Bach und die Nachwelt, vol. 1, 1750-1850, vol. 2, 1850-1900 (review)

Bach und die Nachwelt. Vol. 1, 1750- 1850. Vol. 2, 1850-1900. Edited by Michael Heinemann and Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1997-99. [ISBN 3-89007-322-0 (set); 3-89007-323-9 (vol. 1); 3-89007-324-7 (vol. 2). DM 128 (vol. 1); DM 128 (vol. 2).]

In an era when academic books are subject to high production costs and diminishing markets, Laaber Verlag has not been known to shrink before large publishing projects, such as Bach-Handbuch, projected in six volumes, which began to appear in 2000. But even by German historiographic and bibliographic standards, the concept of Bach und die Nachwelt (Bach and Posterity), a four-volume survey of Bach reception, is remarkable. The first two volumes carry the story through 1900; the final two, due to appear in 2001, will cover 1900-1950 and 1950-2000, respectively.

Rezeptionsästhetik, the aesthetics of reception, was developed in the late 1960s by German scholars, primarily Hans Robert Jauss and Jürgen Habermas, as a means to contextualize works of art and literature by shifting from an approach that is werkimmanent (work centered) to one focused on the response of the reader, listener, or viewer. In musicology, reception studies have taken a direction that is mostly historical. Efforts at Rezeptionsgeschichte (at least for periods from 1750 on) normally trace "influence" of one composer on a later one, or work with reviews, editions, concert programs, and performance styles. While they may not break new ground in the methodology of reception studies, the first two installments of Bach und die Nachwelt explore all these dimensions with impressive thoroughness.

There is no other Western composer for whom the idea of mapping out an up-to-the-millennium reception history is at once so ambitious and so appropriate. Neither Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, nor Wagner (whose reception histories are of course shorter) can match Johann Sebastian Bach in this respect, because as these volumes make exceedingly clear, the history of how Bach was "received" is coextensive with much of the history of music in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. What is involved is not only the development of musical style--how composers were influenced by Bach--but also musical ideology and politics (including national identity), performance practice, and principles of editing and scholarship. Virtually no domain of musicology has remained untouched by Bach studies.

The eighteen chapters that constitute the first two volumes of Bach und die Nachwelt are written by a range of mostly Austrian and German scholars, including the editors, Michael Heinemann and Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen. Among the topics treated are the reception of Bach by individual composers--Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, and Wagner are each accorded a chapter--as well as Bach reception within France, Italy, and Russia. Several chapters are devoted to performance practices and traditions, involving especially the keyboard and vocal works. Still others deal with editorial matters, including a chapter on early manuscripts and autographs and one on printed and collected editions. The sheer quantity of information, much of it new or newly synthesized, makes Bach und die Nachwelt immensely valuable and fascinating to read.

The notion of a Bach "rediscovery" in the nineteenth century is a myth long since debunked. Bach's music was circulated and admired, if not publicly performed, throughout the latter part of the eighteenth century. But the first volume of Bach und die Nachwelt illuminates the many different ways a Bach "movement" or "renaissance" (terms used by the authors) took shape from the 1790s on. In her informative chapter entitled "Die Idee einer Gesamtausgabe," Karen Lehmann traces the history leading up to the appearance of the Bach-Gesellschaft edition in 1851 (Werke, ed. Bach-Gesellschaft [Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1851-99]). Much of this material has the makings of a musicological thriller. Lehmann covers, among other things, the intense competition among the publishers Simrock, Hoffmeister & Kühnel, and Nägeli to prepare a first...