Bach renaissance

The term Bach Renaissance describes the discovery of Johann Sebastian Bach's compositions by the broader music-interested public in the first half of the 19th century, after they had not been performed in public for many decades. This was accompanied by the renewed and increased appreciation of Bach's works, the perception of himself as one of the most important composers and the musicological research into his compositions.

After Johann Sebastian Bach's death in 1750, his works were practically no longer performed. They were perceived as difficult for the audience and musicians alike, no longer corresponded to the musical tastes of the time, which demanded a “ sensitive style ”, and largely disappeared from public musical memory. At that time it was also unusual to publicly perform works by composers from bygone eras, rather the public demanded contemporary music. During the Vienna Classic , Gottfried van Swieten , a patron of Mozart , introduced him to some of Bach's manuscripts, and parts of JS Bach's work were also familiar to Haydn and Beethoven .

The old Bach monument in Leipzig , erected in 1843 on the initiative of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and the oldest Bach monument in the world

It was particularly thanks to the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin in the 19th century, especially through the work of its second director, Carl Friedrich Zelter , to have wrenched Bach from general oblivion. The great importance of music history consisted in cultivating the musical work of Johann Sebastian Bach and in making sacred music accessible to a bourgeois audience outside the church, cultivating serious music and thus enabling a transition from court music culture to civil music cultivation the choir association. After its creation in 1791, smaller works by Bach were rehearsed by their founder, Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, from 1794 and later performed. As his successor in office, Zelter immersed himself in Bach's work, so that the founder of the Cäcilienchor Frankfurt , Johann Nepomuk Schelble and Zelter's pupil Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy also became aware of it.

In the Sing-Akademie on March 11, 1829, about 100 years after its first performance in 1727, Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion was performed again under the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, which brought Bach back to the public eye initiated a Bach renaissance on the broadest scale. Under the third director Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen death was on 21 February 1833 also the first time after Bach's St. John Passion , on February 20, 1834 (Part 1) and on February 12, 1835 (Part 2), the Mass in B Minor again performed, under Rungenhagen's successor Eduard Grell on December 17, 1857 the Christmas Oratorio .

literature

• Helmut Rudloff: Contributions to the history of the Bach renaissance in Germany (1750-1850) , Diss. University of Halle, 1983
• Markus Rathey: Bach renaissance, Protestantism and national identity in the German bourgeoisie of the 19th century , in: Marcus Sandl: Protestant identity and memory: from the Reformation to the civil rights movement in the GDR ; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, pp. 177–191

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bach Passions , History of the Bach Renaissance on mendelssohn-stiftung.de