BACH at 50: Some Anniversary Thoughts Steven E. Plank (bio) BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute made a modest first appearance in the winter of 1970, although as the founding editor, Elinore L. Barber, expressed at the time, “we of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute and Library find ourselves in a chronic state of feverish excitement.”1 In that first issue, readers would find an enthusiastic editorial asserting Bach’s relevance in the “year of the moon”—Barber arrived at Baldwin-Wallace College in 1969, the time of the Apollo 11 moon landing—a previously unpublished paper and analytical charts by Barber’s mentor, Hans T. David, and a descriptive account of some of the holdings in the Riemenschneider Bach Institute (RBI).2 A number of things in the first issue foreshadow prominent elements in the years ahead, such as the promotion of the cause of Bach, a mindfulness of elder voices in the field, the reprising of earlier writings, the promotion of the RBI, and source studies. If these are familiar throughout the half century, a look at the span of the journal’s first fifty years nevertheless reveals significant change along the way, as well. ________ The many changes derive from different influences. There are the natural growing pains and growth spurts, of course, but more prominent are the shaping hands of different editors—Elinore L. Barber (1970–1998), Melvin Unger (1999–2015), Mary Greer (2015–2017), and Christina Fuhrmann (2018–present)—the emerging of new areas of interest, both in Bach studies and more broadly in the field of musicology itself, and the forging of new relationships, [End Page 177] most notably the quondam alliance with the American Bach Society that began in 1989. The world of 1970 was far different than our own. Barber’s reference to the “year of the moon” gives us a convenient temporal landmark, but other things allow us to measure the difference, as well. For example, the journal appeared ten years before the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and its striking anglicization of music scholarship, eleven years before Joshua Rifkin’s landmark Boston performance of the Mass in B Minor with one-to-apart vocal ensemble, fourteen years before the rediscovery of the Neumeister Collection, fifteen years before Joseph Kerman’s pivotal challenge to the field of musicology in Contemplating Music, fifteen years before the spate of now-standard Bach studies arising in the commemorative zeal of the tercentenary of Bach’s birth, and thirty years before the redefining work of Christoph Wolff’s Bach: The Learned Musician.3 An American student working on Bach in 1970 would likely still be relying on volumes like Philipp Spitta’s Johann Sebastian Bach: His Work and Influence on the Music of Germany, 1685–1750 in a well-worn copy of the Dover 1951 edition.4 That same student’s knowledge of the sound of Bach’s music would most likely derive from the recordings of conductors like Fritz Werner, Helmuth Rilling, Wilhelm Ehmann, and Karl Richter, and ensembles like the Gächinger Kantorei, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Kantorei Barmen-Gemarke, Westfälische Kantorei, and Munich Bach Choir, a very different sound world from that of the period ensembles pervasive in Bach recording today.5 Who in 1970 might have envisioned the vast resources of the online database Bach Digital, the astounding array of choice in period Bach performance today, or even two [End Page 178] volumes of BACH devoted to “Bach on Screen”?6 And with “Bach on Screen,” we have at hand a dramatic way of illustrating the journal’s responsiveness to changes in the field of musicology and its commitment to keeping the study of Bach vibrant and current. Part of the vibrancy derives from a roster of contributors that includes venerated scholars of the mid-twentieth century. Georg von Dadelsen, Hans T. David, Alfred Dürr, Gerhard Herz, Hans Lenneberg, Alfred Mann, and Paul A. Pisk are all represented; some of these were émigré scholars who became founding pillars of American musicology. With subsequent generations, the roster continues to comprise major figures of Bach scholarship, including John Butt, Howard H. Cox, Stephen A. Crist...
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