The Bach-Gesellschaft was a society formed in 1850 for the express purpose of publishing the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 without editorial additions. Their collected works are known as the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausgabe.

Origins of the Bach-Gesellschaft

The founders of the society were Moritz Hauptmann

Moritz Hauptmann

Moritz Hauptmann , was a German music theorist, teacher and composer.Hauptmann was born in Dresden, and studied violin under Scholz, piano under Franz Lanska, composition under Grosse and Francesco Morlacchi,...

, cantor of the St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, (and thus a successor of Bach); Otto Jahn

Otto Jahn

Otto Jahn , was a German archaeologist, philologist, and writer on art and music.He was born at Kiel...

, author of a noted biography of Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

; Carl Ferdinand Becker

Carl Ferdinand Becker (organist)

Karl Ferdinand Becker , was a German writer on music, and an organist.-Biography:...

, teacher at the Leipzig Conservatory; and the composer Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

.

Publication history

The Bach-Gesellschaft began publishing Bach's works in 1851 with a volume that started with BWV 1, the cantata Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1. It completed publication in 1900 with its forty-sixth volume. However, the edition of The Art of Fugue

The Art of Fugue

The Art of Fugue , BWV 1080, is an incomplete work by Johann Sebastian Bach . It was most likely started at the beginning of the 1740s, if not earlier. The first known surviving version, which contained 12 fugues and 2 canons, was copied by the composer in 1745...

by Wolfgang Graeser, published in 1926, is sometimes counted as "Volume 47" and was issued as a supplement to the Bach-Gesellschaft publication by Breitkopf & Härtel

Breitkopf & Härtel

Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf . The catalogue currently contains over 1000 composers, 8000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on music. The name "Härtel" was added when Gottfried...

, publishers of the original series. Additionally, Vol. 45, part 1 includes a revised edition ("Neue berichtige Ausgabe") of the English Suites and French Suites that had previously been published in Vol. 13.

Quality of the edition

The volumes varied somewhat in editorial quality and accuracy; Bach scholar Hans T. David particularly criticized Vol. 31's presentation of The Musical Offering

The Musical Offering

The Musical Offering , BWV 1079, is a collection of canons and fugues and other pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, all based on a single musical theme given to him by Frederick II of Prussia , to whom they are dedicated...

for numerous incorrect readings, and the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition

The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time...

 calls the edition as a whole "of very unequal merit." Britannica both lauds the editing of Wilhelm Rust

Wilhelm Rust

Wilhelm Rust was a German musicologist and composer. He is most noted today for his substantial contributions to the Bach Gesellschaft edition of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach....

 for the edition and notes a deterioration of standards after his death, including a volume in which "the bass and violin are a bar apart for a whole line" (apparently a reference to sloppy editing). In his edition of the Goldberg Variations

Goldberg Variations

The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...

, Ralph Kirkpatrick

Ralph Kirkpatrick

Ralph Kirkpatrick was an American musician, musicologist and harpsichordist. He is most famous for his chronological catalog of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas.-Life and work:...

 also calls attention to several "mistakes of the Bachgesellschaft edition" that he has corrected, particularly with regard to the presentation of ornaments

Ornament (music)

In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...

. (It is worth noting that the Bach-Gesellschaft volume containing the Goldbergs was one of the first to be published—Vol. 3, which appeared in 1853.)

Nevertheless, the Bach-Gesellschaft's volumes were a groundbreaking achievement and contributed greatly to the study and appreciation of Bach's music. They remained the standard edition of Bach's complete works until the publication of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe

Neue Bach-Ausgabe

The Neue Bach-Ausgabe is the second complete edition of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, published by Bärenreiter. The name is short for Johann Sebastian Bach: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke...

, begun in 1954 and published by Bärenreiter

Bärenreiter

Bärenreiter is a German classical music publishing house based in Kassel. The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still maintains headquarters; it also has offices in Basel, London, New York and Prague...

.

External links

• Bach Gesellschaft Download Page - the BGA volumes available for download in DJVU format.
• Bach-Gesellschaft Edition - A complete list of volumes with German titles and publication dates.
• Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe at IMSLP - completely sorted, indexed and split in PDF according to BWV
  BWV
  The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis is the numbering system identifying compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. The prefix BWV, followed by the work's number, is the shorthand identification for Bach's compositions...
  
  index.
• BGA Edition - The Bach-Gesellschaft Edition reproduced in paperback. 23 vols. Tarnhelm Ed.