ABSTRACT
Bach’s music was the product of a mingling of ideas and infl uences from current and earlier German, French, and Italian traditions, which he integrated into a personal style that developed over a period of half a century. It was once customary to regard this style as a conservative one; now it is clear that the style incorporates many “progressive” traits (as argued in Marshall 1976a). Still, musicians of Bach’s generation were conservative in the sense that they usually composed within established genres. Genre governed not only medium and function but also determined the form, length, texture, and other aspects of a work. Hence, for Bach, as for any Baroque composer, it can be misleading to speak of a single style; he cultivated various styles, each appropriate to the genre within which he was working at a given time.
