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

friend’s advocacy; certainly he was content to be regarded as one of Wesley’s ‘junto’,
a situation difficult to imagine forty years previously.
Samuel Wesley spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort forwarding
this cause. Along with his close friends Charles Frederick Horn, Benjamin Jacob, and
Vincent Novello, he argued with acquaintances, performed Bach’s music wherever he
found opportunity, delivered lecture series, and prepared first editions and
arrangements of Bach works. Sometimes, as with Burney, he was successful in
winning converts; sometimes, as ultimately with his brother, he was not. The letters
are highly optimistic in tone: ‘I made a Point of playing him (even at their Glee Parties,
upon the Piano Forte) wherever an Evening Meeting took place.—Magna est Veritas,
et prævalebit:—In the present Case I may say præveluit, for it surprized me to witness
how they drank in every note.’ 94 ‘Chappel at Birchall’s tells me that the People teaze
his Soul out for the Fugues: that the eternal Question is, “when does Mr Wesley intend
to bring forward the Fugues in all the 24 Keys?”’ 95 Only occasionally does doubt
creep in: ‘The Subscribers in general have been exceedingly remiss in their
Applications for the 3d Number [of the WTC], which has been one Reason (& the
chief one) for the remaining Book being so long delayed.’ 96
In all this activity, neither Samuel Wesley nor any of his contemporaries were
especially concerned with ‘authenticity’ (or ‘historical awareness’) of performance
practice. It never occurred to anyone to seek out a harpsichord or clavichord to play
the WTC; throughout Europe, it came to be—indeed, still is—regarded as the
foundation of the piano repertoire. In England, too, another possibility emerged at this
time. Samuel Wesley writes: ‘Bach composed the 48 Preludes & Fugues expressly for
the Purpose of making Proficients on the Clavier in all the 24 Keys, & he calls it (I
94 Letter to Burney, 7 August 1808, ibid., p.67, describing a trip to Cambridge in June and July; his
audience was composed of Cambridge academics and other worthies. See Olleson, Wesley, pp.78-79
95 Letter to ?Horn (originally thought to be addressed to Jacob), ?30 September 1809, ibid., p.125.
96 Letter to Jacob, 10 May 1813, ibid., p.201.
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