Table Of Contentb a c h p e r s p e c t i v e s 1 1
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His Sons
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edited by Mary Oleskiewicz
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bach perspectives
volume 11
J. S. Bach and His Sons
bach perspectives
volume 11
J. S. Bach and His Sons
Edited by
Mary Oleskiewicz
© 2017 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952814
isbn 978-0-252-04148-8 (hardcover)
isbn 978-0-252-05008-4 (e-book)
Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations ix
Father and Sons: Confronting a Uniquely Daunting Paternal Legacy 1
by robert l. marshall
Keyboards, Music Rooms, and the Bach Family at the Court of
Frederick the Great 24
by mary oleskiewicz
C.P. E. Bach’s Keyboard Music and the Question of Idiom 83
by david schulenberg
Voices and Invoices: The Hamburg Vocal Ensemble of C. P. E. Bach 113
by evan cortens
Recently Rediscovered Sources of Music of the Bach Family in the
Breitkopf Archive 132
by christine blanken
Contributors 173
General Index 175
Index of Works 185
Preface
This volume of Bach Perspectives presents five essays that investigate topics
surrounding Johann Sebastian Bach and his five most musically gifted sons
arising from two marriages. The diverse subjects treated here are approached
by each author with distinctive and, in a few cases, alternative or interdisciplinary
methodologies. Several broad topics recur throughout the volume, including organol-
ogy, performance practice, the (un)reliability of anecdotal evidence, and recent musical
discoveries that provide new perspectives on older themes.
Robert Marshall, whose essay opens the volume, takes on a deeply psychological
perspective by examining how Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann
Gottfried Bernhard, Johann Christoph Friedrich, and the youngest, Johann Chris-
tian—who, in “killing Sebastian,” went even further than the rest of his siblings by
rejecting his father’s very religion—personally dealt with Sebastian’s imposing legacy
and succeeded in creating a style of their own. Marshall questions previous literature’s
failure to address (or, rather, its propensity to ignore) certain, sometimes troubling,
aspects of Sebastian’s relationships with his sons.
My essay investigates the Bach family’s connections to historical keyboard instru-
ments and musical venues at the Prussian court. It continues an avenue of inquiry
previously begun in two essays by John Koster and myself in an earlier volume of
Bach Perspectives.1 Whereas Koster explored the keyboard culture surrounding Sebas-
tian Bach more generally, I had considered specific musical implications of Gottfried
Silbermann pianos at Frederick’s court. The present essay identifies the location, size,
and characteristics of the many palace music rooms where Bach and his sons would
have performed for the king and members of the immediate royal family and provides
details of each of the keyboard instruments these rooms contained. By examining
surviving, lost, and recently rediscovered instruments and previously overlooked docu-
ments, I have been able to solve long-standing puzzles concerning the placement and
number of Silbermann pianos, Shudi harpsichords, and other keyboards at court; to
connect several compositions by members of the Bach family to specific rooms and
instruments; and to correct a variety of misunderstandings in previous literature.
1.John Koster, “The Harpsichord Culture in Bach’s Environs,” in Bach Perspectives 4: The Music of
J. S. Bach: Analysis and Interpretation, ed. David Schulenberg (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1999), 57–77; and Mary Oleskiewicz, “The Trio in Bach’s Musical Offering: A Salute to Frederick’s
Tastes and Quantz’s Flutes?,” in ibid., 79–110.
Preface
In the next chapter, David Schulenberg argues that Emanuel Bach’s most significant
contribution to European music is the large and diverse body of keyboard music he
composed for harpsichord, fortepiano, organ, and his favorite instrument, the clavi-
chord. Schulenberg shows that the hundreds of works Emanuel wrote over his long
life continually introduced new idioms into the repertoire, and, like Beethoven after
him, Emanuel also “pushed the envelope” of what the currently available instruments
could do. Although these innovative works could not all have been conceived for a
single type of instrument, Emanuel rarely assigned a particular variety of keyboard to
a given composition. Schulenberg thus draws important connections between the or-
ganological features of the instruments of the time and specific works of the composer.
Evan Cortens’s essay takes a detailed view of Emanuel Bach’s singers, vocal per-
formance materials, and pay records in Hamburg. Cortens concludes that, as in most
other parts of Germany of the time, one singer per part was the norm for Emanuel’s
performances of liturgical music after 1767.
Finally, Christine Blanken’s essay continues research into Breitkopf publishing firm,
the subject of another early volume of Bach Perspectives.2 Her surprising discovery of
a “forgotten box” containing unknown musical manuscripts by several members of
the Bach family demonstrates once again that sometimes what we are looking for
might lie right under our noses and that persistence pays off. Her examination here
of a number of previously unknown musical manuscripts from the Breitkopf archive,
including works by Sebastian Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and
Johann Christian, expands upon her previous work on this topic and demonstrates
how much there is still to learn about eighteenth-century musical transmission, per-
formance practice, and concert life in Bach’s Leipzig.
Mary Oleskiewicz, editor, Boston, October 2016
2. Bach Perspectives 2: J. S. Bach, the Breitkopfs, and Eighteenth-Century Music Trade, ed. George B.
Stauffer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996).
viii
Abbreviations
A-BNba Beethoven-Haus, Forschungszentrum Beethoven-Archiv.
A-Wgm Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, Archiv.
bdok Bach Dokumente. Edited by Andreas Glöckner, Anselm Hartinger, Karen
Lehmann, Michael Maul, Werner Neumann, Hans-Joachim Schulze, and
Christoph Wolff. 7 vols. Kassel: Bärenreiter; Leipzig: VEB Deutscher
Verlag für Musik, 1953–2008.
bg Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe. Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete works. Edited
by the Bach-Gesellschaft. 47 vols. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1851–99,
1926.
bj Bach-Jahrbuch.
bph Brandenburg-Preußisches Hausarchiv.
br-jcfb Bach Repertorium, vol. 4. Johann Christoph Friedrich: Thematisch-system-
atisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke. Edited by Ulrich Leisinger.
Stuttgart: Carus-Verlag, 2013.
br-wfb Bach Repertorium, vol. 2. Wilhelm Friedemann Bach: Thematisch-system-
atisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke. Edited by Peter Wollny. Stutt-
gart: Carus-Verlag, 2012.
bwv [Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis] Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis der musi-
kalischen Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis). Re-
vised edition. Edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf &
Härtel, 1990.
cpeb:b Ernst Suchalla, ed. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Briefe und Dokumente:
Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 2 vols. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht,
1994.
cpeb:cw Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works. Los Altos, CA: Packard
Humanities Institute, 2005–.
D-B Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin / Preußischer Kulturbesitz and its predecessor
institutions.
D-Bsa Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Collection of the Berlin Sing-Akademie.
D-Hs Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky, Musik-
sammlung.
D-Hsa Hamburg Senatsarchiv, now located within the Hamburg Staatsarchiv
(D-Ha).
D-LEm Leipziger Stadtbibliothek—Musikbibliothek, Leipzig.
D-LEsta Sächsisches Staatsarchiv—Staatsarchiv Leipzig.
