The substantial tome The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach marks a new milestone in Bach research, just as important in its way as the two other Bach anthologies that have been published in English over the last twenty years, The Cambridge Companion to Bach, ed. John Butt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), and Bach, ed. Yo Tomita (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).
A highly specialized discipline arguably needs summarizing in such compilations on a regular basis. The project is one of continuation rather than rebuttal: as Yo Tomita states in ‘Manuscripts’ (chapter 3), new scholarship will always re-evaluate the findings of the past, and to do so is not necessarily to criticize the old. Although many of the matters discussed are consistent with those in the earlier anthologies, editor Robin A. Leaver has devised a fresh organizational approach intended to facilitate research. The book is divided into six main sections (Sources, Contexts, Musical Influences, Genres and Forms, Dissemination, and Chronology), and its twenty chapters aim at the professional level of readership, addressing the interests of the Kenner. In comparison, Butt's Cambridge Companion provides an excellent fundamental introduction to the composer's life and work, appealing to the inquisitive Liebhaber.
As can be expected from an anglophone publication, the bulk of the articles are written in English, with the four written originally in German being given here in English translation. The proportion is similar in Butt's Bach Companion, while the annual volumes of the Bach-Jahrbuch (published in Leipzig) show the reverse, with a few translated articles by English/American authors among many more German ones. In contrast, Tomita's selection of previously published ‘game-changing’ essays in Bach presents approximately the same number of contributions written originally in English as in German. Across the field, there seems to be a balance between the two languages and how scholarly literature in both German and English is followed, respected and translated. Thus Ulrich Siegele's comment in his contribution to this book, ‘I do have to record and regret the declining consideration of German publications in English-speaking literature that has been observable since the mid-90s’ (405), may speak in more general terms to the predominance of the English language in most areas of our modern life rather than in Bach scholarship particularly – even if it happens to be evident in this volume as well. German research, particularly in Bach scholarship, remains closely followed and highly respected today. One might also note that only two contributors to the book are female – a regrettable imbalance that future publications would do well to redress.
The authors in this volume were asked to accomplish three tasks: to outline the results of past scholarship over the last three to five decades; to summarize and critique the achievements of current scholarship, discuss the new methodologies developed and introduce the most recent aspects of the sub-field; and finally, to identify what direction future research might take. Despite these shared aims, the chapters are by no means homogeneous in form. For example, Yo Tomita assists the reader with dozens of headings and subheadings, whereas Gregory Butler elects to present an uninterrupted essay. Some of the chapters are barely ten pages, others four times as long. Read in its entirety, the book does not amount to a full biography – but this is not its purpose. The writers’ diverse approaches result in twenty chapters more akin to individual pieces of a giant puzzle, as they form a detailed, near-complete picture of the breadth of modern Bach scholarship.
Robin A. Leaver not only undertook the editorial tasks but also contributed essays on ‘Churches’ (chapter 7) and ‘Chorales’ (chapter 14), plus the bookending sections, the Introduction (chapter 1) and the substantial ‘Life and Works 1685–1750’ (chapter 20). The latter – over fifty pages long – usefully adds to previously available chronologies, as almost every entry refers to relevant documents from either the Bach-Dokumente (the annotated index of handwritten and printed documents by Bach and his circle) or the New Bach Reader. Only marginally shorter is the chapter ‘Churches’, which surveys people, politics, events and literature that relate to the composer's affiliation with individual clergy. Apart from providing an overview in exhaustive detail of Bach's relationship with the various parishes in which he worked, Leaver also clarifies the influence of Christian philosophies on the composer's thinking; the elucidation of the Pietist/Orthodox confrontation is particularly informative (159–160). Almost as a by-product, this essay outlines some of the reasons why Johann Sebastian moved from one job to the next.
Tomita's chapter, ‘Manuscripts’ (chapter 3), is one of the most comprehensive entries: he provides a detailed overview of the salient features of a Bach (or other) manuscript as a physical artefact, from the binding of the manuscript to quills and inks, pencil and knife, and from the placement of a slur all the way to problems of transmission. Tanya Kevorkian's ‘Households’ (chapter 5) paints a colourful and informative picture of many details of eighteenth-century life in baroque Germany. Her approach lacks the discipline found in Tomita's chapter, as not everything seems to be relevant to the Bach household's life and work. Kervorkian's vast knowledge of the pertinent literature is impressive, but is sometimes undermined by her references, which do not always observe the usual conventions for citation (for example, 112).
One of the difficulties when facing the mammoth editorial tasks of such a comprehensive book is to avoid topical overlaps. Manuel Bärwald's ‘Recent Research Developments’ (chapter 19) almost unavoidably covers some of the same areas as Hans-Joachim Schulze's discussion of ‘Documents’ (chapter 2), for example the history and contents of the Bach-Dokumente. However, there is plenty of interesting material in Bärwald's chapter, such as the explanation of how some of the earliest sections of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the organ works, will not be part of the revised edition despite some significant new discoveries; said discoveries have, however, been incorporated into two other publishers’ critical editions. Hans-Joachim Schulze's chapter lays out the complex system of documentation that undergirds Bach research. He points out the missing links (such as almost all of Bach's private correspondence), and has no qualms about pointing out errors of transmission and even mistakes in Bach's written remarks and letters (37). From a different angle, outlining what we know about ‘Sons, Family and Pupils’ (chapter 17), Stephen Roe discusses many similar subjects while giving an informative summary of the network of Bach research and its main centres. His preamble leads smoothly into a fascinating analysis of the eighteenth-century Bach network and its main protagonists, as indicated in the chapter's title.
Chapter 4, ‘Printed Editions’ (a more accurate title might have been ‘Early Printed Editions’), is Gregory Butler's topic. I found the juxtaposition of original prints with Bach's Handexemplare or personal copies based on the Goldberg Variations and the first volume of the Klavierübung (94–95) particularly illuminating. Matthew Dirst's succinct essay ‘Early Posthumous Editions’ (chapter 18) seamlessly continues the edition history of the Bach oeuvre from the point where Butler left it in chapter 4. While appreciating that these scholars worked independently from one another, more cross-referencing would have created a unifying internal arch between these chapters, as they often address identical issues from different angles. Markus Rathey's chapter 6 on ‘Schools’ offers an overview of German concepts of schooling from the Reformation to the pedagogical reforms in the first half of the eighteenth century. His focus sharpens on Bach's life when he details the composer's circumstances as a student and later as a teacher.
After households, schools and churches, the last contextual section of the book, ‘Courts’ (chapter 8), is Andrew Talle's work. Beginning with an informative historical background to electoral courts and why music played such an essential part in them, Talle presents a detailed introduction to courtly life not only in Weimar and Cöthen, where Bach actually lived, but also in other courts with which he had significant contact. The impact of this erudite and meticulously referenced article is only undermined by an anomaly (probably a result of the proof-reading process) in the retelling of Bach's ‘musical duel’ with Louis Marchand (204–206). Talle proposes that Marpurg's description of this encounter is preferable as it makes more logical sense than the frequently cited, but not as reliable, account given in the obituary. He then includes what he claims is Marpurg's text: however, what follows is actually the extensive, well-known story from the obituary. The footnote afterwards puts the record straight, citing the obituary; the next document provided is in fact Marpurg's account.
The next two contributions deal with ‘Musical Influences’. The chequered history of ‘The Alt-Bachisches Archiv’ (chapter 9), Bach's collection of manuscript copies of motets, vocal concertos and other sacred music composed by his ancestors, is summarized with source-critical expertise by Stephen Rose. He divides his attention between the sources, the music, the influence and the reception of these works. The last section of this chapter is particularly noteworthy, as it talks about both Nazi musicologists’ fascination with the archive as a potentially nationalist collection and contemporary scholars’ varying evaluations of Johann Sebastian's interest in the same.
Tragically, Kirsten Beißwenger had died by the time this book was published. ‘Other Composers’ (chapter 10) is therefore one of her last completed works of scholarship. The chapter, which addresses ‘the question of Bach's knowledge of the works of other composers, their influence on his own compositions, and the works he collected in his own personal music library’ (237), is heavy in data and not an easy read (one paragraph is over two pages long), but its rich content will make it a treasure trove for future researchers. Part of the chapter includes, as a useful addendum to her seminal book Johann Sebastian Bachs Notenbibliothek (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1992), an extensive list of newly discovered works from Bach's library.
Chapter 11, ‘Vocal Music’, by Mark A. Peters, is a well-composed summary of mostly previously gathered information. Its first part guides the reader through the maze of Bach's vocal output in chronological order, based mostly on the new chronology by Alfred Dürr and Georg von Dadelsen, while the second presents problems of sources studies, analysis and performance practice with recent scholarly responses to them by Tatiana Schabalina, Eric Chafe, Joshua Rifkin and others.
The following chapter takes ‘Keyboard Music’ as its topic. David Yearsley clearly lays out the various problems regarding the pedaliter/manualiter dichotomy, organology and hermeneutics. His persuasive yet easily understandable writing style (and he is by no means alone in this regard among the book's authors) proves that great scholarship and enjoyable reading are not mutually exclusive. Invoking Gregory Butler, he points to the future by criticizing ‘the notion of the “definitive” text, a concept to which generations of scholars had been strongly attached’ when primacy between an early print and a manuscript must be decided (307). The discussion of the recently discovered earliest Bach autographs is most informative. The problem of the ‘definitive’ text turns up again, but with a different proposed solution, in the chapter by Ulrich Siegele (‘Compositional Technique’, chapter 16). Citing Dürr's ‘virtual version’ of the French Suites, Siegele suggests that in certain circumstances, compositional-technical assessment of the relevant sources can bring better results than the methods of source criticism (400). Through examples taken from the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Three-Part Inventions, the six-part Ricercar from the Musical Offering and other works, Siegele demonstrates the use of various compositional tools such as invertible counterpoint or proportioning within a work. Unfortunately, a full understanding of his chapter is undermined by the poor translation, which retains the overly complex syntax of the original German text without making allowances for a more transparent usage of English.
David Ledbetter's experience in analysing Bach's ‘Instrumental Chamber and Ensemble Music’ (chapter 13) shows in his impressive outline of the available literature. In the main body of his text, Bach's chamber music is introduced according to instrumental category. The discussion includes many penetrating observations, such as Ledbetter's hypotheses about the possible origins of the Sonata in A major for Flute and Continuo, bwv1032, based on the peculiarities of the autograph manuscript. Particularly noteworthy in chapter 15, ‘Counterpoint, Canons and the Late Works’, is Paul Walker's elucidation of issues regarding the Musical Offering and the Art of Fugue, which reads like a detective story. He returns once again to the source history of the Variations ‘Vom Himmel hoch’ and concludes that, in certain cases, considering two different versions of the same work as equally valid might work better than a rigid insistence on the concept of the ‘Fassung letzter Hand’.
The twenty articles of The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach are refreshingly multifaceted, reflecting their authors’ scholarly background, nationality and academic perspective. At the same time, the quality of the scholarship binds these articles firmly together. Scholars, librarians and inquisitive music students will find this a compelling read.
