, provided in a somewhat facile question-answer format that has no place in volume such as this. For example, 'What is authenticity?' is one question asked; Koopman fails to answer the question without referring to his own convictions, which, given the lack of scholastically-oriented recordings he has so far released, are at the best of times dubious. This is not scholarship, its significance is debatable and its presence in a book that so far has provided much valuable information, devalues the quality of the other authors' writing and scholastic achievements. Fortunately, and perhaps by design, it is least relegated to the final pages of the book where, with a craft knife and straightedge, it could be removed without damaging the page sequencing, therefore leaving a more valuable-than-not resource for scholars, students and teachers alike.

John Woodford