In 1947 Friedrich Smend published a study claiming that J. S. Bach used a natural-order alphabet (A = 1 to Z = 24) in his works. He demonstrated that Bach incorporated significant words into his music, and provided himself with a symbolic compositional theme. Here, Dr Tatlow investigates the plausibility of Smend's claims with new evidence, challenging Smend's conclusions.

The contributions to this Festschrift, honouring the distinguished Irish musicologist Harry White on his sixtieth birthday, have wide repercussions and span a broad timeframe. But for all its variety, this volume is built around two axes: on the one hand, attention is focussed on the history of music and literature in Ireland and the British Isles, and on the other, topics of the German and Austrian musical past. In both cases it reflects the particular interest of a scholar, whose playful, sometimes unconventional way of approaching his subject is so refreshing and time and again leads to innovative, surprising insights. It also reflects a scholar, who – for all the broadening of his perspectives that has taken place over the years – has always adhered to the strands of his scholarly preoccupations that have become dear to him: the music of the 'Austro-Italian Baroque', and Irish musical culture first and foremost. An international cast of authors announces the sustaining influence of Harry White's wide-ranging research. Professor Dr Thomas Hochradner Chair of the Department of Musicology University of Music and Dramatic Arts Mozarteum Salzburg

Wye Jamison Allanbrook’s The Secular Commedia is a stimulating and original rethinking of the music of the late eighteenth century. Hearing the symphonies and concertos of Haydn and Mozart with an ear tuned to operatic style, as their earliest listeners did, Allanbrook shows that this familiar music is built on a set of mimetic associations drawn from conventional modes of depicting character and emotion in opera buffa. Allanbrook mines a rich trove of writings by eighteenth-century philosophers and music theorists to show that vocal music was considered aesthetically superior to instrumental music and that listeners easily perceived the theatrical tropes that underpinned the style. Tracing Enlightenment notions of character and expression back to Greek and Latin writings about comedy and drama, she strips away preoccupations with symphonic form and teleology to reveal anew the kaleidoscopic variety and gestural vitality of the musical surface. In prose as graceful and nimble as the music she discusses, Allanbrook elucidates the idiom of this period for contemporary readers. With notes, musical examples, and a foreword by editors Mary Ann Smart and Richard Taruskin.

In this third edition, Boyd demonstrate how the circumstances of Bach's life helped to shape the music he wrote at various periods. We follow Bach as he travels from Arnstadt and Muhlhausen to Leipzig, providing insightful discussions of the great composer's organ and orchestral compositions.

Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach collects seventeen essays by leading Bach scholars. The authors each address in some way such questions of meaning in J. S. Bach’s vocal compositions—including his Passions, Masses, Magnificat, and cantatas—with particular attention to how such meaning arises out of the intentionality of Bach’s own compositional choices or (in Part IV in particular) how meaning is discovered, and created, through the reception of Bach’s vocal works. And the authors do not consider such compositional choices in a vacuum, but rather discuss Bach’s artistic intentions within the framework of broader cultural trends—social, historical, theological, musical, etc. Such questions of compositional choice and meaning frame the four primary approaches to Bach’s vocal music taken by the authors in this volume, as seen across the book’s four parts: Part I: How might the study of historical theology inform our understanding of Bach’s compositional choices in his music for the church (cantatas, Passions, masses)? Part II: How can we apply traditional analytical tools to understand better how Bach’s compositions were created and how they might have been heard by his contemporaries? Part III: What we can understand anew through the study of Bach’s self-borrowing (i.e., parody), which always changed the earlier meaning of a composition through changes in textual content, compositional characteristics, the work’s context within a larger composition, and often the performance context (from court to church, for example)? Part IV: What can the study of reception teach us about a work’s meaning(s) in Bach’s time, during the time of his immediate successors, and at various points since then (including our present)? The chapters in this volume thus reflect the breadth of current Bach research in its attention not only to source study and analysis, but also to meanings and contexts for understanding Bach’s compositions.

This book a offers a multitude of provocative new perspectives on one of the most iconic composers in the Western classical tradition. Its collective rethinking of some of our most cherished narratives and deeply held beliefs about Johann Sebastian Bach will allow readers to see the man in a new light and to hear his music with new ears.

This volume is a guide to the resources and materials of Bach scholarship, both for the non specialist wondering where to begin in the enormous literature on J. S. Bach, and for the Bach specialist looking for a convenient and up to date survey of the field. It describes the tools of Bach research and how to use them, and suggests how to get started in Bach research by describing the principal areas of research and citing the essential literature on each piece and topic. The authors emphasize the issues that have engaged Bach scholars for generations, focusing on particularly important writings; on recent literature; on overviews, collections of essays and handbooks; and on writings in English. Subjects covered include bibliographic tools of Bach research and sources of literature; Bach's family; Bach biographies; places Bach lived and worked; Bach's teaching; the liturgy; Bach source studies and the transmission of his music; repertory and editions; genres and individual vocal and instrumental works; performance practice; the reception and analysis of Bach's music; and many others. The book also offers explanations of important and potentially confusing topics in Bach research, such as the organization of the annual cantata cycles, pitch standards, the history of the Berlin libraries, the structure of the critical commentary volumes in the Neue Bach Ausgabe, and so on. This book opens up the rich world of Bach scholarship to students, teachers, performers, and listeners.

In the eighteenth century the universal harmony of God's creation and the perfection of the unity (1:1) were philosophically, morally and devotionally significant. Ruth Tatlow employs theoretical evidence and practical demonstrations to explain how and why Bach used numbers in his published compositions.

Through a musical language involving symbols, numbers, and tonality, J.S. Bach created emotional dimension in the preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier. This book explores the use of that musical language, revealing how Bach used harmonic design and melodic and rhythmic motivic formulas to adhere to the basic doctrine of the Theory of Affects--i.e., that one mood will govern one piece. The book examines the significance of key and the emotional dimension Bach discerned in each tonality; the symbolism of melodic and rhythmic motifs; and the symbolism of numbers. It considers the thematic and rhythmic links between a prelude and its companion fugue in each book, and between a prelude and fugue in Book One and those in the same key in Book Two. It also includes reference to other instrumental works by Bach in the same key and melodic patterns.

The Cambridge Companion to Bach, first published in 1997, goes beyond a basic life-and-works study to provide a late twentieth-century perspective on J. S. Bach the man and composer. The book is divided into three parts. Part One is concerned with the historical context, the society, beliefs and the world-view of Bach's age. The second part discusses the music and Bach's compositional style, while Part Three considers Bach's influence and the performance and reception of his music through the succeeding generations. This Companion benefits from the insights and research of some of the most distinguished Bach scholars, and from it the reader will gain a notion of the diversity of current thought on this great composer.