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The world of Bach scholarship was rocked in the 1950s and early 1960s, when new research into the chronology of the Leipzig cantatas overturned the view of Bach that had prevailed since Philipp Spitta's monumental biography of 1873-1880. It had been believed that during Bach's 27-year tenure as cantor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig he had devoted himself primarily to the creation of sacred vocal music, writing around 150 cantatas, the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, the Christmas Oratorio, and the B Minor Mass. But the new research indicated that the vast majority of the cantatas and the two passions were all produced in a four-year period, from the middle of 1723 to the middle of 1727. These revelations had two main effects: they demanded reevaluation of the place of the sacred vocal music within Bach's oeuvre, and they raised the question of what had occupied Bach's energies in the final 23 years of his life.

Bach scholars frequently use seismic imagery when describing the new cantata chronology and its effects; Malcolm Boyd, in the preface to the original 1983 edition of his Bach, wrote that "the new Bach image … will not be seen clearly until the tremors set up by that earthquake have subsided." One might hope that in the intervening 20 years this new image would have been brought into clearer focus, and if anyone could be expected to do this it would be Christoph Wolff, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, and arguably also dean of current Bach scholars. Wolff's Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician is one of several books on Bach that appeared in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of his death, and it is the most substantial biography to appear since the crisis of the late '50s.

Readers coming to Wolff with hopes of finding this new image will therefore be surprised to read in the preface that his intent is "not so much to rewrite a full account of Bach's life and works as to update and adjust [Spitta's] image of Bach in order to bring it in line—as objectively as possible and as subjectively as legitimate—with the current state of scholarship." Perhaps motivated by a desire to speak to a broad audience, Wolff never mentions any of the debates within Bach scholarship, presenting his narrative as a sober reading of the original source documents. An extremely cautious and conservative scholar, Wolff probably believes that his account is as much of a "new Bach image" as can be constructed at this point, with hope for future clarity resting solely on the possibility of discovering additional primary source materials. But by denying his readers exposure to questions that he seems to regard as unanswerable he does them a disservice.

Wolff consistently emphasizes the intellectual aspects of Bach's life and the systematic and exploratory nature of his compositional career. Thus he underlines Bach's educational achievements, from his attendance of a traditional Latin school—a departure from the craftsman's training typical in his family of musicians—to the Latin theology examination that he had to pass prior to assuming the cantorate in Leipzig. During his lifetime Bach was famous primarily as one of the leading keyboard virtuosi of the day, and Wolff stresses Bach's consistent career choices to make composition more central to his job description. This is certainly true of his early trajectory, when he gradually went from church organist at the age of 18 to court music director for a minor German prince at age 32, late in 1717.

Biographers wishing to see Bach as devoted first and foremost to church music have sometimes read Bach's move to Leipzig in 1723 to take the position of Thomascantor as a welcome return to the world of sacred music after his sojourn at the Calvinist court of Anhalt-Cöthen. This view is flatly contradicted by documentary evidence, however, as Bach wrote to an old friend in 1730 that he had been extremely happy in Cöthen and only thought of leaving when the court reduced its once lavish spending on music. Bach knew of the opening in Leipzig long before he applied for the job, and he had good reason to hesitate.

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