Bach Digital

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Bach Digital
Autograph-Manuscript-BWV639.jpg
The Bach Digital website features images and descriptions of composition manuscripts and related documents by members of the Bach family. For instance, the page for BWV 639 (Bach Digital Work 727) links to the source page on D-B Mus.ms. Bach P 283, which contains an image of Johann Sebastian Bach's autograph of that work (pictured above).
Type of site
Database portal [1]
Owners
Created by Uwe Wolf [3]
URL www.bach-digital.de
CommercialNo [4]
Launched2010;13 years ago (2010) [5]
Content license
 Creative Commons (BY-NC) [4]
Written in MyCoRe [6]
OCLC  number 50480716

Bach Digital (German: Bach digital), developed by the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is an online database which gives access to information on compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and members of his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are a major focus of the website, which provides access to high-resolution digitized versions of many of these. Scholarship on manuscripts and versions of compositions is summarized on separate pages, with references to scholarly sources and editions. The database portal has been online since 2010. [7]

Contents

History

In 2000, two years after Uwe Wolf had suggested the possibility of supporting the publication of the New Bach Edition (NBE) with digital media, a project named Bach Digital started as an initiative of the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, but without direct involvement of the then editor of the NBE, the Johann Sebastian Bach Institute in Göttingen. After four years the project remained unconvincing: it lagged behind technically and came to nothing, and its www.bachdigital.org web address went up for sale. [8]

The first steps towards a new project, with the same name, were taken that same year. The aim of making images of autographs and original manuscripts available via the internet was continued from the former project, but aiming in the new project at high-resolution scans, for which the Zoomify application was going to be used. The project would cooperate with the Bach Institute in Göttingen. As that institute was going to cease operations (which eventually happened in 2006), however, the idea arose to merge the institute and the project. With the input of the Göttingen institute, the website was now going to not only display high-resolution digital facsimiles but also offer detailed descriptions of manuscripts and compositions which were drawn from Der Göttinger Bach-Katalog / Die Quellen der Bach-Werke (The Göttingen catalogue / The Sources of Bach's works), developed in Göttingen since 2001. Funding for the project by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft was secured in 2007. [8]

With Uwe Wolf as a leading designer, [9] the development of the website began in 2008, [10] and the database went online in 2010. [7] At the time, around 40% of the 697 manuscripts of Bach's works held in libraries in Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig and Krakau (which account for about 90% of his works) were made available in digital form. [11] The site not only provides accessibility to the distributed documents but also helps their preservation. [11] Several international libraries made their documents available, including libraries in Europe and the U.S. [7] Works from the period of c. 1700 to 1850, in manuscripts, copies and early prints, have been collected and presented in high-resolution digitized form. New research has been added continuously, for example on watermarks and copyists. [11]

Partners

Bach Digital is a collaborative project of the Leipzig Bach Archive (together with the University Computer Centre of Leipzig University), Berlin State Library (SBB), Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB) and Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg  [ de ] (SUB Hamburg). [2] [10] Apart from the sponsoring by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, funding for access to international documents has been granted by the national Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien  [ de ] since 2013. [7] An input of technical know-how was provided through a partnership with IBM. [12]

Bach Digital is part of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and Europeana platforms. Internationally, contributions of information came from the British Library in London, the Library of Congress in Washington, Harvard University Library in Boston, and the music libraries of Yale University and the Juilliard School. Libraries also contributing have included the Frankfurt University Library, Bachhaus Eisenach, Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Stadtbibliothek Leipzig  [ de ], Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Heimatmuseum Saalfeld, Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, and Stiftelsen Musikkulturens Fraemjande in Stockholm. [7]

Content and structure

The website was designed to serve Bach scholars, performers of his works, especially in historically informed performance, and interested lay people. [10] Information collected with scientific scrutiny is freely available, not only for works by J. S. Bach but also those of members of his family (Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Christian Bach) and works found in the Altbachisches Archiv. [13]

Bach Digital aims at making Bach research easily available, [1] and uses an implementation of the MyCoRe platform to do so. [6] Its content is licensed under Creative Commons as Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). [4]

Work pages

The website hosts separate pages for compositions: the static URLs for these pages start with http://www.bachdigital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_ and end with an eight-digit number (the first four being leading zeros for works in the 1998 version of the BWV catalogue). Each of these numbers thus identifies a work, e.g.: [14]

Apart from later additions and corrections, these numbers follow the collation of BWV numbers, but with alternative versions of the same composition inserted immediately after the BWV number of the composition to which they belong, e.g.: [14]

An example of a later addition/correction: [14]

Start of the music in Johann Sebastian Bach's autograph score of the Christmas Oratorio BWV 248 Autograph.jpg
Start of the music in Johann Sebastian Bach's autograph score of the Christmas Oratorio

Source pages

Primary sources described on separate webpages (many with a facsimile of the original source) similarly have a unique number, which preceded by http://www.bachdigital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_ gives the static URL for that page, e.g. [14]

Reception

Writing when the Bach Digital website was in its last stages of development, shortly before going online, Johannes Kepper of Paderborn University thought it would not only satisfy lay visitors feeling adoration for Bach but also had a role for scholars, for instance those initiating new critical editions of his music. According to Kepper, however, Bach Digital is not to be seen as a published edition of the composer's work but rather a collection of annotated sources: in itself it is not a critical edition of Bach's music. He sees another possible use of the website: it allows interested readers to check the quality of published editions of Bach's music and assess editorial choices by comparing such editions with the original manuscripts, displayed in high resolution on the website. [8]

According to Yo Tomita  [ fr ], writing in 2016, databases such as Bach Digital have largely replaced printed scholarship, such as the Critical Commentary volumes of the NBE, as the first point of entry for Bach scholars. [16]

An analysis of database usage in 2016 observed a total of 101,598 views, mainly from European countries, the U.S. and Japan but also from countries such as China, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam and the Arabian Emirates. [10] In the month of December, 32,537 views were counted, 896 of them for the autograph of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, the manuscript creating the most interest. [10]

Related Research Articles

<i>Meine Seel erhebt den Herren</i>, BWV 10 Church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach

In 1724 Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10, as part of his second cantata cycle. Taken from Martin Luther's German translation of the Magnificat canticle, the title translates as "My soul magnifies the Lord". Also known as Bach's German Magnificat, the work follows his chorale cantata format.

<i>Schübler Chorales</i> Set of chorale preludes by Johann Sebastian Bach

Sechs Chorale von verschiedener Art: auf einer Orgel mit 2 Clavieren und Pedal vorzuspielen, commonly known as the Schübler Chorales, BWV 645–650, is a set of chorale preludes composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. Johann Georg Schübler, after whom the collection came to be named, published it in 1747 or before August 1748, in Zella St. Blasii. At least five preludes of the compilation are transcribed from movements in Bach's church cantatas, mostly chorale cantatas he had composed around two decades earlier.

<i>Jesu, meine Freude</i>, BWV 227 Motet by Johann Sebastian Bach

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227, is a motet by Johann Sebastian Bach. The longest and most musically complex of Bach's motets, it is set in eleven movements for up to five voices. It is named after the Lutheran hymn "Jesu, meine Freude" with words by Johann Franck, first published in 1653. The motet contains the six stanzas of the hymn in its odd-numbered movements. The hymn tune by Johann Crüger appears in all of these movements in different styles of chorale settings. The text of the motet's even-numbered movements is taken from the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, a passage that influenced key Lutheran teachings. The hymn, written in the first person with a focus on an emotional bond with Jesus, forms a contrasting expansion of the doctrinal biblical text. Bach set both texts alternating with and complementing each other, in a structure of symmetries on different layers.

The New Bach Edition (NBE), is the second complete edition of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, published by Bärenreiter. The name is short for Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): New Edition of the Complete Works. It is a historical-critical edition of Bach's complete works by the Johann Sebastian Bach Institute (Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Institut) in Göttingen and the Bach Archive (Bach-Archiv) in Leipzig,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johann Sebastian Bach</span> German composer (1685–1750)

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the Brandenburg Concertos; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schubler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bach Archive</span> Music archive in Leipzig

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 where Bach lived from 1723 until his death, the Archiv is recognised by the German government as a "cultural beacon" of national importance. Since 2008 the Bach-Archiv has been part of the University of Leipzig.

As Thomaskantor, Johann Sebastian Bach provided Passion music for Good Friday services in Leipzig. The extant St Matthew Passion and St John Passion are Passion oratorios composed by Bach.

<i>St Mark Passion</i> (attributed to Keiser) St Mark Passion

Jesus Christus ist um unsrer Missetat willen verwundet is a St Mark Passion which originated in the early 18th century and is most often attributed to Reinhard Keiser. It may also have been composed by his father Gottfried or by Friedrich Nicolaus Bruhns. Johann Sebastian Bach produced three performance versions of the Passion, the last of which is a pasticcio with arias from George Frideric Handel's Brockes Passion. There are two other extant 18th-century versions of the Passion, both of them independent of Bach's versions. The Passion was performed in at least three cities in the first half of the 18th century: in Hamburg in 1707 and 1711, in Weimar around 1712, and in Leipzig in 1726 and around 1747.

<i>Wer ist der, so von Edom kömmt</i> Pasticcio Passion oratorio

Wer ist der, so von Edom kömmt is a pasticcio Passion oratorio based on compositions by Carl Heinrich Graun, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach and others. The pasticcio was assembled around 1750.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyrie–Gloria Mass for double choir, BWV Anh. 167</span> Sacral composition of uncertain authorship

The Kyrie–Gloria Mass for double choir, BWV Anh. 167, is a mass composition in G major by an unknown composer. The work was likely composed in the last quarter of the 17th century. The composition has two sections, a Kyrie and a Gloria, each subdivided in three movements. It has twenty-two parts for performers: twelve parts for singers, and ten for instrumentalists, including strings, wind instruments and organ. Johann Sebastian Bach may have encountered the work around 1710, when he was employed in Weimar. In the 1730s he produced a manuscript copy of the Mass.

<i>Twelve Little Preludes</i>

Twelve Little Preludes, BWV 924–930, 939–942 and 999, is a 19th-century compilation of short pieces, collected from various 18th-century manuscripts written by Johann Sebastian Bach and others. Notwithstanding their diverse origin and characteristics, they were published as a set of twelve keyboard preludes by Bach in, amongst others, the 36th volume of the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe (BGA).

The Triple Concerto, BWV 1044, is a concerto in A minor for traverso, violin, harpsichord, and string orchestra by Johann Sebastian Bach. He based the composition on his Prelude and Fugue BWV 894 for harpsichord and on the middle movement of his Organ Sonata BWV 527, or on earlier lost models for these compositions.

The Fantasia or Pièce d'Orgue in G major, BWV 572, is a composition for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Uwe Wolf is a German musicologist. He worked for the Johann Sebastian Bach Institute in Göttingen and Bach-Archiv Leipzig, where he developed the Bach Digital website. Since 2011, he has been chief editor of Carus-Verlag, editing the 2013 edition of Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine, among others.

References

  1. 1 2 Aim of the project at Bach Digital website. Retrieved19 November 2019.
  2. 1 2 Legal note at Bach Digital website. Retrieved19 November 2019.
  3. ↑ Contributors at Bach Digital website. Retrieved19 November 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 License at Bach Digital website. Retrieved19 November 2019.
  5. ↑ History at Bach Digital website. Retrieved19 November 2019.
  6. 1 2 Documentation at Bach Digital website. Retrieved19 November 2019.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Bach-Handschriften in höchster Bildqualität im Netz". Neue Musikzeitung (in German). 9 June 2010. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 Kepper, Johannes (2011). "4.2.3 Bach Digital". Musikedition im Zeichen neuer Medien: historische Entwicklung und gegenwärtige Perspektiven musikalischer Gesamtausgaben (in German). Books on Demand  [ de ]. pp. 143–144. ISBN   9783844800760.
  9. ↑ "Uwe Wolf". Carus-Verlag . Retrieved 9 September 2019.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 "Weihnachtsoratorium beliebteste Bach-Handschrift im Internet". Neue Musikzeitung (in German). 9 June 2010. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  11. 1 2 3 "www.bach-digital.de ist freigeschaltet". Berlin State Library (in German). 8 June 2010. Archived from the original on 16 October 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  12. ↑ Bruhn, Manfred (2014). Unternehmens- und Marketingkommunikation: Handbuch für ein integriertes Kommunikationsmanagement (in German). Vahlen. p.  801. ISBN   9783800648597.
  13. ↑ "Bach digital". University of Leipzig (in German). Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  14. 1 2 3 4 "3.2 Datenstruktur", pp. 16ff. in Bach digital Dokumentation, version 5.5 (12 February 2019) at Leipzig University website. Retrieved19 November 2019.
  15. ↑ Digitized image of D-B Mus.ms. Bach P 32 found at Bach Digital Source page 850
  16. ↑ Tomita, Yo (2016). "Locating sources". In Leaver, Robin A. (ed.). The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach. Taylor & Francis. pp. 49–51. ISBN   9781315452807.

Further reading

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