Historical Musicology: New Trends in Bach Scholarship
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Historical Musicology: New Trends in Bach Scholarship

William L. Hoffman wrote (October 4, 2019):
The field of musicology, with Bach studies as a cornerstone, has grown exponentially in recent years, far beyond the traditional interpretation of sources through the disciplines of historical, theoretical and analytical methods to embrace textual scholarship, archival research, lexicography, terminology, organology, iconography, performing practice, aesthetics and criticism, socio-musicology, psychology and hearing, gender, and sexual studies — all interesting pursuits in the field of music studies. Along the way, since the mid 1980s until about 2005, the whole field of musicology went astray, when "source research was considered passé; the issues of interest — and value — were considered to be more cultural, ideological and interdisciplinary," says Roberta Montemorra Marvin in her "Introduction: Scholarly Inquiry in Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods, Interpretations."¹ All manner of ". . .ology" and ". . .ography" seemed to have strayed beyond the boundaries of music while the studies themselves became pluralized as "musics" and the content got eclipsed in the form and processes. Early in this century, the novelty subsided and musicology returned to its importance of interpreting source studies with new processes. "This collection of essays thus builds on the disciplinary foundations that have been laid, celebrating a diversity of interpretations through studies based on both traditional and contemporary methodologies applied to conventional and unconventional sources," says Marvin (Ibid.: 2). They interpret document "in new ways and in more inclusive contexts."

The first systematic writing on music were treatises on instruments, singing, and theory during Bach's life (http://earlymusic.dikmans.net/readinglists.html). His compositions can be considered as applied, practical examples of treatises, most notably the two manuscript books of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the four published Clavierübung (Keyboard Studies). Bach joined a scientific society in his last years and produced a few examples of his art of keyboard and composition. The study of Bach was at the heart of these disciplinary musicological foundations through reception and revival. Beginning just after his death, publishers began to make his works available in copies and publications while the overall music print market declined. German journalistic music periodicals began to be published. Bach scholar Johann Nicholas Forkel produced his Allgemeine Geschiche der Musik (General History of Music, 1788-1801) and his Bach biography, Über Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst, und Kunstwerke (Bach's Life, Art, and Art Works, 1802). Bach centers began to flourish in Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, and London while his manuscripts were assiduously collected. In 1850, the first of two complete editions of his work was published, the Bach Gesellschaft, followed by the Neue Bach Ausgabe in 1950 with critical commentary and the supplemental New Bach Edition NBA. The annual Bach Jahrbuch research articles by noted scholars began in 1904.

Today there are three publications of Bach scholarly articles in English, the annual BACH Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute (https://www.bw.edu/libraries/riemenschneider-bach-institute/bach-journal/) the American Bach Society's periodic Bach Perspectives (https://www.americanbachsociety.org/perspectives.html), and the Bach Network's online Understanding Bach (https://bachnetwork.org/understanding-bach/). Two works catalogs have been complied, the Schmieder Bach Werke Verzeichnis (in its third edition due in 2020) which replaces the unfinished Bach Compendium that analyzed the vocal music but only catalogued the organ works. Nine volumes of Bach Dokumente have been produced covering his life, secondary sources, historical documents through 1850, son Emanuel in Hamburg, publishers' correspondence, pictorial documents as well as two supplements of the NBA sketches by Peter Wollny (2011) and Christoph Wolff's recent, omnibus A Life in Pictures (https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/shop/product/details/BVK2280/). Publisher Wayne Leupold is in the midst of an authoritative publication of Bach's organ works https://www.wayneleupold.com/bach-organ-works/) and there are two complete Bach recording projects, All of Bach (http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/) and Bach Stiftung (https://www.bachstiftung.ch/en/). The Yo Tomita exemplary Bach Bibliography is part of the Bach Archiv-Leipzig (http://swb.bsz-bw.de/DB=2.355/LNG=EN/?COOKIE=Us209,P2e6A,I2094,B1493+,SY,NRecherche-DB,D2.355,Ed25d8e2e-0,A,H,R193.197.31.8,FY).

Thus, Bach studies hold a pride of place among music studies and research. To demonstrate this, the collection of essays in honor of Bach and Mozart scholar Marshall pays tribute to him as "an exemplar of interpretive scholarship" beginning with his The Compositional Process of J. S. Bach in 1972 (https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=9d6e7a17246d137200237a48208b32ed6082d0d8). Marshall has just published Bach and Mozart: Essays on the Enigma of Genius (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580469620/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). Three of the first four essays in Historical Musicology are by leading Bach Scholars: Russell Stinson's "New Perspectives on Bach's Great Eighteen Chorales," Stephen Crist's "Historical Theology and Hymnology as Tools for Interpreting Bach's Church Cantatas" (BWV 48), and Michael Marissen's "Performance Practice Issues That Affect Meaning in Two Bach Instrumental Works" (Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, and the Musical Offering augmentation canon. The three Bach essays represent different perspectives on scholarly studies, as described in Marvin's thoughtful and explanatory "Introduction." Stinson, the leading scholar on Bach's organ music (http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n88193064/), studies the recent fundings of the dating, chronology and authenticity of the so-called "Great 18 Chorales," BWV 651-668, in their various versions and iterations found in their manuscripts over more than a quarter of a century. Beginning with the music itself, Crist in examining Bach's Cantata 48 studies the textual sources of the biblical commentaries, sermons and hymns as they shaped Bach's musical setting. Crist has just published Dave Brubeck's Time Out (Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dave-brubecks-time-out-9780190217723?cc=us&lang=en&#). Practical performance practice issues are the focus of Marissen's essay on Bach's use of instruments in what is probably the first keyboard concerto, begun in Weimar, and the overdotting rhythm in the augmentation canon of the Musical Offering, thus requiring an understanding of the interplay between conceptual whole and demonstrable parts in Bach's instrumental music.

Bach's Last Organ Chorale Versions

Bach's organ works are the largest group of instrumental pieces, BWV 525-771, 1090-1120, 1128,1167-1175, and are second in size to his vocal works, BWV 1-524, 1081-1088, 1127, 1135-1166. Bach composed many of his organ works in Weimar between 1708 and 1717, primarily the incomplete Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book), BWV 599-644, of 45 short chorale preludes and fughettas for the church year and the Eighteen (Leipzig) Chorales, BWV 651-668, which were revised in the 1740s. Most of the organ works, both chorale and free, were composed for various church services as preludes, postludes, and during communion. Stinson's article on "New Perspectives" of the "Great 18" is based on recent redating of their revisions from the late 1740s to as early as 1739, following the publication of the Clavierübung III, Organ Mass and Catechism Chorales, BWV 669-689, as a model for the revision of the "Great 18." Meanwhile, Bach also began about 1740 to compile the Book 2, Well-Tempered Clavier, BW 870-893 (see http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV870-893-Gen1.htm: "Well-Tempered Clavier Book II, Yo Tomita Insights," June 23, 2019).

In his study of the chronology and authenticity of the "Great 18" extended chorales, Stinson while examining various recent articles on this music dates the original extended chorale settings to as early as Mühlhausen (1708-08) with the chorale motet form, followed by the later ornamental chorale and trio forms. In 1739, Bach "decided to revise the works and assemble them into a collection, perhaps for the purpose of publication," says Stinson (Ibid.: 45), entering the first fifteen (Nos. 1-13, c.1739-42; Nos 14-15, c.1746-47). Bach student and son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnikol entered the 16th and 17th chorales from between August 1750 (Bach's death) to April 1751, while an anonymous copyist entered the 18th, the incomplete "Vor deinen Thron," between April and July 1750. Bach also penned the autograph of the Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel Hoch," BWV 769a for the Mizler Scientific Society, c.1747-48). Bach began with significant changes to the first three extended preludes but "his enthusiasm waned" and "the collection was never properly completed," says Stinson (Ibid.: 53). This is the same conclusion that Tomita is reaching with the WTC II in his forthcoming study. The "revised versions of the Great Eighteen do not represent the 'definitive' or 'final' forms of these masterworks," says Stinson (Ibid.: 53). "They merely advance the music towards its ultimate goal."

Stinson uses philological evidence, first established by Georg von Dadelsen in the 1950s, to date the handwriting in the "Compositional History of Bach's Orgelbüchlein Reconsidered" (in Bach Perspectives 1, ed. Russell Stinson [Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1995: 44-47), as well as to date the Great Eighteen. The purpose, textual focus and application of the Great Eighteen is studied in the late Anne Leahy's monograph.²

Textual Sources of Cantata 48

It has long been known that Lutheran theological writings and hymns had a profound influence on Bach's music, particularly the sacred cantatas as musical sermons and the Passion oratorios as reflecting the theology of sacrificial atonement and Martin Luther's Theology of the Cross.. Passages from sermons and theological writings influenced Bach and his librettists, particularly in his Leipzig cantatas where biblical commentaries and sermons had textual influences on many of the movements found in the interpretation. Stephen Crist's "Historical Theology and Hymnology as Tools for Interpreting Bach's Church Cantatas" (BWV 48) is an exemplary study of the textual sources found in Bach's theological library "or with demonstrably close connections to the composer," says Crist (Ibid.: 57). His case study focuses on hybrid chorale Cantata 48, "Ich elender Mensch, wer wird mich erlösen" (Miserable man that I am, who will free me), for the grim 19th Sunday after Trinity, 3 October 1723, involving the struggles between law and gospel and between doubt and belief. Crist plummeted a veritable compendium of mostly contemporary orthodox sources involving the biblical commentaries of Abraham Calov, Johann Oleraius and August Pfeiffer; sermons for the 19th Sunday after Trinity of Martin Luther, Heinrich Müller, the pietist August Hermann Francke, and Martin Geier; and obscure hymnological sources of Johann Christoph Olearius, Johann Avenarius, and Caspar Binder.

Crist thoroughly explores the new testament readings for this late Trinity Time Sunday, taking one movement at a time to interpret words in the text and Bach's settings. Cantata 48 is one of most ingeniously composed, concise (15 minutes) cantatas, with a special structure of opening biblical chorus, an internal pain chorale, the closing plain chorale and two internal recitatives and arias (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV48-D4.htm, October 18, 2015). The opening chorus complex (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3EBfiFBEAs) includes an instrumental chorale (trumpet and oboes), Bartholomäus Ringwaldt’s 1588 penitential funeral hymn, “Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut” (Lord Jesus Christ, Thou Highest Good) supporting a rare Epistle statement, Roman's 7:19, an expression of "despair over the strength and pervasiveness of sin," says Crist (Ibid.: 60, representing the Apostle Paul and the paralytic, who is healed in the Sunday gospel, Matthew 9:1-8 (Miracle of the sick of the palsy healed) and is "a communal cry of all humanity," he says (Ibid.: 61). Bach closes Cantata 48 using the same melody to the text, Stanza 12, "Herr Jesu Christ, einiger Trost" (Lord Jesus Christ, my only comfort) of "Herr Jesu Christ ich schreie zu dir" (Lord Jesus Christ, I cry to you, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale041-Eng3.htm), of salvation through Jesus Christ.

The unknown librettist emphasizes the spiritual dichotomy between body and soul beginning with the first recitative (No. 2), "Schmerz, o Elend, so mich trifft" (O pain, O misery, that strikes me) while developing several theological themes established in the opening chorus, says Crist (Ibid.: 66): misery as "the destructive power of sin on both body and soul" with forgiveness as the antidote while the body carries sin always, released in the final passionate sigh. The internal chorale (No. 3), "Solls ja so sein, / Dass Straf und Pein / Auf Sünde folgen müssen" (If it must indeed be so, / that punishment and pain / must follow upon sin), a plea for penance, is the fourth stanza of "Ach Gott und Herr" (Ah, my Lord and God), the Martin Rutilius 1604 Catechism confession hymn, that appears to be a special Bach insert as a contrast and remedy. The succeeding movement, the alto aria (No. 4), "Ach, lege das Sodom der sündlichen Glieder" (Ah, may Sodom with its sinful members) continues the theme of "penitence and the acceptance of suffering as the will of God," says Crist (Ibid.: 72), and is a dance (3/8 passepied-menuet) "reflecting the simple humility of true penitence," says Crist (Ibid.: 76). These are followed by the tenor recitative and aria pair (Nos. 5 and 6) in which Bach addresses the congregation with the miraculous intervention of the Saviour, "Hier aber tut des Heilands Hand" (But here the Saviour's hand) and "Vergibt mir Jesus meine Sünden" (If Jesus forgives me my sin), with "forgiveness" as "the key work of the entire cantata," says Crist (Ibid.: 77). "Only by pursuing an integral approach, which draws upon these sources as well as musical analysis and manuscript study," concludes Crist (Ibid.; 79), "will it be possible to achieve a full-orbed understanding of these incomparably rich compositions."³

Instrumental Concerto, Musical Offering

Continuing the understanding of Bach following the dating of his last versions of the Great 18 organ works and the textual influences on Cantata 48 comes Michael Marissen's analyses of performance practice issues in two instrumental works involving the meanings of the ensemble size in the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1050(a), and the augmentation canon rhythm from the MusOffering. While the debate continues over the size of Bach's vocal ensembles, whether the music was sung OVPP (one voice per part), little has been studied regarding Bach's use in the Brandenburg Concertos and other concertos of one instrument per part (OIPP), Marissen observes (Ibid.: 86). He notes that duplicate parts, unlike the vocal works, have been lacking in concerto music composed for courtly or municipal salons. Marissen does find instances in the vocal music of using multiple instruments such as recorders in unison passages. In the first five Brandenburg Concertos, Bach uses the standard string group of violins, viola, and cello as the ensemble concertino of tutti, contrasting with the solo concertist instruments, such as the harpsichord, flute, and violin in the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto in the form of the concerto gross pitting small against large ensembles. This contrast, often found in concert hall performances with larger orchestras should be carefully studied, particularly in the case of the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto in its original performing materials and the actual music, says Marissen (Ibid.: 89). He cites the earliest version, BWV 1050a (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00002485, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdeSujTTHHE) which has no tutti markings.

Turning to the augmentation canon in the Musical Offering, Marissen observes that this canon emphasizes "different notions of glory" (Ibid.,: 90). These possibly theological inferences could relate to Martin Luther's "theology of the cross" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology_of_the_Cross, which Marissen has studied (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Musical_Offering: "Theological character). "It seems to me that Bach represents the spiritual glorification of worldly glory musically in a particularly striking and straightforward way," he says (Ibid.: 91). Thus the significance of the rhythm, specifically over-dotting in the regal French style, gives a better understanding of the music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-eOlICAPDw: 10:09. Marissen suggests using the concept of the hermeneutical circle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutic_circle) in order to understand the relationships between whole and parts in a "continual, mutually qualifying interplay between our evolving sense of the whole and our retrospective understanding of the parts," he concludes.

In all three Bach studies, scholars, performers, and students can learn much from these studied findings and applications involving solo instrumental, vocal, and ensemble concerto music. The entire Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods and Interpretation thus is a celebration of Robert Marshall's "enduring methods" of scholarship which have had a profound impact on students and colleagues with his "scholarship, mentoring, collegiality, and humanity," says Marvin (Ibid.: 7). Marissen's recent participation in the Bach Network Dialogue Meeting included a discussion of "Musical Authorship" where he discussed "theological notions of creativity as indicated by Bach’s use of ‘Jesu juva’ and ‘Soli Deo Gloria’ markings" (https://www.bachnetwork.org/dialogue/DM9Programme.pdf). Marissen also has an essay, "Bach against Modernity" (https://www.iwu.edu/news/2017/events/bach-event-celebrates-reformation-anniversary.html) in Bettina Varwig forthcoming collection of essays, Rethinking Bach, at Oxford University Press.

FOOTNOTES

¹Stephen A. Christ and Roberta Montemorra Marvin, eds., Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods, Interpretations, Eastman Studies in Music (University of Rochester Press, 2004: 1); contents, https://boydellandbrewer.com/historical-musicology.html).
²Anne Leahy, J. S Bach's Leipzig Chorale Preludes, ed. Robin A. Leaver, Contextual Bach Studies No. 3, ed. Robin A, Leaver: Music, Text Theology (Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press Inc, 2011).
³An overview of various denominational perspectives found in Bach's music is provided in Peter Smaill's "Bach among the Heretics: Inferences from the Cantata Texts," in Bach Network, Understanding Bach 4 (https://www.bachnetwork.co.uk/ub4/smaill.pdf: 101-118).