Meticulously edited by Robin Leaver, a veteran historian of Lutheran music, this stimulating work takes a closer look at the faith communities working alongside and around Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). From the mystical theology of Bernard of Clairvaux to early Methodism, and the musical and devotional life of the Saxon Catholic Court to the emerging Jewish enlightenment, this book portrays the rich diversity of the cultural and confessional landscape within which the German Baroque composer wrote his devotional music. A standout article is Jan Stockigt's detailed analysis of whether the precursor of Bach's B-minor Mass (BWV 232/1) might have been performed at the accession ceremony in Leipzig of the Saxon elector and king of Poland Friedrich August ii. Like his father, Friedrich August was a Catholic monarch set to rule a Catholic majority kingdom in Poland and a Lutheran majority electorate in Saxony. Might the Lutheran composer Bach have written music for a specifically Catholic devotional setting, at the Catholic Chapel Royal in Leipzig? The thought is not at all unlikely, Stockigt concludes. While Stockigt's conclusion does not resolve without any further doubt the issue of whether Bach's ‘great Catholic mass’ was performed throughout the composer's lifetime, she does offer fascinating insights into how the devoutly Catholic Friedrich August straddled the confessional demands of his role as a Catholic king and Protestant elector, and how the arts were able to help bridge this apparent divide. Other highlights in the volume include Markus Rathey's analysis of the structure and theology of the Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248), and his deduction that in his music Bach, following the Lutheran theologian Johann Arndt (and many other Lutheran spiritual writers), deliberately represents Bernard's triplex adventus of Christ (the notion that Christ first came into the world at his Incarnation, then comes again when he enters human hearts at each believer's conversion, and finally will come again at the eschaton). The work ends with a scintillating article by Rebecca Cypress on the Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah) and, in particular, the influence of Sarah Levy in promoting and ‘reframing’ the music of J. S. Bach and his sons, thereby ‘forging a common musical heritage that would be accessible to both Christians and Jews’ (p. 150). This fascinating, beautifully produced, volume will be a delight to Bach scholars with an interest in the confessional world that Bach inhabited and the challenges that faith-filled living brought. For those who are new to the field, it will open a window into the beguiling religious diversity of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany and its relationship to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.