Recataloguing Bach

Abstract

This is the ‘third enlarged and new edition’ of the thematic and systematic catalogue of J. S. Bach’s works (BWV3). This famous catalogue was first compiled and published by Wolfgang Schmieder (BWV1) in 1950, using the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe (1851–99) as its structural basis, for example, starting with the volume of sacred cantatas, nos.1–10. Thus what we have here is analogous to a carefully refurbished 19th-century building with many modern and innovative features inside. Between BWV1 and BWV3 existed two intermediate revisions: the second edition (BWV2) was a much revised and enlarged version, incorporating the scholarly accomplishment of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe (NBA) project (1954–2010), and came out in 1990 (shortly before Schmieder died). Eight years later came its ‘kleine Ausgabe’ (BWV2a), a compact volume in paperback, edited by Alfred Dürr and Yoshitake Kobayashi, who not only simplified and updated the contents but also made some radical reforms, particularly in the treatment of the works of doubtful authenticity. The volume presently under review is a long-awaited major update, designed to capture the result of scholarship since 1998, including the Bach-Repertorium project which, in the last decade, helped to identify numerous works whose authorship has been questioned, notably in the thematic catalogues of works of W. F. Bach (ed. Peter Wollny, Stuttgart 2012), J. C. F. Bach (ed. Ulrich Leisinger, Stuttgart 2013), C. P. E. Bach (ed. Wolfram Enßlin and Uwe Wolf, Stuttgart 2014) and J. E. Bach (ed. K. Rettinghaus, Stuttgart 2018).