Engaging Bach

Matthew Dirst is Associate Professor of Music at the Moores School of Music, University of Houston, and also serves as Artistic Director of the period-instrument group Ars Lyrica Houston. An acclaimed harpsichordist and organist, he is the first American musician to win major international prizes in both instruments. Winner of the William H. Scheide Prize (2004) from the American Bach Society for an essay on the reception of Bach's music in America, he pursues research and performance in more or less equal measure. His publications address the music of Bach and its reception, while his recordings feature music of François and Armand-Louis Couperin, Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, Johann Adolf Hasse and J. S. Bach.

• 1. Why the keyboard works?; 2. Inventing the Bach chorale; 3. What Mozart learned from Bach; 4. A bürgerlicher Bach: turn-of-the-century German advocacy; 5. The virtuous fugue: English reception to 1840; 6. Bach for whom? Modes of interpretation and performance, 1820–50.

'Dirst, a performer himself, is a lively writer and makes many useful observations.' The Times Literary Supplement