Blogs Are Abuzz for Anna Magdalena Bach - Did She Compose the Cello Suites?
Close-up of title page to the first volume of Singende Müse an der Pleisse, a collection of strophic songs published in Leipzig in 1736, by “Sperontes”, Johann Sigismund Scholze. JS and Anna Magdalena Bach may be the couple pictured.Martin Jarvis decided, as a 19-year-old violist, that the famed cello suites didn’t sound like J.S. Bach.
“Certainly in the first suite, the movements are short and very simple, in comparison with the first movement of the violin works. And I couldn’t understand why,” he said.
After years of forensic study, the conductor and professor at Darwin University finally discovered this alleged slam-dunk: a manuscript with the notation “Ecrite par Madame Bachen Son Epouse” which says “written by the wife of Bach” rather than “copied.”
We already knew of Anna Magdalena’s role as a copyist. Obviously neither that word, nor the recognizable handwriting of Anna Magdalena would cut it as proof given her known role as a copyist — but in news reports Dr. Jarvis mentions “18 reasons why they weren’t written by Bach.” (Specifics would be great.)
Close-up of title page to the first volume of Singende Müse an der Pleisse, a collection of strophic songs published in Leipzig in 1736, by “Sperontes”, Johann Sigismund Scholze. JS and Anna Magdalena Bach may be the couple pictured.Martin Jarvis decided, as a 19-year-old violist, that the famed cello suites didn’t sound like J.S. Bach.
“Certainly in the first suite, the movements are short and very simple, in comparison with the first movement of the violin works. And I couldn’t understand why,” he said.
After years of forensic study, the conductor and professor at Darwin University finally discovered this alleged slam-dunk: a manuscript with the notation “Ecrite par Madame Bachen Son Epouse” which says “written by the wife of Bach” rather than “copied.”
We already knew of Anna Magdalena’s role as a copyist. Obviously neither that word, nor the recognizable handwriting of Anna Magdalena would cut it as proof given her known role as a copyist — but in news reports Dr. Jarvis mentions “18 reasons why they weren’t written by Bach.” (Specifics would be great.)
There are several mentions on blogs, but none provides additional detail or (yet) a good discussion beyond what’s in the most detailed
. Over at the
, there’s a little more detail, with a mention of “a musicologist from Sweden who has used statistics to conclude the cello suites did not fit into Bach’s other works.”
did find a Belfast Bach Scholar who described the findings as “highly important.” Unfortunately they also have some skeptical quotes from academic Stephen Rose and cellists Julian Lloyd Webber and Steven Isserlis:
Stephen Rose, a lecturer in music at Royal Holloway, University of London, said: “It is plausible that she corrected, refined and revised many of his compositions, although there is not enough evidence to show that she single-handedly composed the Cello Suites.”
Cellists who have performed the Suites extensively remained skeptical. Julian Lloyd Webber insisted that the compositions were “stylistically totally Bach” and that “many composers had appalling handwriting, which meant better copies would naturally have been made, with the originals then discarded”.
Steven Isserlis, the cellist, who is working on a recording of the Suites, said: “We can’t say that it is definitely not true, in the same way that we can’t prove that Anne Hathaway did not write some of Shakespeare’s work, but I don’t believe this to be a serious theory.”
Given that Anna Magdalena did serve as a copyist, it’s hard to imagine how a physical analysis of the manuscripts could prove her authorship — unless you could somehow place an original manuscript in a time and place where it literally couldn’t have been the work of Johann Sebastian. What’s really needed is a consensus among at least some Bach experts who are in a position to address whether the compositional technique and style of the suites might indicate Anna Magdalena’s role. Dr. Jarvis will be speaking at the New Zealand Forensic Science Society — not a peer-reviewed musical conference. (I could be misinterpreting the term
forensic study
here. Given that the details aren’t obviously accessible on the web, it could be what historians call manuscript studies — or it could branch out into some kind of scientific analysis of the musical choices reflected in the scores. The point is that no specific finding reported in the media comes close to justifying Dr. Jarvis’s thesis.)
According to his faculty profile, Dr. Jarvis presented on this topic at the 2002 Musicological Society Conference - Newcastle. His publications include:
“Did J S Bach Write the Cello Suites? Part 2 The Musical Analysis” Stringendo Australia 2003
“Did Johann Sebastian Write the Cello Suites?” Musical Opinion, UK, 2002
“Did J S Bach Write the Cello Suites? Part 1” Stringendo, Australia, 2002
“The Significance of Anna Magdalena Bach”, Musical Opinion July/Aug 2005
I haven’t been involved in musical academe for many years and am not in a position to determine how peer-reviewed these publications are, so my apologies in advance if I’m wrong. But Musical Opinion, at least, is a classical music magazine. Stringendo seems to be the newsletter of the Australian Strings Association. Sadly, it’s not online so we can’t assess the 2003 musical analysis.
Perhaps the last doubt-casting word comes from Jarvis himself:
“It doesn’t sound musically mature. It sounds like an exercise, and you have to work incredibly hard to make it sound like a piece of music,” he said.
Yes, the suites are hard. I never really mastered the last three as an advanced (but not performing-career-bound) college-level cellist. And while the first three lie beautifully under the fingers in the congenial keys of G major, D minor and C major, it’s challenging to do them justice.
But the reasons have nothing to do with musical flaws. The cellist plays alone and must manage the pacing and large-scale momentum independently. Pianists are accustomed to this, but the unaccompanied cello repertoire is quite small — and many student cellists face this challenge in these pieces alone. An even bigger challenge is bringing out the contrapuntal underpinnings of the music while playing a single line. My teachers spent countless hours explaining how and why to “bring out the base line” etc. and only after learning music theory did I truly understand.
Enjoy these free YouTube performances and decide for yourself. And a hat-tip to Dan Perry for bringing this story to my attention.
Steinway Buys ArkivMusic
Steinway acquires ArkivMusic for $4.5 million.
ArkivMusic is certainly the “little” store that could… coming fairly close to offering everything classical that’s buyable on CD. With opera DVDs galore and every classical CD in print (and many out of print through their on-demand ArkivCD program), they are the “Amazon killer” for the classical market. According to Steinway’s release, they will continue as a wholly owned subsidiary.
As a web producer I hope the cash brings improvements to their site search capability (why can’t I combine the various search parameters?). On the other hand, I hope they do nothing to compromise Arkiv’s ease of use compared to Amazon (littered as it is with business development opportunities).
In Praise of ALDaily.com
Arts & Letters Daily has been on our blogroll for awhile now and is always worth a visit for any elitist looking for a good read in the arts, humanities or social sciences. Several Holde Kunst posts and discussions have been kicked off by articles found there. (Yep, it’s so elitist that it’s a service of the Chronicle of Higher Ed.) I thought I’d spend a few minutes taking note of the classical music items currently gracing AL Daily. Among them are some topics I’d love to write about but don’t know when I’ll get the time.
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Arts & Letters Daily has been on our blogroll for awhile now and is always worth a visit for any elitist looking for a good read in the arts, humanities or social sciences. Several Holde Kunst posts and discussions have been kicked off by articles found there. (Yep, it’s so elitist that it’s a service of the Chronicle of Higher Ed.)
I thought I’d spend a few minutes taking note of the classical music items currently gracing AL Daily. Among them are some topics I’d love to write about but don’t know when I’ll get the time.
Alex Ross discusses the special form of March Madness that struck the Met’s star-crossed Tristan production. (Read our post here.)
Jonathan Yardley reviews and old book: Arthur Rubinstein’s My Young Years, an autobiography of the pianist’s first 30 years.
Tenor Ian Bostridge, in the Times Literary Supplement, reviews The Rest Is Noise with special attention to Alex Ross’s discussion of music under fascism.
Owen Hatherly reviews the Prokofiev diaries.
Hugh Wood, also in the TLS, reviews several books on Edward Elgar and discusses the changing critical reception of Elgar
Tim Black reviews Peter Gay’s book Modernism, in one of those reviews that’s itself an engaging read, clearly telling the reader what to expect while making his subject seem like a must-read:
As Gay makes clear in his opening chapter, ‘the manifestation of modernism’ ought to be treated as ‘a single historical epoch’. This, he says elsewhere, ‘dates roughly from Baudelaire and Flaubert to Beckett and beyond to Pop Art and other dangerous blessings’. What the artists, writers, composers and architects share is not only a ‘climate of thought, feeling and opinions’ but two principles in particular: ‘the lure of heresy that impelled their action as they confronted conventional sensibilities’ and a commitment to ‘principled self-scrutiny’.
With these two elements marshalling his interpretation of a vast array of cultural artefacts, Gay proceeds to present a narrative of modernism, tracing its history through periods of pugnacious self-confidence and impending defeat. Each artist, each grouping – be it Picasso, the disparagingly named Fauves, or the Hitler-worshipping, Nobel prize-winning Knut Hamsum – becomes a character, better still, a hero in Gay’s epic tale of modernist derring-do.
Muti Is New CSO Director
Newspapers reported Riccardo Muti as new CSO music director in a five yr. contract. I make the assumption tht they’ll be plenty of coverage on internet sites and message boards, etc. Personally, I’m bored stiff by accounts of musical politics, and am largely ignorant of the topic.
As for Muti as conductor? Well, his tenures at Philly and La Scala seem like a mixed bag to me. I’m hesitant to predict what’ll happen here, because when Barenboim began in Chicago, I thought his conducting was deeply problematical, and he evolved into a magnificent conductor right before my ears. Rumors of Muti not getting along with players? We heard this about Barenboim, as well. The conductor should be boss. He should tell the players what to do, and they darn well better try to do it. That’s the way it works…otherwise, you have chaos or mediocrity. There has been a prima donna syndrome affecting certain CSO players over the years, in my view…one of the CSO players once complained to me that Barenboim fired a player for making a wrong note, and was indignant about it. I say, right on! Look at the price on your ticket…a conductor is responsible to music, firstly, and to the patrons, secondly, just as a CEO is responsible to the shareholders, firstly, and anyone else secondly. Anything else is sentimentality.
Believe me, I want the CSO to be the greatest orchestra in the world, I live in Chicago. But I think the CSO needs to work to that goal, not just rely on its well-deserved high reputation. Look at the music, not in a mirror.