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

BWV 537; 6 the Prelude and Fugue in F minor, BWV 534; 7 and the Toccata and Fugue
in D minor, BWV 565. 8 As an organist, a musicologist, and a critic, I am troubled by
the way in which this uncertainty of attribution—a mere historical accident, one might
think—renders everything else about these pieces unstable and ambiguous.
When I was younger, I thought that one of the loveliest melodies ever written
was the little aria ‘Bist du bei mir’, in J. S. Bach’s notebook for Anna Magdalena
(Ex.1.1).
I still do, I think; but I have since learned that the person who wrote it was not Bach
himself, but a contemporary of his, the Gotha Kapellmeister Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel
(1690-1749). A trivial detail, surely? Not a single note has been altered. As a
6 J. O’Donnell, ‘Mattheson, Bach, and the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor BWV 537’, Organ
Yearbook 20 (1989), 88-95.
7 D. Humphreys, ‘Did J. S. Bach compose the F-minor prelude and fugue BWV 534?’, in Bach,
Handel, and Scarlatti: tercentenary essays, ed. P. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985), pp.173-84.
8 P. Williams, ‘BWV 565: a toccata in D minor for organ by J. S. Bach? Early music, 9/3 (July 1981)
330-37; R. D. Claus, Zur Echtheit von Toccata und Fuge d-moll BWV 565 (Koln: Dohr, 1995).
However convincing the arguments of Humphreys, O’Donnell, and Williams may be, it is difficult to
evaluate their effect upon our collective knowledge of J. S. Bach’s music. There is no clear process
by which works are accepted into or rejected from his oeuvre. The New Grove work-list for example
raises no question about their authenticity. Even the extremely doubtful eight short preludes and
fugues BWV 553-560 are included without comment.
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