Anna Magdelana wrote some of the works attributed to J.S.

[Opus106]

This is probably old news for most of you, but it seems to have surfaced again, with Mr. Jarvis planning to present his findings at an international symposium in the near future.

The wife of one of history's greatest composers, Johann Sebastian Bach, may have written some of the works attributed to her husband, an Australian researcher says.

Associate Professor Martin Jarvis of Charles Darwin University is set to present the provocative theory to the international forensic science community at the International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences in Melbourne next week.

Source

I always have to be "in the mood" to listen to the cello suites. I thought it was weird. 

[Josquin des Prez]

This is pure nonsense. Don't let yourself be fooled by the current wave of faux revisionists. Their evidence is always sketchy at best. Anybody who thinks the Cello Suites could have been written by anybody else other then Bach (least of all his damn wife) deserves to be locked in a padded room.

I always have to be "in the mood" to listen to the cello suites. I thought it was weird. 

Yes, and i'm sure the problem is with the suites, not your own understanding (or lack of thereof) of those compositions. 

[karlhenning]

. . . by anybody else other then Bach (least of all his damn wife)

That's right, don't hold that aggression in!

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

People who know more than I do about the Cello Suites have said that composing that kind of quasi-polyphonic music for a stringed instrument is a virtually superhuman feat, the sort of thing only the greatest of geniuses could pull off.

AMB, from what I've heard, would have been a young woman (barely above 20) at the time these were written, and only played keyboards (not strings). Whereas JSB at the same time was over 30, an accomplished virtuoso on keyboards who could also play the violin (and I think other strings as well), and was thoroughly familiar with the potentialities of stringed instruments.

AMB has not left any compositions identified as being her own, so we have nothing to compare the Cello Suites with.

Draw your own conclusions. Mine is that Mr. Jarvis is looking for attention 

[Josquin des Prez]

Draw your own conclusions. Mine is that Mr. Jarvis is looking for attention 

Or perhaps he's one of those individuals who bought into the idea that men are good for nothing, much like our Karl here, and that the entire canon of western genius has been but a gigantic conspiracy to oppress and keep women down. I'm sure that is going very well with his Marxist colleagues. I mean, no way that all that Anna Magdalena was good for was pumping babies, that's impossible!

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Or perhaps he's one of those individuals who bought into the idea that men are good for nothing, much like our Karl here, and that the entire canon of western genius has been but a gigantic conspiracy to oppress and keep women down.

Or perhaps he isn't. From the limited info I have (a couple of newspaper articles), it's impossible to figure out what his motives are.

[Josquin des Prez]

I was being sarcastic as a retort to Karl's last entry. Heh.

[jochanaan]

People who know more than I do about the Cello Suites have said that composing that kind of quasi-polyphonic music for a stringed instrument is a virtually superhuman feat, the sort of thing only the greatest of geniuses could pull off...

Well, maybe she was one of those "unsung geniuses."  It wouldn't be surprising if, after her death, any music she might have had a hand in would simply be attributed to her illustrious husband.  It might be interesting to do a handwriting analysis of the original autographs...

[Josquin des Prez]

Well, maybe she was one of those "unsung geniuses."  It wouldn't be surprising if, after her death, any music she might have had a hand in would simply be attributed to her illustrious husband.  It might be interesting to do a handwriting analysis of the original autographs...

[Guido]

There aren't original autographs, that's why the issue is contentious. Supposedly the Cello Suites are far weaker works that the violin partitas ans Sonatas so could not possibly have been written by J.S. Bach. What he doesn't consider is that Bach may have been aiming at something slightly different for the cello suites than the violin solo works as they are after all different instruments with different capabilities. The cello suites sound bad on the violin and vice versa. But that doesn't enter his mind. Even if it were true, that the violin S and Ps were vastly superior, it's ridiculous to say that therefore Bach didn't write the 'weaker works'. The man is an utter buffoon.

[lukeottevanger]

Sounds like rubbish to me. And, btw, for every one who thinks that 'Cello Suites are far weaker works that the violin partitas ' to quote Guido's phraseology there are others who think precisely the opposite. I'm one, for instance, who finds more complexity and subtlety in the cello works than the violin ones.

The simplicity of the opening Suite, cited by this Jarvis geezer as proof of its inferiority, is only akin to the simplicity of the opening Prelude of the WTC book 1 (and look how both the cello suites and the WTC grow from these pristine, Edenic openings into rich, complex, virtuosic utterances - that's a Bach trademark, I think). Or again, the French Suites when compared to the English Suites or Partitas. Relative simplicity does not = not composed by Bach.

[karlhenning]

Relative simplicity does not = not composed by Bach.

And partly because: Relative simplicity does not = inferiority.

[lukeottevanger]

Naturally.

[karlhenning]

Obvious to you and to me, Luke, but . . . .

[karlhenning]

. . . akin to the simplicity of the opening Prelude of the WTC book 1 . . . .

I love how the transparent simplicity of the initial Prelude is matched by a fugue which in one sense is the densest fugal process in Book I . . . there's hardly a measure of that C Major fugue in which the subject (or a clearly recognizable fragment) does not appear in one voice or another.

[pjme]

Sigiswald Kuijken has played the Suites on the viola da spalla /violoncello da spalla (shoulder cello) .
http://violadaspalla.blogspot.com/ ( this article only french...the rest of the veryinteresting blog - is in english)

Possibly the suites were written for such an instrument. His findings are new ( ca 2004-2007) and need more investigation. However, it is still unclear if the "spalla" is the violoncello piccolo or the viola pomposa ....Bach only uses the indication :violoncello or violoncello piccolo.

I translate from the Spalla -blog:
There are only few solos for cello in Bach's cantatas. These are always noted separately, in the part of the first violin. This might indicate that these part were NOT played by the bass players...

Peter

[lukeottevanger]

I love how the transparent simplicity of the initial Prelude is matched by a fugue which in one sense is the densest fugal process in Book I . . . there's hardly a measure of that C Major fugue in which the subject (or a clearly recognizable fragment) does not appear in one voice or another.

But at the same time, it's a perfect example of 'C major' transparency, didacticism and neutrality - there's no topical reference here, just pure 'white' music to start us on our journey. In the same way, the simplicity of the first Bach cello suite is not unrelated to the key, the very cello-friendly G major, with oodles of open strings and simple fingerings. From which point we move onwards, through minor keys, through the clouded skies of  a complex, difficult and subtle flat key (in the 4th) and of a scordatura suite in a minor key (the 5th) and finally out into the light of another bright, open string key, this time a fifth higher but to be played on a cello that is itself a fifth higher in a certain respect. This isn't proof of Bach's authorship (though I can't quite believe such should be required) but it is proof of a composer with the same sensitivity to key, style and structure as is revealed in the 48 and everywhere else in Bach's oeuvre. The simplicity of the G major suite, then, is more an argument for Bach's authorship than against it, it would seem to me.

[pjme]

Here is a bit of story about the revival of the violoncello da spalla, or the small violoncello with five strings.

Long before my first instrument was made, I asked Peruffo to study and reconstruct the strings. He relied only on written evidence as there were no surviving strings for such violoncellos (erroneously aka viola pomposa) or usable practical experience. We knew however, that the problem of strings had defeated a number of earlier attempts to re-create the instrument, and even the latest New Grove Dictionary of Music gives wrong tuning for the instrument - based on experiments lead by F.Galpin back in the 1930th.

Mimmo made a few test-strings which I tried out on a common viola before the violoncello da spalla was ready. The first sets did not work, but at certain moment, I felt I had something promising in my hands. However, to my great frustration, when the first violoncello da spalla was ready (the one I made for Sigiswald Kuijken), I discovered that the strings did not work: unexpectedly, they had a tension much lower than anticipated!

I called Mimmo in Vicenza (at that time I lived in Brussels), and asked what could have gone wrong? According to the formulas the strings were supposed to yield just the right pitch and tension. It was a mystery: the strings worked on a common viola but not on the violoncello! After an hour or so, it was clear, that unless I travel to Vicenza together with the instrument there was no chance to have it done with the strings. I hanged up, booked the flight, and next morning landed in Italy.

We worked three days and two nights, making a few hundreds of trials, using lots of gut and over a kilo of silver wire. Confusingly, the common stringing formulas did not make much sense if used the customary way, but we were sure that the strings did exist in the past and that they were made from gut and silver.

I got anxious that the instrument could never be revived. We spent countless hours making strings, talking and even designing strings on paper. We prayed to the gods to send us ideas, and at last, on the third day, the Muses seemed to have softened their stance and we were admitted to taste that which makes the essence of the baroque violoncello - a smaller instrument with five strings.



Posted by Dmitry Badiarov at 23:09 0 comments   
08 February 2008
The String Maker: Mimmo Peruffo

.......

Soon on CD! The first violoncello da spalla I built in 2003-4 for Sigiswald Kuijken can be heard on a CD: ACC24196 (2CDs, ACCENT). Program: Johann Sebastian Bach: Suites for Violoncello BWV1007-1012; Sigiswald Kuijken, Violoncello da spalla.

etc etc!! fascinating stuf!

Peter

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

The simplicity of the opening Suite, cited by this Jarvis geezer as proof of its inferiority, is only akin to the simplicity of the opening Prelude of the WTC book 1

An interesting observation, because in another article dealing with the theories of the "Jarvis geezer," he is quoted as saying that AMB wrote this very prelude as well. (Said geezer also says she "had a hand" in writing the Aria of the Goldberg Variations.)

But a further problem (if I read these articles correctly) is that Jarvis supposedly believes AMB wrote ALL the Cello Suites. Another problem with his POV: in Bach's time, music was written to order. Somebody commissioned works from you, and you wrote them. Can you imagine some rich or noble personage approaching Bach's very young, unknown wife, requesting her to compose 6 (count 'em) unfathomably complex multi-movement suites for solo cello?

[Opus106]

n Bach's time, music was written to order. Somebody commissioned works from you, and you wrote them. Can you imagine some rich or noble personage approaching Bach's very young, unknown wife, requesting her to compose 6 (count 'em) unfathomably complex multi-movement suites for solo cello?

But were these suites commissioned by royalty or nobility?