Die Anfange einer Bach-Gesamtausgabe 1801-1865 (review)

Sixty years ago, Friedrich Blume was able to account for the posthumous fate of Bach's works and reputation in a ninety-page monograph. Today, it seems unlikely that anyone would attempt such a task: the literature in this field has become vast and highly specialized, and even collaborative ventures tend to focus on just one aspect of Bach reception. While it would be foolish to idealize an earlier phase of Bach scholarship (more than most, Blume resists such idealization), the dangers of over-specialization are apparent from several recent contributions to the topic. This may seem an ominous way to begin appraising this monograph, yet it is vital to establish whether it will be of interest to the wider community of scholars who may be attracted by its title or merely to a handful of like-minded Bachians.

In any case, the book's enticing title is rather misleading. Rather than exploring the Bach-Gesellschaft and the genesis of the Breitkopf & Härtel complete edition (initiated in 1851), Karen Lehmann focuses on, to quote the subtitle, 'Editionen der Klavierwerke durch Hoffmeister und Kühnel (Bureau de Musique) und C. F. Peters in Leipzig'. This subtitle, too, may give a false impression of Lehmann's concerns. Her primary interest lies not in the texts of these two, very incomplete editions (respectively, the Oeuvres complettes de Jean Sebastien Bach (1801–4) and the œuvres complets (1837–65)) but in the motivations, views, and prejudices of their editors and publishers. While the impulses behind the Bach revival in this period have been the object of much attention, Lehmann's monograph provides a useful addition to the literature, since it draws on material that has received little, and in some cases, no attention (her rediscovery of the copybooks of these two publishers enables her to draw on the hitherto unknown correspondence of the key players). While the first part of the book reconstructs the context of both editions, the second part presents an annotated edition of this correspondence.

Lehmann's account of the histories of these two editions is meticulously researched and clearly presented. In many ways, it serves to illuminate a neglected side of the reception of Bach's keyboard music. Yet in places a more probing approach would have enhanced her interpretations, and the scope of her discussions could usefully have been broadened. Little consideration is given to wider attitudes towards Bach in this period, and only a short section (pp. 44–8) is dedicated to editions of his vocal works. The musical, artistic, and cultural contexts of these editions are not entirely overlooked. But Lehmann's descriptions of broader socio-economic developments of the period are strained and self-conscious (see especially pp. 1–2, 103, and 148–9), and little attempt is made to integrate these passages within her arguments. Several issues, in particular, cry out to be explored. How were Johann Nikolaus Forkel's priorities as an editor shaped by his philosophy of history? To what extent did the Rankean agenda of music historians such as Carl von Winterfeld inform the approach of editors of the 1830s and 1840s? Did the ideas and techniques of editors of literary Gesamtausgaben influence their musical counterparts?

The last of these questions is especially pertinent, given that Lehmann offers tantalizing glimpses of musicians appropriating literary practices without question, even when this contravened the aesthetic premisses underpinning their projects. Thus, Carl Czerny's dismembering of The Art of Fugue, The Musical Offering, and the Partita no. 6 stemmed, as Lehmann recounts, from his impulse to follow the 'like with like' method of organization found in contemporaneous literary complete editions. Citing the model of a Schiller edition, Czerny insisted that works in disparate genres and for different instrumental forces should rigorously be kept apart, leading him to present the movements of the partita as separate pieces and to publish the solo keyboard pieces from The Musical Offering alongside...