Anna Magdalena's Cello Suites

[mercia]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/11188153/Did-Bachs-wife-write-his-finest-works.html

an Australian academic reckons (oops) that Anna wrote JS's Cello Suites and other 'major works' (they don't say what). Is this an old story resurrected ? What do we think ?

[gurnemanz]

I'll ask my wife.

[Bryn]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...est-works.html

an Australian academic reckons (oops) that Anna wrote JS's Cello Suites and other 'major works' (they don't say what). Is this an old story resurrected ? What do we think ?

It most certainly is an old story. We used to josh about it on the old BBC message boards. It's been doing the rounds for over a decade IIRC.

[O.k., so it was only 8 years ago.]

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What do we think?

We probably think different things, though I'm generally sceptical of such revelations, which may simply be an academic trying to be noticed.

[ahinton]

One thing that occurs to me in the overall assertion that AM may have "written" some of JS's "finest works" is just how many wonderful things JS had written, presumably unaided by anyone, before she became his (after all, second) wife; not exactly a bunch of mere apprentice works, surely? - and yes, as Bryn reminds us, this is indeed quite an old story that's been going the rounds for a while (for which I blame that Clara Schumann, meself - no, of course I don't really mean that, but you get me drift, right?...)...

All that aside, I just wish that I could have been a pupil of Bach (not that He'd ever have taken me on as such, of course)...

[kea]

Just thought I should advise people here who they're aligning themselves with if they choose this article as a target for mockery...

Women, as individuals, and as groups, are endlessly patting themselves on the back! It's become a cliched joke that women need not just food and water, but compliments to survive. Constant validation.
Just listen to a normal group of women talk....

Women buy a lot of shoes (Imelda Marcos). They buy a lot of clothes (Liz Taylor). They eat excessively (too numerous to list). The moan incessantly (too numerous to list). They still think everyone fancies them when they are haggard and wasted (QE1).

Probably because it's unadulterated drivel. As with the "global warming" scam, a bunch of self-defined "experts" have started with their conclusion and have invented "facts" to fit it.

The most sexist people on the planet are feminists, intent as they are on proving that women are superior to men. If I had stood naked beside my husband, nobody could have surmised we were equal

Stringing together loops from sample packs or strumming an out of tune ukulele in hipster Williamsburg does not a female composer make.

Must be trying to get inside the knickers of some femascist academic: or is being a PC loony tune now the only way to progress in academia these days?

From what I've heard from some classical music lovers, academic music is under sustained attack at the moment, like "geek culture", from the Social Justice Warriors.

There is no-one on your[list of female artists] that comes remotely close to the genius of Titian, Michelangelo and the legions of male artists too many to list. Those great male artists may have had models or partners (male & female) who inspired them, but the greatness of their work was undeniably conceived and executed by er..men. [...] [JSB & Anna Magdalena] had the kind of married partnership that is incomprehensible to modern, harpy feminists who graft the bitterness of their own failed relationships onto the lives of people from the past producing in the process warped, distorted accounts with no basis in fact.

It might be best for those of you who would not agree with the majority of the above statements to keep silent on this article until it goes away. Just a suggestion.

[teamsaint]

Aligning oneself with the comments section on a newspaper article is probably a bad idea.
Looking at, or questioning the back story behind an article is probably a good idea.

[Beef Oven!]

Aligning oneself with the comments section on a newspaper article is probably a bad idea.
Looking at, or questioning the back story behind an article is probably a good idea.

Thought for the day.

[teamsaint]

Thought for the day.

Not bloody bad after a lock in, either.

[Beef Oven!]

Not bloody bad after a lock in, either.

Still don't know what you're on about.

[teamsaint]

Still don't know what you're on about.

I Was trying to pretend that we had a lock in at the pub last night, which was why I wasn't my usual eloquent self () on "The Rest is Noise" last night, ( when you suggested I had been on the turps) and indicating a hungover state this morning.

Back (sort of)on topic, was shakespeare really Shakespeare, or was he somebody else with the same name, and similar writing style?

[Beef Oven!]

Back (sort of)on topic, was shakespeare really Shakespeare, or was he somebody else with the same name, and similar writing style?

Thought for the day, #2.

[pastoralguy]

I have to confess that it was me who wrote the nine symphonies usually attributed to Beethoven!

I'm glad to have that off my conscience

[ahinton]

I have to confess that it was me who wrote the nine symphonies usually attributed to Beethoven!

I'm glad to have that off my conscience

To have retained a conscience (or indeed anything at all) at so advanced an age is quite an achievement! (anyway, I thought that you'd only written the sixth...)

[mercia]

Is this an old story resurrected ?

I obviously didn't read the article properly, it was indeed 2006 that Prof Jarvis first proposed this

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1516423/Bach-works-were-written-by-his-second-wife-claims-academic.html