On-line Book Review

TERI NOEL TOWE

FRONT COVER

OVERVIEW

Dimension: 24.1 x 16.5 x 2.4 cm

TITLE	Bach Studies from Dublin: Selected papers presented at the ninth biennial conference on Baroque music, held at Trinity College Dublin from 12th to 16th July 2000. Edited by Anne Leahy and Yo Tomita (=Irish Musical Studies, 8)
PUBL. DETAILS	Four Courts Press (Dublin, 2004); 270 pp; €55/£55/$55 hard back
ISBN	1-85182-857-5
TO ORDER	Four Courts Press Ltd, 7 Malpas St, Dublin 8, Ireland.
SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION	The volume contains 14 papers presented at the ninth biennial conference on Baroque music, held at Trinity College Dublin in July 2000.
WORKS COVERED	A broad range of works by Bach.
READERSHIP	Scholars and students studying Bach the man, his works and his influence.
SUMMARY	the scholarly equivalents of the plats du jour at three star and four star restaurants!

he publications that consistently supply serendipitous delight and fortuitous knowledge are the festschrifts honoring distinguished musicologists and the anthologies of papers presented at musicological conferences and colloquia. The essays found in anthologies of this type truly are the scholarly equivalents of the plats du jour at three star and four star restaurants, and they provide a combination of delight and disappointment that, to me at least, is identical to the combination of delight and disappointment that a leisurely meal in a fine but unfamiliar restaurant should be and often is.

Festschrifts and anthologies of conference papers are sumptuous banquets of scholarship, but such collections also inevitably call to mind the wickedly double-edged observation that Napoleon Bonaparte is reputed to have made about the letters of Mme. de Sevigné: One loves to sample, but one would be a fool to eat the entire box.

A selection of papers about various aspects of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, its performance, and its reception history, “presented at the ninth biennial conference on Baroque music held at Trinity College Dublin, 12^th to 16^th July 2000,” Irish Musical Studies 8 – Bach Studies from Dublin documents a conference that brought together, two weeks before the 250^th anniversary of the death of composer, a kaleidoscopic international conglomeration of scholars of the first rank. From the many worthy papers presented at the conference a Bachian total of 14 were selected for publication. Three of the 14 are the conference keynote addresses, which were given by John Butt, Robin A. Leaver, and Hans Joachim Schulze; the remaining eleven papers were “all nominated on scholarly merit by the chair of their sessions.”

Anne Leahy and Yo Tomita, who edited the anthology, divided the 14 papers to into five categories: Historical Studies (3), Compositional Process (3), Theology (1), Performance Practice (4), and Reception (3). Some papers will be of greater interest to one person than they will be to another, of course, and in that regard I am no different from any other reader. All of the papers are of significant interest, but, bearing in mind Bonaparte’s admonition, I will report specifically only on those articles in Bach Studies from Dublin that are the most nourishing for me, a music and art historian whose chosen instrument is sound recording reproduction equipment. In order of appearance within the volume, these are:

“a kaleidoscopic international conglomeration of scholars of the first rank”

Janice B. Stockigt’s The royal Polish and electoral Saxon court and state calendars, 1728 – 1750: A riveting explanation not only of how these calendaria will be of immense value to scholars seeking to determine what occasions or kinds of services particularly types of music and specific compositions were intended but also of why these official agenda do not tell the whole story and why they must be supplemented by data from other contemporary sources.
Gregory Butler’s The prelude to the third English suite BWV 808: an allegro concerto movement in ritornello form: A perspicacious analysis that succeeds admirably in refining the probable date of composition and in demonstrating that this wonderful movement is “rather more complex than it appears.”
Don O. Franklin’s Composing in time: Bach’s temporal design for the Goldberg Variations: A scholarly and analytical tour de force that demonstrates yet again the author’s total command of both the music and the notational practices and conventions that Bach and his contemporaries knew as “lingua franca.” The implications of Prof. Franklin’s precise, thorough analysis and his clear presentation of the finely honed and carefully crafted internal temporal relationships within the Goldberg Variations are inestimable and far reaching. I am eager to hear a performance of the Goldbergs in which the results of Prof. Franklin’s invaluable research and analysis are put into practice. Discovering how such a performance, one that would honor scrupulously Bach’s intended internal and inter-variational relationships, compares to those of such commanding interpreters of the Goldbergs as Wanda Landowska, Rosalyn Tureck, James Friskin, Ralph Kirkpatrick, and Glenn Gould is a musical, emotional, and intellectual adventure that I hope soon to experience.
Robin A. Leaver’s Eschatology, theology and music: Death and beyond in Bach’s vocal music: A description and clarification of Bach’s attitudes towards death and dying with empathy and insight. Prof. Leaver’s unsurpassed command of the liturgical and doctrinal background for Bach’s sacred music make it possible for him to explain succinctly how Bach’s sacred compositions reflect both his own religious commitment and knowledge of the liturgy and theology of the milieu in which he flourished and the strictures of the day to day, week to week requirements of the minutely detailed liturgical calendars in effect in Lutheran Central Germany during the first half of the 18^th century.
Yo Tomita’s Bach’s Credo in England: an early history: A fascinating paper that, as contributions to anthologies of this kind so often are, is an interim report on an investigation in progress, the first step in what surely will be an even more intriguing article after it has been revised and expanded, as I know that it ultimately will be. I had the honor and pleasure of being able to make a small contribution to Prof. Tomita’s essay, and since its publication I have participated in additional investigations that indicate that the roles that both Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Charles Burney played in fostering interest and appreciation of the B Minor Mass in England was much greater than previously contemplated. Take scholarly delight in this installment while waiting eagerly for the revision that surely will follow.
Barra Boydell’s ‘This most crabbed of all earthly music’: the performance and reception of Bach’s vocal music in Dublin in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: A thorough and detailed account of the difficult and uphill battle that the proponents of Bach’s vocal works in Ireland had to fight, a battle significantly more difficult than the one Bach’s advocates had to fight in England.
Hans-Joachim Schulze’s Bach at the turn of the twenty-first century: An elegant and perceptive assessment of the changing, and at once conflicting and congruent attitudes towards Bach and music with which Bach aficionados, whether professionals or dilettantes, scholars or performers, have to contend as the forces of Bach reception history refine and revise our knowledge of an enigmatic and private man who surely would be flabbergasted at, and perhaps annoyed by, the microscopic attention with which he is investigated, scrutinized, and analyzed more than 250 years after his death.

Contents

CONTRIBUTORS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

I HISTORICAL STUDIES

1 Ido Abravaya, 'The Baroque upbeat: outline of its typology and evolution'

2 Harry White, 'Johann Joseph Fux and the question of Einbau technique'

3 Janice B. Stockigt, 'The royal Polish and electoral Saxon court and state calendars, 1728–50'

II COMPOSITIONAL PROCESS

4 Rebecca Kan, 'Vivaldi, Bach and their concerto slow movements'

5 Gregory Butler, 'The prelude to the third English Suite BWV 808: an allegro concerto movement in ritornello form'

6 Don O. Franklin, 'Composing in time: Bach’s temporal design for the Goldberg Variations'

III THEOLOGY

7 Robin A. Leaver, 'Eschatology, theology and music: death and beyond in Bach’s vocal music'

IV PERFORMANCE PRACTICE

8 J. Drew Stephen, 'Bach’s horn parts: alternatives to nodal venting and hand stopping'

9 Martin Elste, 'Bach in North America during the shellac era (1900–50): early sound documents of art and commerce'

10 Dorottya Fabian, 'Bach performances during the late twentieth century: practice, scholarship, and reception'

11 John Butt, 'Bach in the twenty-first century: re-evaluating him from the perspective of performance'

V RECEPTION

12 Yo Tomita, 'Bach’s Credo in England: an early history'

13 Barra Boydell, '“This most crabbed of all earthly music”: the performance and reception of Bach’s vocal music in Dublin in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries'

14 Hans-Joachim Schulze, 'Bach at the turn of the twenty-first century'

INDEX OF WORKS

GENERAL INDEX

The remaining papers in Irish Musical Studies 8 – Bach Studies from Dublin are equally deserving of the reader’s attention. These seven essays are:

Ido Abravaya’s The Baroque upbeat: outline of its typology and evolution
Harry White’s Johann Joseph Fux and the question of Einbau technique
Rebecca Kan’s Vivaldi, Bach and their concerto slow movements
J. Drew Stephen’s Bach’s horn parts: alternatives to nodal venting and hand stopping
Martin Elste’s Bach in North America during the shellac era (1900—50): early sound documents of art and commerce
Dorottya Fabian’s Bach performance practice in the twentieth century: recordings, reviews and reception
John Butt’s Bach in the twenty-first century: re-evaluating him from the perspective of performance

There are, of course, the inevitable blemishes. The anthology would have benefited from some editing and proofreading by someone not directly involved in the process of assembling the anthology. There are typographical errors that of the kind that seem to jump off the page into the reader’s lap. These are precisely the kind of mistakes that are invisible to those who are absorbed in the white heat of creation and meeting imposed deadlines and that are spotted instantly by a reader previously unfamiliar with the material. But I have to say that these complaints seem almost churlish in view of the value and significance of the 14 papers that comprise Irish Musical Studies 8 – Bach Studies from Dublin.

As those who collect books on music and those who have found themselves faced by the challenge of finding a festschrift or a conference report that contains an article of interest know all to well, anthologies like Irish Musical Studies 8 – Bach Studies from Dublin rarely circulate anywhere near as widely as they should and rarely stay in print anywhere near as long as they should. That sad reality is yet another reason why those who are sincerely interested in Bach and in Bach reception history should not hesitate for a nano-second and add a copy of Irish Musical Studies 8 – Bach Studies from Dublin to their libraries at once.

Published on line on 15 April 2005