Introduction
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Bach Bibliography Introduction |
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is one of the most thoroughly
researched composers of Western music from diverse points of view. Even for the
scholars working in the field of "Bach Studies", it is often felt to be a
formidable task to move on to a "different" subject, since so much has already
been discussed in the past. Thus the first task -- finding out the state of the
current research in the field -- can be a daunting task.
Due to the way the bibliographical studies have been carried out and published
in the past (see the history of bibliographical research
below for further details), it is unlikely that Bach scholars will ever
see a comprehensive, definitive single-volume book in this subject in the
future. In fact, it is an extremely impractical to manage the information in a
single printed source, for new articles and books appear very frequently,
and the amount of information has become too large for browsing. This electronic publication
project is precisely aimed at maintaining the most up-to-date information,
with advanced search facilities not previously available.
The bibliographical study on J. S. Bach is well-founded.
It began with the compilation of contemporary references sources in the
second issue of the Bach-Jahrbuch (1905) compiled by Max Schneider. He
then listed some 480 Bach references, mainly of German literature, which were
published in the period of 1800 and 1904. Five years later he supplemented some
320 items as "New Material" in the seventh issue (1910). They consist of some older references escaped from
his earlier listing, the most recently published works and reprints. Since
then it became the tradition of the Bach-Jahrbuch that the compiled
list of contemporary Bach references has been published every five years.
The most recent list appeared in 2000.
From about 1950 onwards, the other sources of reference are also compiled
independently: The Bibliographie des Musikschrifttums and later
RILM abstracts added new indices and abstracts that were not available
previously. It was also around this time that the earliest Bach references
of pre-1800 documents were comprehensively catalogued and extracted as
Bach Dokumente 3 vols, the supplementary publication to the Neue
Bach-Ausgabe (1963 ff).
Compared with the number of references in more recent issues of
the Bach-Jahrbuch, the number of references searched by Max Schneider, which
covers more than a century, seems far too small. For example, the fortieth
issue of the Bach-Jahrbuch (1953) lists 941 items for the references
published between 1945-1952. Bibliographical listings in the subsequent
publication of the Bach-Jahrbuch are: 1958-1962 (807 items), 1963-1967
(715 items), 1968-1972 (884 items), 1973-1977 (845 items), 1978-1980 (560
items),1981-1985 (1144 items), 1986-1990 (1174 items) and 1991-1995 (1331 items).
Closer inspection on the listing often reveals some interesting images
of Bach of the day, reflecting the time and places in which his works were received.
Certain knowledge of this particular field of bibliography is indeed highly
desirable so as to be able to evaluate a particular literature appropriately
on the basis of its historical context.
The beginning of the 19th century was particularly important in many respects in view of the revival of or the awakening to Bach's music. While several publishers competed for publishing Bach's keyboard music, J. N. Forkel published the first Bach biography in 1802, who viewed Bach with his patriotic spectacles. Through the revival of Bach's vocal music by Mendelssohn, Bach's entire opus soon became known. In Britain, Bach movement also occurred independently of the German counterpart, which was strengthened by both immigrant musicians from Germany and those maintaining contact with the old remains of the Bach-circle musicians in Germany.
The Bach references of the 19th century is currently being investigated by several scholars, and I am hoping that the collection will be enriched in the near future.
The aim of releasing the Bach Bibliography on the Internet is to provide facilities for scholarly community world-wide the most up-to-date and most comprehensive bibliography of J. S. Bach in most useful and efficient way. The database has been kept in private for my own use, and I had to update the database all myself. By making it available for public use, I am expecting that the task of updating is to be shared to some extent by others, thus everyone (including myself) is getting benefit. If you have published books or articles, you are automatically qualified as a contributors. Please click here to read about how you can contribute.
I am not restricting the access to the database, and so anyone can use the facility. But in order to protect the data bank, you can list up to 300 records at each search. If this causes inconvenience, I will consider to modify it.
The database is interfaced with advanced search facilities, just like
on-line library catalogues. Users can search by keyword in any specific
or unspecific fields (such as author, title, year) in various combinations.
There are further facilities unique to this system. Firstly, each record
contains many additional fields (category of "Music" in the discussion,
and the "Aspect" of music in discussion, etc.) which are to be
supplied by musicologists where applicable. These fields becomes especially
powerful if users want to find out specific group of references, such as
the discussions of "cantata" with "authenticity", of
"St. Matthew Passion" with "theological" aspect, or
even of "keyboard suites" with "analytical" contents.
Secondly, all the records have a citation field where I have added its
source of citation - so the longer it becomes, the record proves itself
to be a popular and important material. I am planning to make use of this
currently hidden field.
Currently the database contains ca. 21,000 reference items (the exact number and the date of the last upload are always displayed in the homepage). Since the aim of this database project is to provide scholarly information to the community of academics, the following guidelines are used for the selection of references:
The items not considered for inclusion are:
Reviews are normally included as a part of the "referred" reference item under "review" field. Exceptions may apply if the review is either unusually substantial or significant.
Last modified: 22 January 2005