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In Defence of J. A. Scheibe against J. S. Bach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1974

George J. Buelow
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Extract

The name of Johann Adolph Scheibe is at once famous and obscure in music history: famous perhaps for the wrong reasons, and largely as the result of his criticism of Johann Sebastian Bach, which can be found retold and frequently misinterpreted in almost all Bach biographies; obscure because little attention has been focused on his many significant contributions to the historical study of musical thought in the early eighteenth century. In the more than two hundred years since the 29-year-old musician and writer published his rather mild words of aesthetic disagreement with Bach's musical style, Scheibe's opinions regarding Bach have never received an adequate defence. Bach had been insulted, and his Leipzig friends as well as Scheibe's enemies declared him guilty of a heinous crime: he had dared to suggest that the master's music was not without faults. Scheibe has been assumed guilty ever since. He tried to counteract each critical attack aimed at him by Bach's circle of defenders with vigorous logic and at times unfortunate youthful sarcasm, but the war of words which developed never resolved itself positively one way or the other in his lifetime. Rather it faded away after a few years, only to be resurrected by Bach scholarship in the nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 101 , 1974 , pp. 85 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Biographical data from the author's article in the forthcoming sixth edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. See also the entry for Scheibe by C. Bergner and H. F. Hoke in MGG, xi. 1616–20.Google Scholar

2 For example in Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, The Bach Reader, rev. edn., New York, 1966, p. 237.Google Scholar

3 While a discussion of Gottsched's contributions to German literature and philosophy lies beyond the scope of this study, it must be stressed that Gottsched was a prime force in shaping Scheibe's concept of the arts within the framework of a philosophical system. Concerning specifically the influence of Johann Christian Wolffs metaphysics on Gottsched, Scheibe, and Mizler, see Birke, Joachim, Christian Wolffs Metaphysik und die zeitgen össische Literatur- and Musiktheorie: Gottsched, Scheibe, Mizler, Berlin, 1966.Google Scholar

4 See Scheibe's autobiographical entry in Johann Mattheson's Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte (Hamburg, 1740), ed. M. Schneider, Berlin, 1910 (reprinted 1969), p. 313.Google Scholar

5 The only important recent research concerning Scheibe is found in two American dissertations: G. J. Skapski, The Recitative in Johann Adolph Scheibe's Literary and Musical Work, University of Texas, 1963; and I. Willheim, Johann Adolph Scheibe: German Musical Thought in Transition, University of Illinois, 1963. The latter also examines the entire Scheibe-Bach controversy.Google Scholar

6 By Peter Benary as an appendix to his Die deutsche Kompositionslehre des 18. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1961.Google Scholar

7 It was only when Scheibe reprinted Birnbaum's second response (Vertheidigung seiner unparteyischen Anmerkungen) in the revised edition of the Critischer Musikus (Leipzig, 1747 (reprinted Hildesheim & New York/Wiesbaden, 1970), p. 946 n. 61) that he finally admitted authorship: ‘Wenn man mich denn endlich mit Gewalt zum Verfasser des Briefs machen will: so sey es denn also’.Google Scholar

8 Concerning Bach's dispute with Johann August Ernesti and members of the Leipzig Town Council, see Terry, CharlesSanford, Bach, A Biography, London, 1928, pp. 207–42.Google Scholar

9 See Geiringer, Karl, Johann Sebastian Bach: the Culmination of an Era, New York, 1966, pp. 85–88.Google Scholar

10 This article will quote from the English translation found in The Bach Reader, pp. 239–47.Google Scholar

11 The complex history of the controversy includes the following pertinent material in addition to Scheibe's initial letter published in the Critischer Musikus, p. 62: the first response by J. A. Birnbaum already cited, published in Leipzig, 1738, reprinted in Lorenz Mizler, Neu eröffnete musikalische Bibliothek, I/iv (Leipzig, 1738; reprinted Hilversum, 1966), 62–73, and also in Scheibe's Critischer Musikus (Leipzig, 1745), pp. 883–58. This was followed by Scheibe's counterattack: Beantwortung der unparteyischen Anmerkungen über eine bedenkliche Stelle in dem sechsten Stücke des critischen Musikus (Hamburg, 1738), reprinted in the Critischer Musikus, pp. 859–98. Birnbaum again responded in a pamphlet entitled Vertheidigung seiner unparteyischen Anmerkungen … (Leipzig, 1739), reprinted in the Critischer Musikus, pp. 899–1031. When Scheibe reprinted the Birnbaum essays he managed to have the last word by liberally inserting footnote materials. The final publication concerning the controversy was by Christoph G. Schröter, Die Nothwendigkeit da Mathematik bey gründluher Erlernung der musikalischen Composition, dem hier mil nachdrücklicher Bescheidenheit beurtheilten critischen Musico, which appeared in Mizler, Musikalische Bibliothek, III/i (Leipzig, 1752), 201–376. These various documents are also reprinted in Fremdschriftliche und gedruckte Dokumente zur Lebensgeschichte J. S. Backs, ed. Werner Neumann and Hans-Joachim Schulze (Bach Dokumente, ii), Kassel, 1969, Nos. 400, 409, 413, 417, 441, 442, 533, 552.Google Scholar

12 Philipp Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach, trans. Clara Bell and J. A. Fuller-Maitland, London, 1883–5 (reprinted 1951), iii. 252–3.Google Scholar

13 Georg von Dadelsen, Beiträge zur Chronologie der Warke Joham Sebastian Bachs, Trossingen, 1958, p. 131.Google Scholar

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15 Critischer Musikus, 2nd rev. edn., Leipzig, 1745, p. 62. English translation adapted from The Bach Reader, p. 238.Google Scholar

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17 Ibid., p. 241.Google Scholar

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21 The Bach Reader, p. 241.Google Scholar

22 Ibid.Google Scholar

23 Critischer Musikus, p. 875.Google Scholar

24 The Bach Reader, p. 242.Google Scholar

25 Critischer Musikus, p. 875.Google Scholar

26 The Bach Reader, p. 242.Google Scholar

27 Critischer Musikus, p. 878.Google Scholar

28 The Bach Reader, p. 242.Google Scholar

29 Spitta, J. S. Bach, iii. 252.Google Scholar

30 Terry, Bach, p. 238.Google Scholar

31 Geiringer, Bach, p. 88.Google Scholar

32 In fact, the author has found this particular passage translated correctly only in The Bach Reader, p. 238.Google Scholar

33 See The Bach Reader, pp. 98–104, 119–24, 129–31, 137–49, 152–8, for documents relevant to Bach's difficulties with the Town Council and Rector.Google Scholar

34 The Bach Reader, p. 243.Google Scholar

35 Mattheson, J., Der vollkommene Capellmeister, Hamburg, 1739 (reprinted 1954), p. 71.Google Scholar

36 The Bach Reader, p. 244.Google Scholar

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38 Manfred F. Bukofeer, Music in the Baroque Era, New York, 1947, p. 15.Google Scholar

39 The Back Reader, p. 246.Google Scholar

40 See Wolff, Christoph, Der Stile Antico in der Musik Johann Sebastian Bachs, Wiesbaden, 1968.Google Scholar

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45 Further regarding this question of the changing role of the composer as well as an important discussion of Scheibe as a theorist who demonstrates the beginning of a new musical period in his works, see Dammann, Rolf, Da Musikbegriff im deutschen Barock, Cologne, 1967, pp. 477–503.Google Scholar

46 Critischer Musikus, p. 769–70.Google Scholar

47 Ibid., p. 53.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., p. 41.Google Scholar