"Listening to Bach and Handel is a work of traditional music criticism. It asks why these two German composers, born less than one month and 125 kilometers apart—cultural twins—could compose so differently from each other as well as their colleagues and yet both achieve universal acclaim the greatest exponents of the Baroque. Finding even partial answers to this question naturally deepens readers’ knowledge and appreciation of their art, and thereby amplifies the experience of listening to it. I wrote the book especially for those who love the music of Bach and Handel of course, but because their work underlies in so many ways all the music that came after them, I wrote it for all lovers of music in the Western tradition."

 

Joseph P. Swain, from the Preface