Die Clavier-Büchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach = The Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach 1722 & 1725 by Johann Sebastian Bach

Abstract

Reviewed by: Die Clavier-Büchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach = The Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach 1722 & 1725 by Johann Sebastian Bach David Ledbetter Johann Sebastian Bach et al. Die Clavier-Büchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach = The Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach 1722 & 1725. Kritische Ausgabe = Critical Edition. Edited by Christoph Wolff. Leipzig: Edition Peters, 2019. [Contents, p. iii; preface in Ger., Eng., p. iv–viii; facsims., p. ix–xiii; score, p. 2–157; Critical Commentary in Ger., Eng., p. 159–170. ISMN 979-0-014-12600-1; pub. no. Edition Peters 11500. $90] The title Die Clavier-Büchlein may look odd but that is the novelty of this edition. Büchlein can be singular or plural and there are two 'little clavier books' (Staatsbbliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv (D-B), Mus.ms.Bach P 224 dated 1722, and P 225 dated 1725). Until Georg von Dadelsen's edition of both books for the Neue Bach-Ausgabe (NBA: Johann Sebastian Bach, Neue Ausgabe Sämtlicher Werk, Serie V, Klavier- und Lautenwerke, Band 4 [Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1957]) there had been no complete edition of the 1722 book and this seems to be the first one since then, although both manuscripts have been published in facsimile, and both may be viewed at Bach digital (https://www.bach-digital.de/content/index.xed) (accessed 20 April 2020). Bach and Anna Magdalena were married on 3 December 1721 and the 1722 book shows that she was soon drawn into Bach's project for a comprehensive system of musical training that had begun in 1720 with the Clavier-Büchlein for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. The 1722 book appears to be a continuation of that, addressing the keyboard suite, which Bach had not hitherto explored in an educational context. The main contents are the first five French Suites, BWV 812–816. Unlike the English Suites, the French Suites have a marked demonstrational character as a compendium of ways for treating the standard dances of the keyboard suite in the current mixed and galant styles. The educational character goes further in P 224 in what looks like a systematic series of exercises. A fragmentary Fantasia pro Organo, BWV 573 demonstrates how to construct phrases on standard scale sequences over a modulating scheme. Given Bach's technique of repeating sections with variations and developments, it should not be beyond a talented pupil to continue this. The definite final chord suggests that Bach did not intend continuing it himself. Next comes an Air, BWV 991 that appears to be a study for division variations. There is a plain version without bass, then a sixteenth-note variation, then the beginning of a thirty-secondnote variation featuring some galant Seufzer. This also relates to what Johann Joachim Quantz (1697–1773) called voluntary (willkürliche), i.e. florid, improvised ornaments. Again the incompleteness is unlikely to be because Bach [End Page 163] did not get around to finishing it, more likely it is intended for pupils to continue from given beginnings. Finally in this group is a chorale setting BWV 728 with the character of an exercise for Quantz's essential (wesentliche) ornaments: trills, mordents, and so on, usually written with special ornament signs. These three items are typical of Bach's integrated system where performance, improvisation, and composition are taught as a unity. P 224 survives only in a fragmentary state, roughly two-thirds of the book is missing (it was evidently already in this state by the 1780s). It is important for containing Bach's composing drafts of most of the first five French Suites, the only surviving autograph of the Suites (only Suites 1 and 4 approach being clean copies, and leaves are missing from Suites 1–3). All this explains the lack of editions of the 1722 book. An edition of the French Suites will have to take account of pupil copies in order to fill the substantial lacunae, and to reflect Bach's later thoughts. Fortunately Suites 1–4 are complete in a close copy made by a pupil, Bernhard Christian Kayser, who followed Bach from Cöthen to Leipzig in 1723 (D-B, Mus.ms.Bach...