Mitteilungsblatt (Information Leaflet)

Since the middle of the 1970s the necessity was felt for a possibility to convey interesting information to the members in shorter intervals than the annual meetings. That is how the Information Leaflet (Mitteilungsblatt) came into being. After the political turn-around in Germany it became possible to considerably enhance the Leaflet. Apart from a letter from the chairman, the following rubrics are regularly included: Personalia, From the Head Office, Minutes of the last General Meeting, Reports and Information of general interest. A literary quote with regard to Johann Sebastian Bach appears at the beginning of each issue of the Leaflet.

The Neue Bachgesellschaft is at present only capable of publishing a shortened version on the web site. Detailed information can be seen on the German web site.

The next General Meeting of members will take place in Wetzlar on Sunday 24.09.2011, 10.00 at the town hall near the cathetral.

 

 

FROM THE ACTIVITIES OF THE ADMINISTRATION AND OF THE BOARD

 

Did you know what Karl Barth (1886-1968) has written about Bach?

The “Mystery” of  the Son of God’s Passion is to be seen and understood ‘as the mystery revealed in Jesus’s resurrection’.  What can be said in this connection might, in passing, be understood as a contradiction of the interpretation of Jesus’s Passion, which has found its classical expression in J.S. Bach’s ‘St. Matthew Passion’.  It is not worth wasting one word regarding its purely musical greatness.  It is, however, one interpretation of Matthew 26-27.  As such it can only mislead its listeners.  It is a single, unremittingly downbeat, albeit wonderfully wavy ocean of clouds of sighs, plaints and accusations, of exclamations of horror, of regret, and of compassion: a mourning lament that finds its finale in a proper dirge (‘Peaceful stillness’), that neither conveys the Easter message nor is contained, and in which Jesus the Victor remains totally silent.  When will the Church realise, and then point out to the thousands upon thousands who, as it happens, are only acquainted with this version of the evangelical Passion, that it is only one abstraction, which is definitely not the Passion of Jesus Christ?’   

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Sec. IV, Vol. 2, Zurich, 1955, p. 280.

 

 

Letter from the President

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, honourable Members,

The Reformed theologian Karl Barth belongs to the most important Protestant representatives of his field in the 20th century, whereby he is possibly the most important one of that century.  Protestant theology still finds itself at the beginning of the 21st century before the task of coming to grips with his stimulating and thorough theological thought, which he laid out primarily in his incomplete ‘Church Dogmatics’, available in 13 large, linen-bound volumes (published between 1932 and 1967).  Barth was originally a Swiss village pastor and was called –though lacking a degree – to the Chair of Protestant Theology in Muenster in 1922.  He then served as Professor in Goettingen and Bonn, until the Nazis deprived him of his teaching position for refusal to swear his civil-service oath of allegiance to Hitler.  He immediately received a professorship in Basel, where he taught until 1962.  He achieved eminence primarily as the prominent theologian of the ‘Barmer Theological Declaration’ of 1934, whereby the ‘Professing Church’ of Germany clearly distanced itself from the false doctrines of the ‘German Christians’, and held fast to the Word of God as the only foundation of the Protestant Church and of the Protestant faith.

The excerpt concerning Bach’s St. Matthew Passion quoted from Barth’s ‘Church Dogmatics’ is marked by great respect for a supremely important work of the history of sacral music, but also by a fundamental misunderstanding of Bach’s attitude, shaped as it were by Luther’s theology and by the spirit of late Old Protestant piety and theology in which he was steeped.  Barth had neither real knowledge of the musical structure of the work –which is in no way written in an ‘almost unremitting minor key’! – nor of its libretto. The specific theological approach to this work was apparently never revealed to him;  indeed, it does not at all consist of a theological dialectic of cross and resurrection of Christ, whereby the mystery of God’s Son is only revealed with the resurrection, as he says.  For, in contrast to this fundamental Christological view of Barth’s, Bach sees –as Luther already did – the cross as the deepest expression of Christian divinity and faith, and not only when it can be understood and interpreted in juxtaposition to Jesus
Christ’s resurrection.  Bach has shown this not only in his Passions but also in the last rearrangement of the Credo in his B minor Mass. On the other hand, Barth’s thoughts reveal limits to his view of Bach’s work that are just as confessionally motivated, and that in his lifetime no one had unfortunately ever challenged productively and critically; they also reveal the odd tendency to expect ‘the Church’ (which one?) to correct – as he puts it - this ‘misleading view’ and ‘interpretation’ of Christ’s Passion.  Barth’s theology is being very much and continuously debated, precisely owing to its creative one-sidedness: so far, however, no one has yet to come around to agreeing with him with his professed criticism of Bach’s (and Luther’s) views. The astonishing agreement among the theologies of Martin Luther, of a Paul Gerhardt and of Johann Sebastian Bach is especially evident in the idea that nothing else will bring greater consolation to a human being facing his or her own mortality than the ‘fear and pain’ of the dying Jesus on the cross, as that wonderful chorale after Jesus’s death, ‘When I once and for all must depart’, brings to voice and ear.

This year’s Members’ Assembly and Committee Meetings also occurred in connection with the 85th Bach Festival of our Society in Leipzig this June.  The minutes of the Members’ Assembly are printed in this Newsletter (No. 66; p. 5 ff.).  A large number of Members found their way to the Auditorium building of the University.  For the first time, members of the New Bach Society of several decades’ standing were asked to come forward and be heard.  This produced interesting insights, on which we shall be reporting in the future.

This time an item of special importance on the agenda for the Administration and of the Board was the Johann-Sebastian-Bach Foundation.  We have now reached the point where we can proceed to its establishment.  To this end the committees required for the establishment have been staffed.  With regard to the financing that has been secured, we are all in agreement not to use the entire amount raised as the core funding, but rather to use only part of it in order to make it possible, within a defined framework, for the Foundation to start operating immediately. It was emphasised once again that the development of this Foundation serves the purpose of supporting our Society’s projects.
There is also agreement on a conservative approach to the generation of interest income, thus in no way resorting to risky investments.  The Foundation is further instructed to receive donations for its core capital but also for specific purposes as explicitly stated in solicitations.

In the meantime, the preparations for the next Bach Festival are well underway.  As you know, the failure to hold the prospective festival in Bamberg required considerable efforts to close this void.  We are very grateful to the city fathers of Wetzlar and, above all, to the Church Music Director there, Mr. Joachim Eichhorn, who made it possible for our 86th Bach Festival to be held there in September 2011.  At the Leipzig Members’ Assembly Mr. Eichhorn held an interesting and curiosity-provoking promotional speech.  You can also find the preliminary pamphlet to this event as an annex.  Detailed information will be made available in our next Newsletter (Winter 2010/11).  This Festival in Wetzlar will be followed in 2012 by the 87th Bach Festival in Görlitz.  There, too, equivalent preparations are also underway.  What has not been decided yet is the idea of a partial collaboration between this Festival in Görlitz and the important music festival Wratislavia Cantans in Wroclaw, Poland.  Such a collaboration is being sought in order to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 6th German Bach Festival of the New Bach Society in Wroclaw (Breslau) in June 1912, at which the famous harpsichordist Wanda Landowska (1879-1959) first appeared with her specially-built Pleyel harpsichord.  It is possible to get a feel for the then contemporary debate concerning historical instruments and their proper playing from Maria Hübner’s contribution in our Jubilee Volume: 100 Years of the New Bach Society, Contributions to its history, Leipzig, R. Eller, 2001, pp. 82-83.  A commemoration of this famous harpsichordist on the part of the New Bach Society would also be important because, after persecution by the Nazis, she fled first to Non-Occupied France and later to the United States, and her vast and precious holdings of instruments and scores were stolen, confiscated and dispersed.  In 2011 there will be a special exhibition dedicated to Wanda Landowska in the Bach House in Eisenach. 

I am glad to remind readers again that the organisers of the 84th Bach Festival of 2009 in Mühlhausen have published a well-illustrated booklet entitled ‘Retrospect’ (‘Rückblicke’).  In it are assembled addresses, welcoming speeches, sermons, and lectures that were held.  As far as I can remember, it is the first time that such a form of assessment of a Bach Festival has ever been undertaken.  The publishers, Superintendent Andreas Piontek, District Cantor Oliver Stechbart, and the Bach Festival Coordinator Rev. Carola Scherf deserve our heartfelt thanks.  This booklet is still available from the Business Office of our Society.

As a result of repeated complaints by Bach fans concerning changes in broadcast schedules and the reduction of broadcast cantatas by J.S. Bach by the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR; Central German Broadcasting), I have contacted the broadcaster in writing.  In response, I was invited to a discussion roundtable at the Audio Broadcasting Headoffice of the MDR, in which I did take part (cf. the report on pp. 34-35).  The result was not satisfactory in terms of our concerns, but it must be considered a first step in order to achieve an improvement in the longer term.

I very much hope that this Newsletter and my greetings reach you in the best of health, and I wish all of you a restful summer.

Yours truly,

Prof. Dr. Martin Petzold
President
  

 

From the Members’ Assembly
Held during the 85th Bach Festival of the NBG
Leipzig, June 19th 2010

 

Our thanks to Bach who always richly rewards us

‘110 years of the NBG: the lady is getting on in years – but she is still called ‘new’ , thus joked Prof. Petzold as he greeted the members assembled at Leipzig University.  After the intimate and familiar atmosphere in Muehlhausen the previous year, it is difficult to make out familiar faces at the great Leipzig Festival hurly-burly.  Many a member finds this regrettable; others enjoy the international touch which the NBG’s Bach Festival shows every 5 years when it coincides with Leipzig’s city Bach festival.  Petzold thanks the ‘organiser who has welcomed us with open arms, and the University which is hosting the members’ assembly’.  Instead of historical walls that are breathing centuries of history as in Muehlhausen or Salzburg, in Auditorium 1 we meet, however, with the – albeit renovated – charm of the 1970s.  ‘Everything looks better than it actually is’ announces Petzold to approving laughter, and he explains the tightness of the seat rows in terms of ‘the requirements of the short and slender students of 1972’.

It is now the turn of long-standing members who are to be honoured: they can rise, and temporarily escape their confinement.  Those who can claim between 50 and 60 years are called first.  Among those who are by now standing is also Dr. Peter Roy: a member for 60 years, he is called forward to address the audience.  Prof. Siegfried Pank, on the other hand, cannot recall the exact date of his membership: ‘Well, if you don’t know for certain, then you are not allowed to address us’, says the Chairman mercilessly.  Dr. Roy scrolls down his memories – representative of all those who have stood: he joined in the Bach Year of 1950, a mere year after Bach’s earthly remains had been transferred, under spectacular circumstances, from the Johannis Cemetery to the St. Thomas Church.  It was then that the great St. Thomas Cantor had received all sorts of media attention.  Roy notes the ‘immense gratitude of people who were not yet as culturally spoiled as they are today’.  Fourteen years old and a St. Thomas choir boy Roy was by then thoroughly familiar with Bach’s work, but ‘what opened up in the context of the 1950 Bach Year was a revelation.  And this has remained so to this day.  To allow Bach’s music to act over and over again as a rejuvenating experience, that was the contribution of many Bach festivals.  Bach’s music became my steady companion, next to my profession as a medical doctor.  I am glad to exercise my activity as Webmaster of the NBG’s trilingual Internet site for all those who are interested in the NBG’s work, but I do it mainly for Johann Sebastian Bach who always richly rewards us.’     

Dr. Roy must have spoken from the heart on behalf of many.  The recollections of the 96-year old Dr. Hanna Eggert from Kassel go back slightly more.  She has been associated  with Bach festivals since 1928: ‘At the time I was still a child, but in my parents’ house in Kassel guests and artists of the Bach Festival found lodging, as in those days one did not go to the hotel, and therefore I experienced at first hand the enthusiasm generated by the Bach Festival.  I also have wonderful memories of the Leipzig Bach Festival of 1935 under the direction of Karl Straube…’ Only two decades old but equally memorable is the church service programme from the legendary Munich Bach Festival of 1990 that Reimar Bluth has brought with him.  Planning for this festival had assumed a few visitors from the GDR; the unexpected fall of the Berlin Wall foisted on Munich the influx of more than 1000 guests from the East. And on the organisers the not insignificant problem of finding room and board at an affordable self-financing basis…

Prof. Broedel was able to report on an important project of the NBG: ‘I convey to you the gratitude of more than 100 participants in the Donetzk Bach Academy.  The enthusiasm and the commitment of the young people was tremendously impressive; we don’t have similar experiences in Germany.  The atmosphere was more akin to that of a pop concert…’ The East European Academies are the manifestations of a central concern of the NBG: ‘We go where even prospective musicians are still largely unfamiliar with Bach.  In the future we intend to reach new places, and for that we ask for your support.  This commitment is one that suits our Society very well.’

As always,  the Assembly ended with a preview of Bach Festivals to come: Church Music Director Joachim Eichhorn from Wetzlar made a glowing speech in order to arouse members’ interest in the 86th Bach Festival to be held in his home town from September 20th until 25th 2011 under the motto ‘Please linger…’ and dedicated to the theme of ‘Bach and Goethe’.  In a variation on last year’s Muehlhausen motto, Eichhorn
offered: ‘Goethe was here, Bach is coming, and you are on hand!’  The infectious enthusiasm of the Church Music Director promises a Wetzlar experience – after all, Goethe fell in immortal love there, and let his experience become world literature.  ‘The Sorrows of the Young Werther’ is recommended as preparatory reading for the next Bach Festival.

Sabine Naeher

 

 

Johann Trummer on his 70th birthday

Prof. Dr. Johann Trummer celebrated his 70th birthday on February 18th 2010.  On this occasion the members, the Board and the Administration of “his” New Bach Society wish him all the best, vigour and health for the years to come, as well as God’s ample blessings.

Johann Trummer has been a member of the New Bach Society ever since 1982, has served on its Board since 1986, and since 2002 has met his responsibilities as part of the Administration.  Until German reunification, he applied himself especially to the task of preserving our Society across divisive borders and to the safeguarding of its rights despite difficult times.  With his rich professional experience, which is coupled with economic expertise, he has remained to this day a valuable adviser.

Johann Trummer studied theology and musicology at the University of Graz, as well as organ with Franz Illenberger and harpsichord with Vera Schwarz at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts. From 1973 until 1991 he directed the Department of Church Music of the University of the Arts (Academy of Music) in Graz, from 1981 until 2000 he led the Institute of Performing Practice, and in 2000 he was elected to the Board of the Institute for Church Music and Organ.  In 1983 he assumed organisational and musical responsibility for the 58. Bach Festival of the NBG held in Graz.

He has performed in concerts in many European countries, in the USA, Canada, Israel, and in the Philippines.  His publishing activities include studies of liturgy and music, organ music and hymnology, of the history of Austrian sacral music, and of performing practice.

Recently, the opening of a series of concerts in connection with the inauguration of the new city parish organ of Leoben (Austria) took place under the motto ‘First-class sounds at the church organ’. According to Martin Oesterreicher, organist at the City Parish Church, ‘the crème de la crème of Styrian organists will play in Leoben’.  The series opened on 2nd May 2010 with an organ concert by Johan Trummer.

Franz O. Hansen

 

 

Christoph Wolff on his 70th birthday

Our long-standing Board member Prof. Dr. Christoph Wolff celebrated his 70th birthday on May 24th 2010.  On this occasion he received from the undersigned a personal congratulatory message from the New Bach Society, in which it says, among other items, ‘in any case, for me today it is a happy occasion to offer you my heartfelt good wishes, to thank you for having given so much and leading us to so many new ways to our Bach world, and to express my own gratitude for what are by now many years of steady companionship.  For the New Bach Society the years of your Board membership have meant much, particularly the long and fruitful publication of the Bach Yearbook together with Hans-Joachim Schulze.  Since your busy presence in Leipzig in connection with the Bach Archives we see each other much more often, which pleases me.  And, thanks to your ties to the parish of the St. Thomas Church, there is yet another and important connection that occasionally brings us together.  The good health and stamina you are able to bring to bear on the main spheres of your activities are worthy of all our admiration.’ 

Martin Petzold

 

 

Bach Medal for Philippe Herreweghe

The world-renowned Bach interpreter and Director of the Collegium Vocale Ghent Philippe Herreweghe received the Bach Medal of the City of Leipzig within the ambit of the Leipzig Bach Festival 2010 and of 85th Bach Festival of the New Bach Society. With this award he was honoured as an important exponent of our times of the historically-orientated performing practice.  We owe the renowned conductor not only pioneering performances and interpretations of J.S. Bach’s vocal works, but also his artistic commitment to the music of the 19th century, notably that of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and Bruckner.

The city of Leipzig awards the decoration, made of Meissen porcelain and bearing Bach’s portrait, to internationally outstanding interpreters  annually since 2003.  In past years the award has already honoured Frieder Bernius, Hermann Max, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Ton Koopman, Sir Eliot Gardiner, Helmuth Rilling and Gustav Leonhardt.

Jennifer Bröcher

 

 

The new Bach Museum in Leipzig

 

The enlarged and renovated Bach Museum in Leipzig opened during Bach’s 325th birthday weekend of 20-21 March 2010. The celebration started with a great open doors Saturday offering guided tours, concerts and a varied family program. On Sunday, following a ceremonial act in the Old Town Hall, the President of Germany, Horst Köhler, opened the new Bach Museum to the public. The traditional celebration of Bach’s birthday in St. Thomas Churchyard took place on the same day. The weekend concluded with the birthday concert in St. Thomas Church. Among the works performed was a hitherto unknown cantata by the young Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. This work was performed in 1734 in Leipzig in the presence of his father and was recently rediscovered by Dr. Peter Wollny in the Bach Archives.

The new Bach Museum presents Bach’s life and work in an interactive and multimedia exhibition combined with period exhibits. A highlight of the collection is the treasure room displaying Bach’s autographs and other rarities. The museum also includes a research laboratory where visitors can learn hands-on about the methods used in research on Bach. Another room displays baroque instruments with sound samples. Sound plays a central role in nearly every room, with Bach music to listen to, sound tubes, ambient music and audio guidance to accompany the exhibition. The composer’s life is portrayed in several rooms. One of the largest is dedicated to Bach’s activity in Leipzig. Further rooms present the organist and crown musician and tell about his family life and the Bachs as a musical family. A dark room with tempered glass showcases as well as a wide range of didactic activities render the museum even more complete. The baroque summer room with its exceptional acoustics will also be available for guided tours and concerts. A small pleasure garden, a listening room and a museum café are ideal settings for relaxation and refreshments.

Jennifer Bröcher

 

“Johann Sebastian Bach” Foundation

 

We have nearly made it: 10 years after the call to set up the Johann Sebastian Bach Foundation we can now announce that the Foundation is about to be constituted. First we must stress that thanks to your contributions we have managed to gather a start-up capital of approximately € 90 000. We wish to express our gratitude to all donors.

We have for some while been working on making the by-laws of the foundation administratively compliant. After several consultations with the Leipzig regional and revenue authorities we now have a licensable draft and in due time we shall be able to submit the founding request to the Foundations Board (Leipzig Regional Office – former Regional Council). We should be able to report about it on the occasion of the Bach Festival in Leipzig in June 2010 as well as in the coming Summer Leaflet.

Eberhard Lorenz

 

Address given in Muehlhausen on 9th August, 2009, at the unveiling of the new Bach Monument northwest of the Divi Blasii Church

There is no scarcity of monuments to Bach, beautiful and not so beautiful, important and less important. The earliest, the one in Leipzig from 1843, is owed to the initiative of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The earliest full-person portrayal is found in Eisenach; as early as 1850 the idea was conceived of erecting a statue to the city’s most famous son, and by 1884 it was done. It was mainly Wilhelmine or Imperial Germany that, in a way, immortalised itself with the help of quite a few monuments.

With it, the practice by representatives of the middle classes to erect monuments really only came into its own in the 19th century. In previous centuries it was primarily regents and other ruling personalities who did so, in turn emulating monuments to saints and Biblical figures that originated especially in the Middle Ages. Whereas cemeteries and burials have already known, since ancient times, such monuments for all who could afford them, it is only in recent times that we see an interest in monuments in public spaces.

A Bach monument in Muehlhausen should make a reference to the one significant year of Bach’s life in this city. It was the twentytwo-year-old who was in the process, through his Muehlhausen activities, of taking a significant step towards later decades. Mr. Messerschmidt, the sculptor, has intended to render the characteristics of this step visible; in addition, he sets Bach not on the plinth but rather next to it, whereby the idea of a self-
awareness acquired step by step is shown effectively. It is also possible, however, to see in the Bach standing next to the monument’s pedestal a hint to the idea of countering the exaltation of a person, as was often tried with monuments of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Bach himself has reflected on this question: almost 20 years after his Muehlhausen activities he set to music Jesus’s word (Luke 14: 11)

For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased;
And he that humbleth himself shall be exalted

in an impressive and ample choral movement. The fugue composed there (BWV 47, 1st movement) reveals that Bach used it to reflect on the weariness of working one’s way up, and also that he knew how painful and unbearable the downfall of denigration is that often follows success. Communal living should not be marked by one-sided arrogance, but rather by humility. Humility is notoriously a virtue that is difficult to acquire. Bach must have been aware of it since early youth. And his way with all early successes is quite different from that of a climber, as he knows nothing of false modesty. From early on he must have been a self-aware man with an ability for realistic self-assessment. As such he meets us today with this new monument, just as he met his own contemporaries.

It is also unmistakable that Muehlhausen for Bach was indeed still a time for learning, for experimenting and for adaptation. Five years earlier he had been a lackey in Weimar. He may have been allowed to participate in music, which was near and dear to him, but at the outset he had been engaged to wait on the ducal table. He may then have become aware of the relationship that a healthy self-aware person must practice in the face of humiliating gestures from superiors or rulers. It may be that “life is not easy at the bottom” as the proverb has it (in German, “learning years are no squire years”), but Bach appears to have been aware from an early age on that every person has dignity, independently of his or her place within a given social hierarchy. His Muehlhausen letter of resignation – first and earliest statement in Bach’s vitae in which he explains himself – speaks an unmistakable language in this respect. Much as Friedrich Nietzsche has maligned Bach by saying that Bach expressed himself “with the slave-like subservience of the artist before his audience”, it is precisely in this document produced there in Muehlhausen, and preserved to this day as precious evidence that he was able to express a wholesome measure of self-respect together will all due respect and appropriate humility. The monument captures this character trait very well, and I have the honour on behalf of the New Bach Society to congratulate the citizens and the city of Muehlhausen on this new acqusition, and to offer my highest respects to the initiators, sponsors, artists as well as to the bronze casting works.

Prof. Dr. Martin Petzoldt
President of the NBG

 

The young Bach on the first step to fame

 

On Sunday morning it was possible to choose right among all of six musically enriched church services. At 11 AM a very special event followed: the inauguration of a new Bach monument created for Muehlhausen. A private initiative led by the master optician Michael Janke, an avowed Bach fan und choir singer, had raised the necessary funds and thus had no difficulty in persuading the city fathers to accept the idea. ‘A monument to Johann Sebastian Bach in our city – finally this dream of Muehlhausen music enthusiasts has become a reality’, so Lord Mayor Doerbaum began his address on the jam-packed Lower Market Square at the Divi Blasii Church. Prof. Petzoldt praised the monument as a symbolic representation of ‘Bach’s humility, but which is no false modesty, as he was rather a self-aware man with a realistic sense of self-assessment’. The work of the Halle sculptor Klaus Friedrich Messerschmidt was, however, still shrouded, and the tension palpable as the artist himself rose to speak. A young Bach on his way up, on the first step to fame, that is what he had wanted to create. ‘The young genius had, of course, not thought of his own monument, but with a sculptor it is different: he always make two monuments, one for the person honoured, and one for himself. Whether or not he has worked well, only time can tell. And now we should have a look at how it has come out…’ A long, warm applause showed Messerschmidt that the Muehlhausen citizens and their Bach Festival guests were immediately enthusiastic over the image of the young Bach, standing next to his pedestal, still empty, though with one foot already set on the first step. Entire clusters of people stood for a long time around the new monument, deep in conversation, a monument that in a short time became a beloved photographic subject.

Sabine Naeher

 

 

‘Bach has been here before…’ and many, many came, on his traces, to explore the Bach city of Muehlhausen.

 

‘Bach has been here before! When are you coming? ‘ With this charming challenge flaunted by flyers, posters and by a publicity CD with organ music, the organising team supporting Pastor Carola Scherf and District Cantor Oliver Stechbart had evidently found the right tone in order to call attention to a Bach city that, next to Leipzig and Eisenach, has surely been somewhat of a wallflower. Many, many came in order to experience the 84th Bach Festival of the NBG in Thuringia’s Muehlhausen; most stayed on several days, some throughout the festival week. And all emphasised how warmly welcome they felt here. The cozy scale of the city no doubt contributed to this, but the happy sense of approval and participation with which the citizens of Muehlhausen surrounded the Bach Festival contributed substantially to the exceptional positive mood of the Festival goers.

Well-attended Members’ Assembly marked by keen participation

For the members of the Board, their ranks somewhat thinned out by the still prevailing holiday period, things got going as early as 9 AM on Saturday morning with a session designed to prepare the General Members’ Assembly of the NBG scheduled for 11 AM in the historical City Hall. The latter proved to be gratifyingly popular, for which Prof. Petzoldt expressed his thanks right away: ‘To be honest, I was somewhat concerned over whether or not many of you would find your way to Muehlhausen, which from a transport point of view is poorly connected. Since the extension of the Autobahn 38 the city is, to be sure, more accessible from the east, but from the west there are still hindrances…’ At the following homage to various long-standing members, who have been in attendance for as long as 60 years (!), it was fortunately evident that arrivals from the west were well represented. A voluntary gesture that can be recommended for emulation was provided by Dieter Strass from Stuttgart who, himself a member for 33 years, has sponsored the membership in the NBG of the 12-year old musical student Julian Ebert (who accompanied the Assembly on the piano) until his 18th birthday. There was also a direct connection to the first Bach Festival of the NBG held in Muehlhausen exactly 50 years ago: the chamber singer Adele Stolte, who at the time had made her debut at the Bach Festival under the direction of Heinz Sawade, was present in person at the Assembly, was given a warm welcome and was asked to say a few words. She felt it as something special, she said in response, to be again in this city after 5 decades, where her ‘life with Bach’ had its start and which unfolded, outwardly from the Leipzig St. Thomas Church, to a worldwide career; thus she is ‘to this day happy in my good fortune’.

 

A solo highlight of the 2009 Muehlhausen Bach Festival

 

Next to the musical highlights of the opening and closing weekends, the 84th
Bach Festival of the NBG in Muehlhausen offered its visitors in the intervening days a further, fascinating highlight. Thanks to the intervention and a private sponsoring by members of the NBG, the internationally famous violin virtuoso and Menuhin pupil Frédéric Pélassy (Paris) could be engaged for a solo concert on August 12th. In the historic City Hall with its outstanding acoustics, he played a carefully assembled programme of works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Sergey Prokofieff and Eugène Ysaye.
Although on the same day an excursion to Erfurt was scheduled, a gratifyingly large audience was in attendance. After Pélassy had finished his concert with the Partita no. 2 in D minor (BWV 1004) and its famous chaconne, the enthusiastic audience repaid him with never-ending applause and released him only after several encores.
In the Thueringer Allgemeine the musicologist Dr. Uta Ziegner wrote on the following day: ‘The modestly acting Frédéric Pélassy let Bach’s music hover in lofty regions, although all the tones were precise and firmly on earth. His measured superior skill has his own vitality firmly in hand, as for the 37-year old artist music is not ‘performing art’ but rather a part of life’.

Peter Roy

 

 

Mendelssohn Portal at the St. Thomas Church

‘For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin’

Hardly any other words are more pertinent than these words from Psalm 38 to describe the festivity on the occasion of the renaming of the West Portal to the St. Thomas Church as the Mendelssohn Portal. On 3rd February 2009, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and at the invitation of the St. Thomas community a large number of music lovers and admirers of the composers gathered in front of the St. Thomas Church together with representatives of public and clerical life. The musical accompaniment of the celebration was structured by the St. Thomas Choir under the direction of the St. Thomas Cantor Georg Christoph Biller around the two mottos for eight-voice choir from Opus 79 by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: ‘Rejoice, ye people on earth…’ and ‘Exalted, oh Lord, above all praise, above all glory…’

The St. Thomas Rector Christian Wolff emphasised in his address that Mendelssohn, after J.S. Bach, affected like no other the musical city of Leipzig. Nevertheless, soon after his death, his music was suppressed and defamed by the ever-growing nationalistic German cultural scene and by the anti-Semitic smear campaign conducted by Richard Wagner. The Church was unfortunately no exception in this. Rector Wolff recalled that, as early as 1889, the proposal to install a Mendelssohn window in the St. Thomas Church
failed as a result of anti-semitically motivated reservations. A century had to go by before this proposal began to take shape at the instigation of the ‘International Association of Friends of the St. Thomas Church’. Thanks to a generous donation by the former St. Thomas Choir member Dr. Wolfgang Jentzsch and by Senator Klaus Jentzsch, the proposal finally became reality in 1997, and the window was inaugurated on the 150th anniversary of the composer’s death.

After the Nazis in their anti-semitic racial madness had banned Mendelssohn’s works from German cultural life and destroyed the monument of the composer in front of the old Gewandhaus, it still took a considerable while after the end of their dictatorship before Felix Mendelssohn’s music reappeared in the consciousness of the public. It was, in particular, the Gewandhaus ‘Kapellmeister’ Kurt Masur who performed indefatigable pioneer work in this respect. And with the appointment of the St. Thomas Cantor Georg Christoph Biller, Mendelssohn’s vast spiritual work gained increasing stature in the repertoire of the St. Thomas Choir.

In his address, Christian Wolff tied the renaming of the portal to a recognition of Mendelssohn as an important musician of our church, but also to an acknowledgement of our history, in which he and his music received grave injustices on the part of the Church. From that, the duty is imparted on us ‘to nurture the religious music of Bach and Mendelssohn as a language that is understood beyond all boundaries, and that does not separate but rather that can build bridges of reconciliation’.

Pastor Wulff deserves our thanks that, at this hour of celebration, he spoke clear words in the name of the St. Thomas Church and its community, and that he conveyed an unmistakable rejection of all tendencies towards national or religious arrogance that are still with us. Then only a recognition of historical guilt creates the possibility to conceive of Mendelssohn’s spiritual works as a bridge between the Jewish and Christian faiths. May the renaming also foster the Mendelssohn renaissance which is also felt in Leipzig, as the recent performance of the oratory ‘Paulus’ in the St. Thomas Church by the University Choir under University Music Director David Timm bears impressive witness. Last but not least, the naming of the portal was held within sight of the newly-erected Mendelssohn Monument, and from all of us a belated expression of gratitude to the genial composer who, like no other in his time, committed himself to the rediscovery of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Peter Roy

 

Hans-Joachim Rotzsch, St. Thomas Cantor (ret.), on his 80th birthday

 

With hardly a public acknowledgement, on April 25th retired St. Thomas Cantor Hans-Joachim Rotzsch. former member of the NBG Board, completed the 80th year of his life.
As Johann Sebastian Bach’s 15th successor, he held this office from 1972 until 1991. Given this occasion, the St. Thomas Cantor Georg Christoph Biller and the St. Thomas Choir extended an invitation to a morning celebration in the Rehearsal Hall of the St. Thomas Resident Studentship, to which many former St. Thomas alumni, the St. Thomas Rector Christian Wolff as well as colleagues and friends of the celebrant responded. The festive event was framed musically by the St. Thomas Choir performing Max Reger’s motet ‘Thou highest light, eternal glow…’ and the fugue ‘Alles was Odem hat, lobe den Herrn’ from J.S. Bach’s motet ‘Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied’ (‘Sing unto the Lord a new song’, BWV 225).

St. Thomas Cantor Biller, once first prefect under Hans-Joachim Rotzsch, acknowledged in his eulogy the contributions Rotzsch has made to the St. Thomas Choir, and offered him, as a sign of his ties to his former place of work, an honorary subscription to the Leipzig Bach Festival of 2009. Memories from his term of office were recalled, as Rotzsch stood once again before the St. Thomas Chor members in the Rehearsal Hall, and where, in his own humorous fashion, he thanked all the guests and collaborators for the honours they had extended him. He quickly shifted the focus to outstanding and impressive events in the life of the Choir during his mandate as Cantor. Turning to the present, he praised, visibly moved, the sound of the Choir under its present Cantor Georg Christoph Biller, whom he had wished from a very early stage as a successor, and for whose appointment he had committed himself discreetly at the time.

It was undoubtedly a stroke of luck for the St. Thomas Choir that, in 1972, it acquired with Hans-Joachim Rotzsch a choir director with an unusual double talent. Much earlier Rotzsch, as an internationally renowned tenor soloist, had already set standards that only a few singers are granted to reach. His always vocally balanced, nonpathetic and yet sensitive interpretations of the evangelist part in Bach’s Passions will remain in thankful memory of those who have experienced them. Thanks to his vast experience as a singer he was able, within a short time, to translate his conceptions of sound into choral reality, and thus to lead the St. Thomas singers to exemplary top musical performances. Numerous sound recordings from this time bear eloquent witness to this.

At the same time, Rotzsch’s term of office resembled – as he himself puts it – a high-wire act, with on the one hand the need to preserve the traditional connections of the St. Thomas Choir to the St. Thomas Church, whilst simultaneously, as a servant of the City of Leipzig, trying to come to terms with an all-watching, dictatorial state apparatus. Given this hardly manageable balancing act, irritations, ambiguity and human hurts at the most varied levels were almost unavoidable, and their consequences in terms of social climate are still felt today.

The birthday celebration was followed the next day by a tribute by the University of Leipzig Choir which Hans-Joachim Rotzsch had led for many years before his appointment as St. Thomas Cantor, and whose current conductor, University Music Director David Timm, had also served as Prefect of the St. Thomas Choir under him.

The New Bach Society joins in the congratulations, and wishes the celebrant, who is still musically active outside his hometown, good health and a rewarding look back on the high points of his career as a singer and conductor of the University of Leipzig Choir and as St. Thomas Cantor, with God’s blessing, in the years to come.

Peter Roy

 

Bach Festival in Leipzig, 2010

 

From the 11th until the 20th of June 2010 the Leipzig Bach Festival of 2010 will take place in connection with the 85th Bach Festival of the NBG under the motto ‘Bach, Schumann and Brahms’. Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms represent, in the Bach Festival programme of 2010, two leading protagonists of Bach’s promotion in the 19th century. Schumann, whose birth is approaching its 200th anniversary, belongs to the initiators of the first Complete Bach Edition, and he himself had conceived of a Bach edition. In 1851, Schumann conducted the original Düsseldorf performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, and thereby became the pioneer for a work which was then seldom performed.

Brahms, who had long been supported by Schumann and who later on closely collaborated with the Bach biographer Philipp Spitta, has dealt with the creative work of the great St. Thomas Cantor in many ways: as a composer, pianist and conductor. One of the highlights of the 19th century Vienna Bach promotion is indeed the performance of the St. Matthew Passion on Good Friday, 1875, under his direction. In 1879, he was even offered the office of St. Thomas Cantor by the Leipzig City Council. Several of his works have been closely influenced by Bach, and provide a hint of the spiritual affinity shared by the two musicians. In 2010, you can look forward to: the St. Thomas Choir of Leipzig, Georg Christoph Biller, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, Andras Schiff, Collegium Vocale Ghent, Philippe Herreweghe, Harrison Birtwistle, the RIAS Kammerchor, the Chamber Orchestra of Basel, Thomas Zehtmair, Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, Jan Willem de Vriend, Robert Hill, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. The complete programme of the 2010 Bach Festival will be issued at the end of September.

October 1st 2009 is the start of the two-week, exclusive pre-sale period for tickets to the concerts of the 2010 Leipzig Bach Festival for members of the Association of the Friends of the Bach Archives as well as, given the Bach 2010 jubilee year, for members of the New Bach Society (NBG). Employees of Ticket Online will accept ticket orders against a password at the established telephone number 01805-56 20 30 (from outside Germany: +49-3871-2 11 41 91). The telephone call costs 14 cent per minute (variations possible in case of rates from abroad or from mobile/cell phones). Online bookings are also possible over a coded page of the Bach Archives website. From 21st September on the business office of the NBG will be glad to furnish the access codes.

Jennifer Bröcher

 

 

NEWS FROM THE BACH ARCHIVES IN LEIPZIG

 

Unknown Bach autographs discovered in Leipzig

 

Three Bach manuscripts, dating from 1743, 1745 and 1748, were recently discovered in the University archives by Dr. Andreas Glöckner of the Bach Archives, Leipzig, in the course of research on the musical practice at the St. Pauli University Church. The documents in question are certificates that J.S. Bach had issued in his own hand for three of his prefects. Since November the Bach Archives are an associated institute of the University of Leipzig.

 

Stephan Blaut and Michael Pacholke, musicologists at the University of Halle, have discovered an organ piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. Until now only the first five bars of the fantasia on the chorale “Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns haelt” (“Where God the Lord stands with us not”) were known. Wolfgang Schmieder cited it in the BWV under the number Annex II 71; however, he had no source available. Now a transcript by the St. Thomas cantor Wilhelm Rust from the year 1877 has been found in a manuscript bundle acquired by the University and Land Library of Halle (ULB). After analysis and investigation of Rust’s original and consultation with Prof. Hans-Joachim Schulze and Dr. Peter Wolny from the Bach Archives, Leipzig, the fantasia could be identified with certainty as a Bach work and dated to 1705-1710. The newly discovered organ chorale has now received the BWV number of 1128. The piece was first heard on June 10th at the Haendel Festival in Halle, and on June 13th in the St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, at the opening concert of the city’s Bach Festival.

 

 

Earliest J.S. Bach manuscripts found

The two earliest known musical manuscripts by Johann Sebastian Bach have been discovered by researchers from the Bach Archives, Leipzig, in the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. In the course of a systematic inspection of Middle German archives and libraries conducted since 2002 by the Bach Archives, Drs. Michael Maul and Peter Wollny came across two significant manuscripts from the time of Bach’s youth. The autographs in question are copies of organ works by the composers Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Adam Reinken, and were produced in 1700 or shortly before and must rank as the very earliest written evidence of Bach’s work. As a result they are important sources for the study of the composer’s musical evolution.

The manuscripts, the significance of which is only now fully realised, are actually copies of the chorale preludes or fantasies “Nun freut euch lieben Christen gmein” by Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) (BuxWV 210) and “An Wasserfluessen Babylon” by Johann Adam Reinken (1643-1722) that the barely 15-year old Latin pupil Bach produced in Ohrdruf and in Lueneburg. The original, dated Reinken copy contains the first documentary evidence that Bach was a pupil of the Lueneburg organist Georg Boehm (1661-1733), as indicated by the additional note “a Dom.Georg:Boehme/descriptum ao. 1700/Lunaburgi:”

Both autographs are written as organ tablatures using letter notation. Together with them, two additional handwritten chorale fantasies on “An Wasserfluessen Babylon” and on “Kyrie Gott Vater in Ewigkeit” have been handed down to us; they amount to two hitherto unknown works by Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706). These two organ tablatures are copies by Bach’s pupil Johann Martin Schubart (1690-1721), and were presumably prepared according to a pattern written by Bach. In 1717 Schubart became his teacher’s successor as the Weimar court organist, and eventually the two tablatures made their unknown way from his legacy to the Duchess Anna Amalia Library.

The significance of the discovery of these sources can hardly be overestimated. In view of the high technical demands posed by the three works, the sources testify to the virtuoso competence reached early by the young Bach, as well as to his striving to master the best and most demanding in the field of organ music. It becomes moreover clear that the young Bach was orientated towards North German organ art even before 1700. Evidently his way from Ohrdruf to Lueneburg was essentially determined by his aim to learn more about the important repertoires of the old Hamburg and Luebeck masters, and to gain access to the great Hanseatic instruments.

Modern technology casts Bach’s B minor Mass in a new light

In March 2008, collaborators of the Leipzig Bach Archives as well as of the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing submitted J.S. Bach’s original manuscript of the B minor Mass held in the City Library of Berlin to a Roentgen fluorescence analysis. About 600 sites in the “Credo” were investigated, and in particular contentious passages were measured.

Thus to be discovered were those parts of the manuscript (which is severely damaged by ink corrosion) written by Johann Sebastian and those by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel. The method, which has been applied for the first time to a Bach manuscript, has yielded
new research perspectives for scholars. After Bach’s death his second-oldest son had substantially interfered with the score, primarily in the “Credo”. Test investigations in September 2007 revealed different compositions of the inks used by J.S. Bach and C.P.E. Bach, so that it was highly probable that the two could be identified separately. Uwe Wolf (Bach Archives, Leipzig) expects from the analysis a new appreciation of the son’s contribution to today’s extant work structure. The investigations were prompted by the planned new edition of the B minor Mass for the first volume of the revised New Bach Edition, due to be released in 2009.

Jennifer Broecher

Christoph Wolff receives Royal Academy of Music Bach Award

Professor Christoph Wolff, who has been a member of the board of directors of the NBG for many years and director of the foundation “Bach-Archiv Leipzig”, received the Royal Academy of Music Bach Award on October 16th 2006. The world-famous Bach researcher was honoured for his outstanding contribution to the research into the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach. He was given the award during a ceremony at the David Josefowitz Recital Hall in London. The prize money, £10.000 and awarded for the first time that year, was sponsored by the Kohn Foundation.

Christoph Wolff has been head of the Bach Archive since 2001. He’s Professor of Music at Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts, USA) and he has published numerous editions and articles on the history of music >from the 15th to the 20th century. His particular scientific interest is focused on the music of Bach and Mozart. His biography “Johann Sebastian Bach. The Learned Musician” has been translated into eight languages and became a standard work, for which he was presented one of the biggest awards for musicologists, the “Otto Kinkeldey Award”, in 2001.

He is a Honorary Professor at the University of Freiburg, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Saxon Academy of Sciences and was, from 1994 to 2005, chairman of the academy for Mozart research in Salzburg. In 2001 the highly distinguished scientist was awarded the “Bundesverdienstkreuz” (the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany) by Johannes Rau. Universities at home and abroad, including the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Weimar and the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, awarded him with him honorary degrees.

Jennifer Bröcher

Auskunft über den Glauben (Information about faith)
Serial Publications of the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, vol. 6

A selection of almost 90 sermons which the former dean of Stuttgart, Peter Kreyssig, delivered during Cantata Services in the Stuttgart memorial church, or during services at the Sommerakademien “Johann Sebastian Bach“ (since 1979) and “Europäische Musikfeste“ (since 1985).
The majority of the sermons in this publication are interpretations of the text of vocal compositions primarily by Bach, but also of works by Heinrich Schütz, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert and others.

It seems amazing and gratifying that an idea which Helmuth Rilling as cantor and Peter Kreyssig as preacher put into practise for the first time in 1965, can until today be applied effectively in an almost unchanged structure.

Preferential price for members of the NBG: 10,-- € plus forwarding expenses. Order from: Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Platz, 70178 Stuttgart, Tel. 07 11 / 6 19 21 17, Fax 07 11 / 6 19 21 51, e-mail:office@bachakademie.de

Information about New Publications

Hans-Eberhard Dentler: Johann Sebastian Bachs “Kunst der Fuge“. Ein pythagoreisches Werk und seine Verwirklichung. Mainz 2003 (Schott-Verlag). ISBN 3-7957-04901-1, 170 pp., € 39,80.
The author tackles the enigmatic riddle around the compositorial process and structural plan of J. S. Bach’s “Art of Fugue“. With his discovery that the work came into being on the basis of Pythagoreic ideas, he discloses new insight into interpretation and instrumentation of this masterwork.

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