In his final years, Bach devoted his composing energies to extended works such as the Mass in B minor and The Art of Fugue. But as a performer, he was busy giving regular concerts of smaller-scale pieces with local students at a Leipzig coffee-house. Joshua Rifkin traces the story of this last period, and looks for some answers to the many mysteries about Bach's life, his personality and his music, in the churches, palaces and coffee houses of Leipzig and Dresden.

(R)