Marc
New member
Hi Marc !
I totaly agree with you. And of course I believe both stories, as I believe everything Anna Magdalena says in her book !
Playin' the fantasia alone... you give me points here to proceed and play it for my friends here without the fugue (witch I still workin;on and pract).
But as you say corectly, I just can finish without hearing the fugue theme....
Panos
Hi Panos,
Because I didn't see a 'smiley' when you referred to Anna Magdalena's book, I want to make clear that The Little Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach was written in 1925, by English author Esther Meynell.
But for decades musicians and scholars thought it was authentic .... quoting a lot from it. I think the story that Bach himself cried whilst composing the final chorus of the Matthäus-Passion (Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder) was one of those beautiful .... fables.
There are many copies of BWV 542, though not one by Bach himself. AFAIK, the oldest one is a copy of the Fugue alone (around 1715) by Bach's pupil J.T. Krebs. There's also a version of the Fugue alone, transfered to F-minor, probably by C.P.E. Bach. Most couplings of the pieces are from the 2nd half of the 18th century. But I'm not entirely sure 'bout all this, it's all info out of memory, thanx to some Bach books that I borrowed several times from libraries. Tough reading stuff for a layman like me, but interesting all the same.
Because lots of Bach's compositions aren't delivered in original manuscripts, I guess his oeuvre will continue to be a 'yummy' research subject for many scholars.
Regarding Mozart and Bach: if Mozart refers to Bach, one can be quite sure that in most cases he meant Johann Christian Bach, JSB's youngest son, AKA the London Bach. He was very popular in his time, and had great influence on a.o. Mozart (who met him in his childhood years) and Haydn. But yes, in the 2nd half of the 18th century also C.P.E. Bach was more famous than his father. His book Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (1753) was a must-have for every keyboard composer and player.
Mozart really dug into JSB after Count Gottfried van Swieten (diplomat, of Dutch origin, living in Vienna) showed him some Bach copies .... with a very understandable effect on Wolfgang Amadé.
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