Last December, I spoke with Peter Wollny, one of today’s most important Bach scholars. We discuss how one becomes a Bach scholar, what it’s like to be in close proximity with Bach’s handwritten manuscripts, using watermarks within the paper to form a compositional chronology, and forming a ‘personal relationship’ with a figure from the past. Here are some of my favorite quotes from our interview:

Q: Is there something that surprises you when reading a piece with scholarly intent vs. hearing it?A: What you can’t predict is how deeply it will go to your heart.

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It can easily be said that there is something in the autograph that conveys something about a personality from the past, and it may be true, but it’s very risky because you can end up looking for something that is in your own head but not included in the manuscript.

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This past summer I started a series of photographs trying to figure out the population of wild bees in our garden, and actually I identified a species of bees that was believed to be extinct in Saxony since 1930.

Chaconne on the Gramophone:

The two new chaconnes! Available for download:

BWV 1178, in d minor BWV 1179, in g minor

(Outro music is a choir of yours truly singing from Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21.)

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Concepts Covered:

‘Confirmation Bias’ in musicology, J.S. Bach Toccatas BWV 914, BWV 913, the new Johann Martin Schubart sources. The attribution to Johann Christoph Graff in the new discovery of Bach’s early Chaconnes. Independent fascicles sewn into larger books, the process of fascicles copied from page 4, page 1, then pages 2-3. Peter Wollny’s discovery of new works by J.S. Bach. Bach’s early interest in ostinato pieces, Bach’s copies of chaconne’s by Buxtehude.

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