2000, Another Bach Year!
(Don Franklin)
For those of us active as Bach scholars and performers in 1985, the 300th
anniversary of Bach's birth, the prospect of yet another Bach celebration (this
time, 250th anniversary of his death) was greeted with some scepticism: the
Neue Bach Ausgabe would not be complete for several years, and its critical
reports, with the appearance of new sources and the availability of libraries
holdings via internet, are in danger of becoming outdated even as they are
published. Bach performances and recordings seemed to be proliferating by the
day — at least in the months preceding 2000. And the controversy
surrounding performance issues, such as one-on-a part, clearly would not reach
any kind of definitive resolution with the allocated twelve month period.
Furthermore, the year's many scholarly conferences drew upon a limited
circle of participants, many of whom were working on large scale projects.
These include my own study of what I call Bach's temporal procedures, that is,
the set of principles by which he constructs his music 'in time' as well as the
notational means by which he indicates how to realize his 'time' structures.
Bach's application of both principles and procedures, as I reported on several
occasions in 2000, are proving to be as systematic and as broad in scope, as,
for example, his use of ritornello and fugue.
So, after a year of conferences and festivals, many of which were
exclusively, and some partially, devoted to Bach's music, what is the residue;
what can be said about the current state of Bach studies? At least three trends
strike me as worth noting:
- A renewed interest in critical/analytical study of the music, representing
a return to compositional process and how Bach's music works, rather than where
or in what state it is found. This revival is seen particularly in German
circles, with work of Friedhelm Krummacher, Werner Breig and Ulrich Siegele
returning to the forefront. Despite the publication in 1996 of Laurence
Dreyfus's Patterns of Invention, a similar revival has yet to take place in
Anglo-American Circles.
- A more systematic exploration of the theological content of Bach's music.
A conference in Utrecht organized by Albert Clement, President of the
International Society for Theological Bach Research and a member of the Utrecht
music faculty, featured papers by two of his students, Anne Leahy (Ireland) and
Isabella von Elfgren (Netherlands), along with one by Mary Greer (USA) which
set forth interesting results regarding what could be described as the
theological foundations of Bach's music. (The addition of three women to the
somewhat masculine Bach scene is welcome.) But as that particular conference
and others have demonstrated, Bach studies have barely scratched the surface
with regard to a critical assessment of Bach's texts.
- An ever-broadening examination of the role of Bach's music
vis-à-vis that of his sons and contemporaries. To some extent the
Bach-Archive in Leipzig set this new course by its new staff appointments,
namely, Peter Wollny and Ulrich Leisinger, who wrote their doctoral
dissertations on W. F. and C. P. E. Bach; and the Archive's new publication
series will focus on documents and repertory that relate to the Bach sons and
other members of the Bach family. Further impetus was given, circumstantially,
by the discovery, or what might better be described as 'formal acknowledgment'
by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, that the long-lost musical estate of
Bach's second son, C. P. E., a central portion of the Berlin Sing-Akademie
archive missing since World War II, was stored in a museum in Kiev. The close
collaboration between Christoph Wolff and Patricia Kennedy Grimsted (Harvard
University) and Hendaii Boriak, Deputy Director of the Ukrainian Academy of
Sciences led to its discovery in the summer preceding 2000. Including 5000
items, mostly manuscripts, the estate includes the 'Old Bach Archive', a
collection of works by members of the Bach family (many in copies from J. S.
Bach's hand), as well as the bulk of C. P. E.'s own compositions in autograph
or authorized copies, among them 20 Passions, 50 keyboard concertos, and many
other vocal and instrumental works. Most of the works, including all the
Passions, more than two thirds of the keyboard concertos, many chamber works,
and songs are unpublished and have never been available for performance or
study. Reports on the contents of the collection were a part of almost every
scholarly conference in 2000. But scholarly access to the manuscripts and a
fresh look at at the repertories and performance practices associated with
Bach's sons and contemporaries was assured only in January of this year when a
treaty was signed by the Ukrainian government, returning the collection to the
Staatsbibliothek in Berlin possibly as early as this summer.
Indications of the expanded scope of Bach studies is also seen in current
performances and recordings. Those of us who conduct university and community
concert series, for example, find ourselves turning increasingly to the works
of a Fasch, a Telemann or a Stoelzel, to give ourselves and our audiences new
music to savor, as well to provide a larger framework in which to hear Bach.
(For Fasch, the publications of King's Musick have been of immense help, as
have the spate of Telemann recordings from cpo, Capriccio and elsewhere). If
this movement continues to gain momentum, the next series of Bach celebrations
will focus less on the music of Johann Sebastian than how we hear and perceive
his works in light of the larger musical and cultural context that will unfold
during the next several decades.
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