Re: Bach Editor, and a shameless plug for my fave orchestra

[Elmer Elevator <bobmer@javanet.com>]

I dunno about Bach, but of course there's the wonderful scene in "Amadeus" when
Constanz, without her husband's knowledge, shows some of Mozart's scores to
Solieri. Solieri asks if these are the completed, edited scores, and Constanz
says Wolfie never edits anything, he just writes the notes down once and
forever. Solieri turns ghastly pale and decides at that moment that Mozart must
die.

A high school friend of mine -- first violinist and concertmaster -- went down
to the Library of Congress manuscript collection and wrote a fascinating essay
on the personalities of the composers based on their scores. I remember his
writing that Beethoven was fierce, two-fisted, agitated, with tons of violent
crossings-out and overwritings, huge, wild Ralph Steadman-esque ink blot stains
all over the score.

Last Saturday night I finally got the chance to see the (20th) annual Colonial
Concert that's the real crowd-pleaser of New Haven's Orchestra New England --
some of you may have seen one of their previous concerts on USA Public
Broadcasting, it's shown around Christmastime and has a Christmas theme. All
the musicians and many in the audience wear Colonial dress; all the music is
mid-to-late 18th-century. This Concert was a re-creation of the 1789 visit of
recently-elected President George Washington and Martha, and as the
recessional, everyone rose and sang (to guess-what tune) "God save great
Washington." The concert was in the United Church on the (New Haven) Green, and
church organist Mark Brombaugh showed off the newly restored organ with a swell
Buxtehude piece.

There was lots of banter between Maestro James Sinclair (reborn in this century
as president of the Charles Ives Society) and his soloists. When the Maestro
asked tenor Michael More what he intended to sing, and More replied a piece by
Johann Sebastian Bach, Sinclair, in powdered wig, moaned: "Oh, no, not the OLD
Bach!?!?"

"Haendel's" Messiah was an unadvertised special at the end.

Bob Merkin

BONG wrote:

> Is there any information if Bach wrote ALL his pieces without editing them,
> ie took a piece of note paper and wrote everything straight onto it and put
> the paper aside making no fixes or changes?
>
> Juozas Rimas
> Lithuania