Tempo and Tactus in the German Baroque

Guides modern performers and scholars through the intricacies of German Baroque metric theory, via analyses of treatises and organ music by J.S. Bach and other leading composers, such as Buxtehude, Bruhns, and Weckman. Before the advent of the metronome ca. 1800, there was little in the way of a standardized, commonly accessible method for precisely communicating how fast musical compositions should be performed. Instead of absolute time (that is, plottable on a metronome), Baroque musicians dev