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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
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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 ...
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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
• •
