Table Of Content

(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2) T H E M A S T E R M U S I C I A N S BACH S e r i e s e d i t e d b y S t a n l e y S a d i e T H E M A S T E R M U S I C I A N S Titles Available in Paperback Berlioz • Hugh Macdonald Rachmaninoff • Geoffrey Norris Brahms • Malcolm MacDonald Rossini • Richard Osborn Britten • Michael Kennedy Schubert • John Reed Bruckner • Derek Watson Sibelius • Robert Layton Chopin • Jim Samson Richard Strauss • Michael Kennedy Handel • Donald Burrows Tchaikovsky • Edward Garden Liszt • Derek Watson Vaughan Williams • James Day Mahler • Michael Kennedy Verdi • Julian Budden Mendelssohn • Philip Radcliffe Vivaldi • Michael Talbot Monteverdi • Denis Arnold Wagner • Barry Millington Purcell • J.A.Westrup Titles Available in Hardcover Bach • Malcolm Boyd Handel • Donald Burrows Beethoven • Barry Cooper Schütz • Basil Smallman Chopin • Jim Samson Richard Strauss • Michael Kennedy Elgar • Robert Anderson Stravinsky • Paul Griffiths Titles In Preparation Bartók • Malcolm Gillies Puccini • Julian Budden Dvor˘ák • Jan Smaczny Schumann • Eric Frederick Jensen Musorgsky • David Brown Tchaikovsky • R.John Wiley (cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2) T H E M A S T E R M U S I C I A N S BAC H å M a l c o l m B o y d 1 1 Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogatá Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2000by Malcolm Boyd First published 1983 by J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd. First paperback edition 1986 by J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd. Second edition 1990 Reprinted with corrections 1995 by Oxford University Press American edition 1997 by Schirmer Books Third edition 2000 Published by Oxford University Press,Inc. 198Madison Avenue,New York,New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise, without prior permissionof Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Boyd,Malcolm. Bach / Malcolm Boyd.—3rd ed. p.cm.—(The master musicians) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13:978-0-19-514222-8(cloth) ISBN-13:978-0-19-530771-9 (pbk) ISBN-10:0-19-514222-5(cloth) ISBN-10:0-19-530771-2 (pbk) 1. Bach,Johann Sebastian,1685–1750. 2. Composers—Germany—Biography. I. Title. II. Master musicians series. ML410.B1B73 2000 780'.92—dc21 [B] 00-033976 Series designed by Carla Bolte 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid free paper TO COLIN AND DELYTH O holder Tag,erwünschte Zeit ... This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix List of Illustrations xiii List of Bibliographical References xv A Note on Currency xv 1 Background and Early Years (1685–1703). . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 Arnstadt,Mühlhausen (1703–8). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Early Works 27 3 Weimar (1708–17). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 4 Organ Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Chorale Settings 49 Preludes and Fugues 60 Miscellaneous Organ Works 66 5 Cöthen (1717–23). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 6 Orchestral,Instrumental,and Keyboard Music . . . . . . . . . 80 Concertos 80 Orchestral Suites 91 Instrumental Works 94 Keyboard Works 101 7 Leipzig (1723–30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 8 Music for the Leipzig Liturgy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Cantatas 123 Motets and Magnificat 149 Passions 152 9 Leipzig (1730–41) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 vii • • viii • Contents 10 Parodies and Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Oratorios and Masses 178 Harpsichord Concertos 191 The Clavier-Übung 193 11 Leipzig (1742–50) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 12 Canons and Counterpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 13 The Bach Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Appendices A Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 B List of Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 C Personalia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 D Select Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 General Index 301 Index of Bach’s Works 309 Preface I t is not to excuse any shortcomings in the present volume if I say that the task of writing about J.S.Bach is a more formidable one in the 1980s than it was in 1900 or 1947,when my predecessors in the Master Musicians series published their studies of the composer.At that time the image of Bach as a devout Lutheran,his art and life wholly directed towards the improvement of church music,was well established, and seemingly on the ﬁrmest foundations.After all,hadn’t Philipp Spitta thoroughly researched archival sources for his exhaustive book on the composer published in 1873–80? Hadn’t he established a chronology for Bach’s works based on the most rigorous scientiﬁc methods,including the study of paper types, watermarks, and calligraphy? And didn’t the monumental edition of the music published by the Bach-Gesellschaft in 1851–99 provide as complete and accurate a text as any scholar could wish for? What might be called the Spitta image of Bach survived until the 1950s, when the new chronology, affecting particularly the Leipzig cantatas, was proposed by Alfred Dürr at Göttingen and Georg von Dadelsen at Tübingen;the cantatas were now seen to occupy only the early years of Bach’s cantorate.The wider implications of this discovery were expounded by Friedrich Blume in an essay,presented at the 1962 Bachfestin Mainz,which was regarded,indeed intended,as an earthquake, with the chronology of Dürr and Dadelsen at its epicentre. Despite recent attempts,notably by Piero Buscaroli,to bring the new Bach image into focus, it will not be seen clearly until the tremors set up by that earthquake have subsided.Meanwhile,other issues have also claimed the attention of Bach scholars in the wake of the new collected edition (Neue Bach-Ausgabe) initiated in 1950: questions of textual criticism and attribution,the evaluation of different versions and adaptations,and the relevance to Bach’s music of Affektenlehre, Figurenlehre, numerology, ix • •