In 2012 Michael Maul published a monumental account of the musical history of Leipzig's Saint Thomas School, the monograph ‘Dero berühmbter Chor’: Die Leipziger Thomasschule und ihre Kantoren, 1212–1804 (Leipzig: Lehmstedt, 2012). As Maul observes in his author's note on this 2018 translation, it is rare ‘that a German-language monograph in musicology is published in English’ (xiv). The editors at Boydell & Brewer clearly recognized the value of Maul's work and collaborated to publish it in an English translation by Richard Howe. They should be recognized for taking on this project.

The content of the book is the same in the English version as in the German original. Maul notes in his introductory statement that the original was ‘not at all outdated’ (xv) and that the only additions to the German publication appear in footnotes. This is not surprising for a book that spans the years 1212–1804, as one would not expect significant new findings to have appeared in a few short years. The value of Bach's Famous Choir, then, is that it makes Maul's excellent research more widely available to an English-speaking readership.

I would not envy anyone who took up the task of translating such a monumental work, but Richard Howe has completed it admirably. The extensive primary sources in German pose a significant challenge for the translator. In addition, Howe identifies in his translator's note that he is ‘neither a musicologist nor an historian of pre-modern Germany’ (xvii). Nevertheless, his translation is for the most part lucid, readable and faithful to Maul's original. The text does include some curious phrases and awkward expressions, but these are negligible in light of Maul's and Howe's larger project.

The book's title is somewhat misleading, though not unexpected in the realm of publishing. Curiously, the English version eschews the German quote ‘your famous choir’ and replaces it with ‘Bach's famous choir’. While J. S. Bach is one of the primary protagonists in the story, the volume spans a much wider time frame than Bach's tenure as Thomaskantor (1723–1750). In addition, as Maul's narrative makes clear, the fame of the St Thomas singers – who over the course of centuries were not known as a single ‘choir’ – began long before Bach's time and not only continued, but also increased, after his death. Finally, the years indicated in the book's subtitle also need clarification: while the volume does address the full scope of the years it indicates, 1212–1804, the focus is primarily on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The chronology arrives at the year 1539 by page 15 and at 1594 by page 27. The focus of the book can be more accurately understood to be the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Bach's Famous Choir tells the fascinating story of an institution – the St Thomas School – and a town – Leipzig – over the course of these two centuries. Maul exhibits an astonishing mastery of primary sources, drawing upon his extensive research and publication record as a senior scholar at the Bach-Archiv Leipzig. But at the same time as he is probing and explicating sources, Maul is an excellent storyteller. He helps the reader to understand the sources, while also engaging them in a lively narrative that reminds us that music making, and music institutions, are fundamentally human things. We get to know many of the fascinating people of Leipzig as they lived and related to music, to education, to the church, to the town and – often most interestingly – to each other.

Many of the people will already be known to scholars of eighteenth-century music, including Johann Kuhnau, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach and other members of the Bach family, Johann August Ernesti, Johann Adolph Scheibe, Gottlob Harrer, Johann Friedrich Doles and Johann Adam Hiller. But many others will certainly be less known to readers today, and we can be grateful to Maul for helping us to know them better. These include Leipzig's mayors, town councillors, other town officials and citizens; the rectors, conrectors, cantors, teachers and students of the St Thomas School; superintendents, pastors and other religious officials; and organists, singers and other musicians. The book's index of persons, in fact, spans twenty-one pages and is a valuable resource for readers attempting to keep track of all the people discussed, their roles and their relationships with each other. Also helpful is the chart on page xx explaining the organization of the St Thomas School in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as the sixty-eight black-and-white plates included, many with portraits of major figures in the narrative.

Some of the stories Maul tells are likewise well known: Telemann's musical activities during his student years at the University of Leipzig, Bach's hiring and arrival in Leipzig, his clashes with school and town authorities, and Scheibe's criticism of Bach in Der Critische Musicus in 1737, for example. In telling these familiar stories, Maul offers new ways of interpreting them in light of the broader scope of the history of Leipzig in general and the St Thomas School in particular. For example, Maul reveals that Bach's complaints about the musical abilities of students being admitted to the school as boarders were one aspect of a much larger and longer-running argument over whether St Thomas should pursue excellence in music or in academic study. The disagreement encompassed arguments over creating a school known for its music, and thus focused on accepting musically talented students from distant cities, or one known for its commitment to ‘the common welfare’ (192) of Leipzig itself, and thus focused on accepting local students who were in need of education but perhaps not as musically gifted. Maul traces this disagreement as a fundamental way of understanding the St Thomas School in relation to music. He notes that it had its roots as least as far back as 1688 and extended with vigour long past Bach's death (one of Maul's later section headings reads: ‘Johann Friedrich Doles (II): New Players, Same Old Trench Warfare’).

Particularly revealing is Maul's explication of, and frequent circling back to, the new school regulations of 1723 – regulations that were fiercely debated and never officially accepted (they were rejected outright by the senior staff of St Thomas), yet nevertheless were invoked as official (see especially 166–172). The regulations gave more authority to the town council and less to the senior staff (the rector, conrector, cantor and tertius). They eliminated a key paragraph from the previous regulations that indicated that boys would only be admitted to the boarding school if they were ‘not musically illiterate’ and could perform ‘a piece in an accomplished and appropriately tasteful manner’ (as quoted on 166). Maul continues: ‘Its place was now taken by a strong commitment to the St Thomas School as a charity school for the poor rather than as a music school’ (166). Much of the story of the St Thomas School in the eighteenth century, then, is the story of this debate as it unfolded over time with an ever-changing cast of mayors, superintendents, rectors and cantors.

Given the broad scope of sources, eras and persons discussed, it may not be surprising that the thread of the book's narrative is at times challenging to follow. And certain aspects of the organization add to the challenge. Because the book does not always unfold chronologically, the reader is required to keep careful track of names and dates to remember where exactly we are located in the narrative stream. For example, chapter 4 opens with discussion of Bach's 1730 letter to Georg Erdmann (141–144), then moves back to Sebastian Knüpfer in 1675 (144–146), before proceeding to 1701 (146–149) and then the gradual lead-up to the new school regulations of 1723 (149–165). All information is consistently dated and can be followed in that way, but it does require careful attention at times.

In sum, Bach's Famous Choir is meticulously researched and engagingly written, a valuable addition to the English-language research on music in the eighteenth century and beyond. Scholars whose work focuses on eighteenth-century Leipzig will find it to be an invaluable resource for this time and place. Others, too, will discover an engaging story and an excellent model for tracing an institution's history through its engagement with music. And all readers will find fascinating stories of people of an earlier time who admired (or didn't admire) music, argued over music, practised and performed it, and generally considered music to be well worth their attention. In other words, people like us.