J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

plate with ‘made in China’ printed on its underside. There is, however, a group of
works that are (in a sense) both ‘Bach’ and ‘not-Bach’: the sizeable quantity of music
once thought to be by him but whose authorship is now in doubt. How does
consideration of a fugue’s style affect our awareness of its authorship? And how does
awareness of its authorship affect our consideration of its style? These fundamental
questions of analytical and critical method are addressed in the first part of the chapter:
‘Fine distinctions (1): misattributed works in the Bach circle’, which traces the critical
and analytical histories of two important but doubtful organ works: the Prelude and
Fugue in F minor BVW 534, and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565. The
second part: ‘Fine distinctions (2): pupils and imitators,’ compares selected fugues by
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Johann Ludwig Krebs to those of J. S. Bach, and
evaluates the extent to which they could be said to replicate the achievement of their
teacher—or, alternatively, to introduce qualities not found in his music.
Chapter two, ‘Converting the Handelians’ begins with an account of the
canonisation of Handel (a process which, unlike that of Bach, began within his own
lifetime), outlining the extraordinary durability of his influence upon English musical
life and making similar comparisons between the style of Handel’s own music and that
of his followers to those in the previous chapter. The main section, however, concerns
the emergence of Samuel Wesley from this background, his discovery of and attempts
to promote the music of J. S. Bach, and the way in which his musical output reflects
this impact (against the background of the development in English musical taste from
J. C. Bach to Felix Mendelssohn). We see the competing claims of Handel, Bach, and
Haydn upon his style, and the way he was able to forge a highly personal idiom out of
these diverse influences.
The three remaining chapters take different approaches to the fugal writing of
the Viennese Classics. Chapter three: ‘Classical style, Classical ideology, and the
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