J. S. Bach is today regarded as one of the greatest composers of Western music. During his lifetime he achieved some renown as a teacher and organ virtuoso, but for 27 years he worked as a church musician in Leipzig, a relatively provincial city. As cantor of St. Thomas Church, he prepared weekly performances for the city’s five churches and taught at the church school, while also composing many of his most beautiful works, including several hundred church cantatas. In this course, we will study the wide variety of vocal and instrumental genres that Bach composed in and learn how he transformed and perfected the traditional forms and techniques of the German Baroque.