The ' Cello Suites Were Written by Mrs. NOT Mr. Bach.

[Bryn]

This

The messanza figure (three conjunct notes slurred, one disjunct) in the first Courante, for instance, could be so casually written by Anna Magdalena precisely because of that assumed familiarity.

taken out of context, from the programme notes for David Watkin's recently released recordings of the Cello Suites, could be read in a misleading way.

[Cornet IV]

As for "I played them and they're definitely JS Bach", generations of organists would have said that about the D minor Toccata and Fugue which nobody seriously still believes was written by him. The arguments around such authorship issues very often revolve around "well, I just know", which isn't a very scientific way to look at things.

This entirely specious postulation comes around with such tiresome regularity.

Whilst there have been many who have made this claim without demonstrable support, as far as I know, there has been none who has offered a cogent alternative writer of this work. In my view the closest might be Nicholas Bruhns but that ain't really close. In presuming that you refer to 565, I have to acknowledge that this is to a lesser standard than that set by his other major organ works but that is no basis for denying JSB's authorship.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Not when your tuba is in Eb! :)

You still have to pretend the key signature is something else.

[MrGongGong]

You still have to pretend the key signature is something else.

Remember ITA?

Why not learn to speak French by learning German and buying a German>French dictionary?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Remember ITA?

Now known as textspeak.

[kea]

Here we have Steven Isserlis writing in the Guardian:

"... why am I so sure that Bach himself composed the suites? It is partly because there are countless connections between the suites and many of his other works; but even more because the language is so clearly his – that perfection of utterance that is pure JS Bach.:

In other words, "I just know." Not the kind of thing that would stand up in a court of law I think. On the other hand, looking at the full text of a 2012 lecture by Prof Jarvis on the subject he seems also to be rather short on factual support for his theory - only towards the end does he claim that: "By the end of 2003 ... I had found 17 musical reasons why the Cello Suites were not likely to have been composed by Johann Sebastian [Bach]", though he doesn't say what these are; nor does he marshal any strongly convincing evidence to support Anna Magdalena as the author, apart from the fact that the earliest extant manuscript was written by her. Nevertheless, there are well over fifty works in all genres with BWV numbers which are clearly not by JS Bach and which in many cases have now been attributed to their rightful authors. So the idea that the cello suites might be misattributed is not a complete fantasy; and the idea that in past ages women composers were discouraged from putting their own name to the works is well-attested. It seems on balance to be a stretch to jump from there to Prof Jarvis's conclusions, but surely saying "I just know" (or for that matter "Gotcha!", whatever that's supposed to mean) isn't good enough either.

It's certainly possible that there are unknown "great works" by women composers which could be used to support "gender equality" (though not likely considering that the definition of greatness is tied up with maleness in all sorts of ways), but part of the point of feminism—actual feminism, as created by and for women—is that gender equality does not in fact exist, and cannot exist because gender is hierarchical by definition. Women could not be great artists in that time. (Arguably, still can't. Certainly we have lots of female composers and performers today, but I guess it's just a massive coincidence that no women composers are in the standard rep and the vast majority of female performers who receive attention are sexually attractive to men?) It's certainly possible that Anna Magdalena wrote the cello suites, or any number of other works, and signed her husband's name to them. But what seems likely, based on what we know of how women and girls are groomed and what is generally accepted to have happened, is that her energy and musical inspiration were redirected into her husband and family. Some of the results of that redirection we can still hear: Sebastian wrote quite a bit of music for her; she copied, published and edited some of his works; she saw to the musical education of the children, some of whom grew up to be C.P.E. or W.F. or J.C. or whatever. Others, not so much: without a wife to do most of the "dirty" work it's unlikely Bach would have had the energy and focus to create music of such power. Anna Magdalena may well have spent six hours cleaning the house while her husband wrote Cantata #210 (or maybe not, perhaps they had servants? I don't know and don't feel like looking it up). But the house just got dirty again, whereas Cantata #210 is still here.

Oh and AMB isn't the only one who helped create this environment in which Bach wrote his music (though she's one of the more direct musical influences). We also have to take into account his first wife, his children, his students, his teachers, his friends... Bach was not an "individual". Grow a clone of JSB in a lab and you're not going to get the rest of Contrapunctus XIV. You probably won't get any music at all actually. Takes a village to write a cello suite, is my point.

[MrGongGong]

Takes a village to write a cello suite, is my point.

[BBMmk2]

You still have to pretend the key signature is something else.

Yes I do which can be rather awkward. There isn't an easy way out here, I'm afraid

[Richard Barrett]

Takes a village to write a cello suite, is my point.

It's a good point, and something that JSB, who lived before the days of the artist-as-autocrat, would probably have agreed with. My point is slightly different though - it's more directed against the kind of unimaginative attitude which claims that such "great masterpieces" had to have been written by a "great master" because no other way of looking at things is thinkable. If one cares principally about the music, and one's relationship with it, it really doesn't matter who composed it (or how many people). It's as if any suspicion that JSB didn't write them (or didn't write them alone) somehow devalues the music (or the composer).

[ahinton]

The problem with which this kind of thing might leave at least some of us is that, if doubt could reasonably be cast upon the authorship of the cello suites, then why not also on that of other J S Bach works besides those 50+ BWV numbers already mentioned, the true authorship of most of which seems now to have been established. Whilst it is true that it looks to be as difficult to prove that the cello suites were composed by J S Bach than it is to prove that they were written by his second wife, the question remains (and it's already been put forward here) is what else did AMB compose and why have we seen next to nothing of it? I agree that there's a lot of widely accepted yet misleading stuff that's been forced to cling around the "great masterpieces" and "great masters" business but, if we accept that the cello suites are truly fine works by an accomplished composer, it would seem less than unreasonable to assume that whoever composed them must have composed quite a lot else including perhaps some things of similar standing and that it would be rather odd if almost all of those other works were had been destroyed or otherwise have disappeared without apparent trace.

Curious as I am to hear what's made of all of this in the programme, the blurb appears to imply that Sally Beamish had bought the AMB wrote them stuff and regards it as a potential encouragement to women composers; I respect Ms Beamish and therefore hope that I've grasped the wrong end of the wrong stick in reading it that way...

[Boilk]

Mrs Bach's Cello Suites?

On BBC Four, this Friday evening...

"Australian musical sleuth Martin Jarvis explosively claims that the cello suites were composed not by Bach,
but by his much-loved second wife, Anna Magdalena."

More details here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04t91gf

[doversoul1]

This?

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?12986-The-Cello-Suites-Were-Written-by-Mrs-NOT-Mr-Bach

[MickyD]

Whether she wrote the pieces or not, she certainly wouldn't have been playing an early nineteenth century square piano!

[Pabmusic]

It might be an idea to merge this thread with this one:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?12986-The-Cello-Suites-Were-Written-by-Mrs-NOT-Mr-Bach&highlight=bach+cello

[ahinton]

It might be an idea to merge this thread with this one:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...ght=bach+cello

Indeed; in the meantime, however,

http://www.bachnetwork.co.uk/ub10/tatlow-pre-release.pdf

and

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/sally-beamish/written-by-mrs-bach_b_6888366.html

I have to admit to no small amount of incredulity that Sally Beamish, for whom I have considerable respect and admiration, appeared to have been sufficiently taken in by this dubious musicological research to agree to present tonight's programme but it now appears that her stance is possibly mellowing somewhat; should someone have warned her in advance that sitting on a fence can be most uncomfortable?

I would single out only one item for specific comment and that is that I know of no one who doesn't believe that Ms Bach II didn't write the cello suited just because so much child bearing and rearing didn't permit her the luxury of sufficient time to do so.