Altbach Archives

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The Altbach Archive is a collection of motets , choral songs and cantatas by older members of the Bach family from around 1650 to 1700.

Emergence

The collection was started by Johann Ambrosius Bach and continued by his son Johann Sebastian Bach . After his death it was bequeathed to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach , who gave it the name “Altbachisches Archiv”. The music of the Bach son was seen as a family treasure. He spoke to the later Bach biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel as part of a loan in 1775, lovingly of “my old Bach archive” and asked him to treat the manuscripts that were now “somewhat crumbling” well.

content

According to the inventory of the musical estate of the late Capellmeister Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach from 1790, the collection included the following pieces:

Johann Christoph Bach

  • An argument arose. A song with 22 voices
  • My friend you are beautiful A wedding piece with four individual parts, four choir parts, a violin, three violas, violone and harpsichord
  • The righteous, whether he dies at the same time. Motet for five-part choir and organ
  • Dear Lord God, wake us up. Motet for eight-part double choir with instruments
  • It starts with crying. Aria for four voices
  • Oh, that I have enough water. Cantata for alto, string instruments and BC
  • It's over now. Die Aria for four voices

Johann Michael Bach

  • I know that my saviour is alive. Choral motets for five-part choir
  • Oh how longingly I wait for the time. Cantata for soprano, string instruments and organ
  • The blood of Jesus Christ. Choral motets for five-part choir, wind instruments or organ
  • Come on, let's praise the gentlemen. Cantata for alto, string instruments and organ
  • Now I have overcome. Choral motets for eight-part double choir
  • Lord if I only have you Choral motets for five-part choir
  • The Lord's Fear. Cantata for five solo voices, choir and instruments

Georg Christoph Bach

  • See how fine and lovely it is. Birthday cantata for two tenors, bass, string instruments and organ

Johann Bach

  • Our life is a shadow. Choral motets for six-part choir and three-part long-distance choir
  • Now be satisfied again. Motet for eight-part double choir

Unspecified composers

  • Now everything has been overcome. Aria for four voices, attributed to Adam Drese (1620–1701)
  • I do not let you. Motet for two four-part choirs with BC
  • Don't weep for my death. Aria for four voices

Lore

The original sheet music manuscripts were acquired from the estate of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach by the avid music collector Georg Poelchau and at the time of the Sing-Akademie -direktorat Carl Friedrich Zelters , who began to create an archive - among other things of sheet music - the Sing-Akademie transferred to Berlin . The collection was reissued in 1935 as a printed sheet music.

During the Second World War (1943), thanks to the foresight of the then Sing-Akademie director Georg Schumann , the entire library holdings and with them the Old Bach Archive were relocated from the Sing-Akademie building, which fell victim to fire bombs a short time later. From the relocation site, Ullersdorf Castle in Lower Silesia , the archive apparently disappeared without a trace in the turmoil of the post-war period. Decades later, research by a board member of the Sing Academy revealed that the only clue was that a Ukrainian Red Army regiment was the last unit to fight in this area of ​​Silesia before the archive disappeared. In 1999, after a long search, the library holdings in the State Archives in Kiev , Ukraine , were rediscovered by Bach researcher Christoph Wolff and returned to their owner, the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, from there in 2001.

For the first time after their return, the holdings were shown to the public in an exhibition in the Bach Archive in Leipzig from November 2002 to January 2003.

literature

  • Max Schneider (Hrsg.): Altbachisches Archiv: from Johann Sebastian Bach's collection of works by his ancestors Johann, Heinrich, Georg Christoph, Johann Michael a. Johann Christoph Bach. The legacy of German music , I. Breitkopf & Härtel series, Leipzig 1935. Reprinted in 1966
  • Walter Kolneder : Lübbes Bach Lexicon. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1994, ISBN 3-404-61288-4 .
  • Stephen Rose: The Altbachisches Archiv. In: Early music , Vol. 33, No. 1, 2005, pp. 141-144, doi: 10.1093 / em / cah058 .
  • Bach Archive Leipzig: The Old Bach Archive - sacred music of the ancestors of Johann Sebastian Bach. Booklet accompanying the 54th cabinet exhibition in the Leipzig Bach Archive, November 20, 2002 to January 5, 2003. Exhibition concept: Peter Wollny . Bach Archive, Leipzig 2002, DNB 965826783 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Bach Archive Leipzig: The Old Bach Archive , booklet accompanying the 54th cabinet exhibition.
  2. ^ Directory of the musical legacy of the late Capellmeister Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Schniebes, Hamburg 1790, pp. 83-85 ( digitized version ).

Web links