The New Bach Edition (NBE) (; NBA), is the second complete edition of the music of
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Help:IPA/Standard German, ïżœjoËhan zeËbastiÌŻan baÏ ( â 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety ...
, published by
BĂ€renreiter
BĂ€renreiter (BĂ€renreiter-Verlag) is a German classical music publishing house based in Kassel. The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle (1903â1975) in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still has its headquarters; it ...
. The name is short for Johann Sebastian Bach (1685â1750): New Edition of the Complete Works (''Johann Sebastian Bach (1685â1750): Neue Ausgabe sĂ€mtlicher Werke''). It is a historical-critical edition (German: ''historisch-kritische Ausgabe'') of Bach's complete works by the
Johann Sebastian Bach Institute (Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Institut) in Göttingen and the
Bach Archive
The Bach-Archiv Leipzig or Bach-Archiv is an institution for the documentation and research of the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Bach-Archiv also researches the Bach family, especially their music.
Based in Leipzig, the city wher ...
(Bach-Archiv) in Leipzig,
When Bach died most of his work was unpublished. The first complete edition of Bach's music was published in the second half of the nineteenth century by the
Bach Gesellschaft (
Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, BGA). The second complete edition includes some discoveries made since 1900, but there are relatively few such scores. The significance of the NBE lies more in its incorporation of the latest scholarship.
Although the NBE is an
urtext edition rather than a facsimile edition, it includes many facsimiles of Bach manuscripts.
History
In 1950, the commemorations of the bicentennial of Bach's death in
Göttingen
Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...
and
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
led to the initiative to publish his complete works in a critical scientific edition. Musicologists such as
Friedrich Blume
Friedrich Blume (5 January 1893, in SchlĂŒchtern, Hesse-Nassau â 22 November 1975, in SchlĂŒchtern) was professor of musicology at the University of Kiel from 1938 to 1958. He was a student in Munich, Berlin and Leipzig, and taught in the last ...
,
Max Schneider
Maxwell George Schneider (born June 21, 1992), also known by his mononym Max (stylized in all caps), is an American singer and actor. He is best known for his 2016 single " Lights Down Low" (featuring gnash), which peaked within the top 20 of ...
,
Friedrich Smend and
Heinrich Besseler, and sponsors such as
Bernhard Sprengel and made the project possible, supported by the editor
Karl Vötterle.
The
Neue Bachgesellschaft recommended to pursue the project as a joint venture of musicologists in Göttingen, then
West Germany
West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
, and Leipzig, then
East Germany
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
, in order to stress that the common cultural heritage was indivisible. The Bach Archive and the Johann Sebastian Bach Institute collaborated, their directors
Werner Neumann and
Alfred DĂŒrr
Alfred DĂŒrr (3 March 1918 â 7 April 2011) was a German musicologist. He was a principal editor of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the second edition of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Professional career
DĂŒrr studied musicology and Clas ...
made the new edition their life's project. The publishers were
BĂ€renreiter
BĂ€renreiter (BĂ€renreiter-Verlag) is a German classical music publishing house based in Kassel. The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle (1903â1975) in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still has its headquarters; it ...
in
Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...
, chosen in 1951 by the Federal Government, and from 1954 the Deutscher Verlag fĂŒr Musik, a new publisher in Leipzig which was involved until the unification of Germany.
Initially the duration of the edition was estimated as 15 to 20 years, but the scientific work with the sources required much more time than anticipated. The first volumes appeared in 1954. The director in Göttingen, from 1962 to 1963, was
Georg von Dadelsen. The edition was completed in June 2007.
Content
The edition contains in eight series over 100 volumes of scores (NotenbÀnde), each Score (Partitur) volume complemented with a Critical Commentary (Kritischer Bericht) volume. The ninth series contains Addenda (7 volumes), and furthermore there is a Supplement of 9 volumes (SupplementbÀnde):
:I.
Cantatas
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.
The meaning ...
(47 volumes)
:II.
Masses, Passions, Oratorios (12 volumes)
:III.
Motets,
Chorales,
Lieder (4 volumes)
:IV.
Organ Works (11 volumes)
:V.
Keyboard and Lute Works (14 volumes)
:VI.
Chamber Music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instrumentsâtraditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...
(5 volumes)
:VII.
Orchestral Works (7 volumes)
:VIII.
Canons,
Musical Offering,
Art of Fugue (3 volumes)
:IX. Addenda (approximately 7 volumes)
:Supplement: Bach Documents (9 volumes)
Each Score volume contains a preface and a selection of
facsimiles of its sources. In the Score volumes variants and fragments of compositions are published along with complete works. The Critical Commentary volumes describe the history and sources (manuscript sources, early editions), and their interdependence, for each composition, and discuss editorial issues.
Relevance
The New Bach Edition presents a reliable version of Bach's music for both scholars and performers. Its strict philological methods were exemplary for critical scientific editions in the second half of the 20th century.
In preparation for the NBE, lost compositions were found, whereas some known compositions proved to be not Bach's works. The examination of the sources corrected the chronology of his compositions.
The second revised edition of the
Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis
The (, ; BWV) is a Catalogues of classical compositions, catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990 and the third edition in ...
, and the Bach-Digital website refer to the NBE volume and page number for every listed composition by Bach. In addition to listing the page number of the score, the Bach Digital website also mentions the page number where the composition is discussed in the corresponding Critical Commentary volume.
Bach digital
/ref>
Revision
In February 2010 the Bach Archive and the publisher announced a revision of single volumes, in order to include new sources and findings. The first in this series of revisions was the Mass in B minor (updating the second volume of the NBE).
Approximately 15 more volumes are planned, including Weimar cantatas (five works), the '' St John Passion'', the motets, the violin sonatas, the cello suites and others.
Awards
In 2001 the German Association of Music Publishers (''Deutscher Musikverlegerverband'') awarded a special prize to the New Bach Edition in recognition of editorial achievement.
References
Sources
* Uwe Wolf (editor); Contributions by Georg von Dadelsen, Alfred DĂŒrr
Alfred DĂŒrr (3 March 1918 â 7 April 2011) was a German musicologist. He was a principal editor of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the second edition of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Professional career
DĂŒrr studied musicology and Clas ...
, Hans-Joachim Schulze, Frieder Zschoch and others
''Die Neue Bach-Ausgabe 1954â2007: Eine Dokumentation''.
BĂ€renreiter
BĂ€renreiter (BĂ€renreiter-Verlag) is a German classical music publishing house based in Kassel. The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle (1903â1975) in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still has its headquarters; it ...
, 2007.
External links
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685â1750) / New Edition of the Complete Works
at the BĂ€renreiter
BĂ€renreiter (BĂ€renreiter-Verlag) is a German classical music publishing house based in Kassel. The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle (1903â1975) in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still has its headquarters; it ...
website
*
{{Johann Sebastian Bach
Baroque compositions
Bach
Publications of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
Textual scholarship