On-line Book Review YO TOMITA

FRONT COVER

OVERVIEW

outer box: page size 31 x 23.6 cm

TITLE Ernst Wacker, Bach-Gedenkjahr 2000. Johann Sebastian Bach. Das Wohltemperierte Clavier 1722. Besonderm ZeitVertreib aufgesetzt. Die Zeit-Ortung des Werkes aus der Musica Poetica und Tonometrie des Komponisten neu erschlossen und der geistlichen hausmusik zurückgegeben. PUBL. DETAILS Verlag Graffiti. Werner Fuchs & Ralf Henning, Kaiserstraße 80, 77933 Lahr, Germany. ISBN n/a TO ORDER Verlag Graffiti. Werner Fuchs & Ralf Henning, Kaiserstraße 80, 77933 Lahr, Germany. Email: bach@graffiti-digital.de or FAX: +49 (0)7821-43216 SUMMARY DESCRIPTION Edition and commentary of Well-Tempered Clavier, book 1, from theological perspective WORKS COVERED BWV 846-869 (still incomplete at the time of review) READERSHIP Bach Enthusiasts, esp. numerology and WTC I RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION Highly speculative theological interpretation of Bach's music.

ntitled ‘Bach Memorial Year 2000’, this publication looks totally unique. Physically, it consists of eight prelude-fugue pairs (nos. 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 12 of the Well-Tempered Clavier I), each movement being contained in separate leaves and provided in a card box. As it currently stands, the product is still incomplete, as only two of six instalments are available at the time of writing this review.

The music is a colour photo-reproduction of the Henle Edition (1997), heavily annotated by the editor, Ernst Wacker, using several colour-pens. The last page of each gathering contains the commentary of the accompanying movement (and not the movement itself, so that you can look at the music and the commentary together side by side), where the author expounds the theological significance he believe Bach intended to convey in his composition. Wacker’s fundamental concept and approach have close resemblence to Harry Hahn (Symbol und Glaube im I.Teil des Wohltemperierten Klaviers von Joh. Seb. Bach, Wiesbaden, 1973). Their difference is nevertheless clear: Wacker constructs his theory more coherently by claiming that each prelude-pair of WTC I is associated with the text of the Gospel and Epistle read during the first 24 Sundays after Trinity. He also provides the associated chorale melody (shown in the following table as C.F. [cantus firmus]) and sacred cantatas.

Sample pages (Fugue no.3 in C# major, bars 26-55

But is Wacker’s hypothesis credible? I do not think so. Besides the fact that the great majority of cantatas he selected for his interpretation (see the table above) are composed after 1722 (and thus cannot be considered as reliable evidence for Bach’s awareness of them at the time of composing WTC I), the evidence he presented is neither sufficient nor coherent. He relies very heavily on number alphabet (A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.) and the counting the number of notes, bars and ornaments (!), which was very popular in 1970s but since largely rejected. Here are some of his main points of argument:

• Bar 14 is always marked as ‘B-A-C-H’
• Bar 18 is sometimes marked as ‘J.J. = Jesu Juva!’
• Bar 29 is marked as ‘S.D.G.’ or ‘J.S.B.’
• Bar 43 is marked as ‘CREDO’
• Bar 70 is often marked ‘JESUS’ and ‘JOH. SEB. BACH’