New and expanded version! Classical music is one of the most brilliant achievements of Western culture. And some of our greatest composers shaped their music according to their Christian beliefs. This remarkable and inspiring book examines the lives of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and many other composers. Their Christianity affected their music profoundly, just as a modern lack of faith has totally changed the meaning and forms of contemporary music. The Gift of Music integrates the lives, philosophies, and music of the great composers, including Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart. Readers will be placed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as observers, not historians, as they explore the lives of these great men. This third edition has been expanded and revised. pb.