In eighteenth-century Germany the universal harmony of God's creation and the perfection of its proportions still held philosophical, moral and devotional significance. Reproducing proportions close to the unity (1:1) across compositions could render them beautiful, perfect and even eternal. Using the principles of her groundbreaking theory of proportional parallelism and the latest source study research, Ruth Tatlow reveals how Bach used the number of bars to create numerical perfection across his published collections, and explains why he did so. The first part of the book illustrates the wide-ranging application of belief in the unity, showing how planning a well-proportioned structure was a normal compositional procedure in Bach's time. In the second part Tatlow presents practical demonstrations of this in Bach's works, illustrating the layers of proportion that appear within a movement, a work, between two works in a collection, across a collection and between collections. - Proposes a new theoretical basis for Bach's compositional method - Part I provides comprehensive coverage of the evidence supporting every aspect of the theory of proportional parallelism - Part II uses practical demonstrations to apply the new method to all of Bach's works Table of Contents Part I. Foundations: 1. Bach's numbers 2. Symmetry, proportion and parallels 3. Unity, proportions and universal harmony in Bach's world 4. Bars, compositional planning and proportional parallelism Part II. Demonstrations: 5. Three collections for strings 6. Four in two collections for keyboard 7. Two further collections for keyboard 8. Two small late collections 9. Two large late collections 10. Collections of concertos 11. Collections of organ works 12. Great passions and cantatas 13. Festive cut-and-paste projects: masses and oratorios 14. Lost blueprints Appendix 1. Chronological index of musical doctrine.