Project MUSE®: BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/791
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute.daily12026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 41 (2010) through current issueLatest Articles: BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach InstituteTWOProject MUSE®BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute2767-48430005-3600Latest articles in BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute. Feed provided by Project MUSE®New (and Old) Research on Johann Sebastian Bach and Tolerance
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987287
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Several related debates have raged for decades, indeed centuries, among scholars and enthusiasts of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Some have argued that the composer and his music are modern and liberal (or at least moving in that direction), whereas others have argued that they are essentially premodern and conservative.1 Likewise, some have argued that Bach and his music are universal in their intent and effect, whereas others have argued that they are at base oriented in a particularist Lutheran religiosity.2 What has typically been challenging, and threatening, for all four areas is the vexing issue of apparent intolerance of "Others" in Bach and his music. A strong tendency—whether one maintains a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/791/image/coversmallNew (and Old) Research on Johann Sebastian Bach and Tolerance2026-04-07text/htmlen-USNew (and Old) Research on Johann Sebastian Bach and Tolerance2026-04-072026TWOProject MUSE®1733042026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-07The Curious History of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute's Novus thesaurus musicus (1568): A Case Study and Cautionary Tale
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987288
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The Novus thesaurus musicus (new musical treasury) is a monument of sixteenth-century music printing.1 Issued by the Venetian printer Antonio Gardano in 1568, this five-volume anthology consists of six partbooks of 468 pages each, containing 254 Latin motets for four to twelve voices by thirty-one composers.2 Although it contains a handful of works by internationally renowned names, including Orlande de Lassus, Andrea Gabrieli, and one work attributed to Josquin des Prez, the vast majority of motets in the collection are by composers employed at the Central European Habsburg courts, making it an important repository of mid-century Habsburg sacred music. The book is also imprinted with Habsburg identity
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/791/image/coversmallThe Curious History of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute's Novus thesaurus musicus (1568): A Case Study and Cautionary Tale2026-04-07text/htmlen-USThe Curious History of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute's Novus thesaurus musicus (1568): A Case Study and Cautionary Tale2026-04-072026TWOProject MUSE®1102252026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-07Was Bach Autistic?
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987289
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Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Emily Dickinson, Albert Einstein, Vincent van Gogh, Immanuel Kant, Isaac Newton, and Benedict de Spinoza—what do these figures have in common? There is a threefold answer: they were intelligent, they were original thinkers, and they are suspected to have been autistic. While acknowledging that all claims pertaining to the psychology of historical subjects are conjectural, this article explores the possibility that Johann Sebastian Bach's name belongs on the above list. Given that the autism hypothesis is unprovable, why is it worth considering? Exploring the hypothesis educes telling, albeit speculative, perspectives on two questions. Why did Bach write music that is, by the standards
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/791/image/coversmallWas Bach Autistic?2026-04-07text/htmlen-USWas Bach Autistic?2026-04-072026TWOProject MUSE®1611652026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-07Johann Sebastian Bach in Friendly Remembrance: Album Inscriptions as Reception History
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987290
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When Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries "posted" on the social media of their day, they were most often leaving an inscription in a small keepsake album, also known as album amicorum or Stammbuch. Not only the album's owner, but also friends old and new, would view this "post," and affirmations or "likes" might come in the form of an inscription that responded in some manner to the original one. Stammbücher had been popular since the sixteenth century, especially among university students. Visitors typically inscribed a motto or another brief text "in friendly remembrance" of their social encounter. If they were musicians, they might instead squeeze a few measures of music—most often a canon in shorthand
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/791/image/coversmallJohann Sebastian Bach in Friendly Remembrance: Album Inscriptions as Reception History2026-04-07text/htmlen-USJohann Sebastian Bach in Friendly Remembrance: Album Inscriptions as Reception History2026-04-072026TWOProject MUSE®1737612026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-07Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier by Paul Walker (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987291
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Paul Walker's Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier forms part of the American Bach Society (ABS) Guides, a series designed to introduce Johann Sebastian Bach's major works to a broad readership. The book is explicitly addressed to readers "who have a good musical ear but no formal training in note-reading" (2), while also promising not to be "excessively simplified" and to remain useful for amateur performers and serious students alike. Any assessment of the volume must therefore consider how successfully it balances accessibility with scholarly responsibility, particularly in the absence of musical notation and detailed source documentation.The introduction sets out the book's aims with notable clarity and confidence.
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/791/image/coversmallBach's Well-Tempered Clavier by Paul Walker (review)2026-04-07text/htmlen-USBach's Well-Tempered Clavier by Paul Walker (review)2026-04-072026TWOProject MUSE®151952026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-07Johann Sebastian Bach and His Books: A Review Article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987292
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A recent publication by Reiner Marquard presents the opportunity of looking at the ways in which research into Johann Sebastian Bach's personal library, although it had roots in the 1930s, did not really begin until the 1960s.1 At that time it was largely bibliographical, establishing the identity of the books in the collection, but the process has now become digital, as scholars come to terms with the contents of the volumes in Bach's library. Here, Marquard encourages the modern reader metaphorically to look over Bach's shoulder to see what he might have been reading, in order to discover connections between Bach's books and his music. Bach's personal library, as it existed at the end of his life, represents in
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/791/image/coversmallJohann Sebastian Bach and His Books: A Review Article2026-04-07text/htmlen-USJohann Sebastian Bach and His Books: A Review Article2026-04-072026TWOProject MUSE®653642026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-07Letters to the Editor
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987293
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To the Editor:In her review of Michael Marissen's Bach Against Modernity, Rebecca Cypess (following Michael Marissen) questions my thesis that in Bach's Leipzig new, more tolerant currents of thought and action were emerging alongside the deeply rooted prejudices against Jews (and others).1 I made my case in two articles: "The Early Enlightenment, Jews, and Bach," in The Musical Quarterly, and "The Early Enlightenment, Jews, and Bach: Further Considerations," in Understanding Bach.2Among the concrete evidence I presented is the statement, published in a 1734 legal disputation in Leipzig by Professor Traugott Thomasius, that "In our age, more prudent priests no longer incite the masses against the Jews, nor do they
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/791/image/coversmallLetters to the Editor2026-04-07text/htmlen-USLetters to the Editor2026-04-072026TWOProject MUSE®149992026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-07Contributors to this Volume
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987294
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Robin A. Leaver has been submitting articles at regular intervals to BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute since 1972, a period of more than fifty years! This latest contribution marks a return to some early research: Johann Sebastian Bach's personal library.Michael Marissen is the Daniel Underhill Professor Emeritus of Music at Swarthmore College. His most recent books are Bach Against Modernity (Oxford, 2023) and Bach & God (Oxford, 2016). He has written essays on music and religion for many scholarly journals, including the Harvard Theological Review and Lutheran Quarterly, as well as for many general-audience venues, including the Huffington Post and The New York Times. His main current project
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/791/image/coversmallContributors to this Volume2026-04-07text/htmlen-USContributors to this Volume2026-04-072026TWOProject MUSE®45732026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-07