Re: GG: Anna Magdalena

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

On Mon, 16 Sep 1996, Mary Jo Watts wrote:

> Some pieces from the notebooks for Anna Magdalena are rereleased on the GG LP
> entitled _The Little Bach Book_ which GG selected himself.  French
> Suite 5 is from the first notebook as the original notes for the
> G'berg Aria are in the second.  I imagine other pieces from the
> notebooks 'litter' the GG catalogue. Anyone know more about what's in
> these notebooks? 

Many of the pieces in the Anna Magdalena book and the Wilhelm Friedemann
book are arrangements or earlier versions of pieces available elsewhere. 
For example, the AM book contains arias from some of Bach's cantatas;
keyboard pieces by Bach's sons (especially CPE); pieces by other composers
(e.g., Couperin, Giovannini); pieces that were later revised and put into
the WTC; etc.  The WF book contains the early versions of partitas #3 and
6, the "Applicatio" which demonstrates 3-4-3-4 fingerings, and other
stuff.  Modern editions of AM and WF are available;  I don't have one
handy.  They're also of course in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe and the
Bach-Gesellschaft.  (Note: since the publication of the BG more than 100
years ago, many pieces contained in it have been shown to be not by Bach.)

My point is: even if pieces from the notebooks "litter" the GG catalogue,
he played/recorded the later revised versions when available, not the
notebook versions.  And the French Suites (and Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue)
are especially problematic, because there are so many discrepancies among
the sources: scattered manuscripts by various copyists and students, as
these pieces were never published by Bach.  Of the harpsichord works it's
easiest to deal with the Partitas, Goldbergs, Italian Concerto, French
Ouverture, Duetti, and Art of Fugue, because Bach prepared those for
publication himself. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bradley Lehman, bpl@umich.edu       http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/