The original autograph piece of this music is one of only 10 autograph pieces of music by Bach that are in private hands and 80% of all surviving autograph pieces are in the Berlin State Library. It is hard to imagine how old original scores survive especially after two world wars and fires at libraries being quite common. This original piece of music survived like this: One of Bachs sons inherited this original manuscript among others because there is a small transcription in his sons hand in a corner. But there is no mention of this piece in a list of his possesions when he died (Bachs second son was also a famous composer so had a record of his possessions). So he had sold it during his lifetime to a music producers called Breitkopf, a company that acquired a number of manuscripts directly from Bachs children. They would have known how to store music correctly luckily. The company are recorded as trying to sell it at auction in 1761 and again much later in 1836 successfully the second time around after interest in Bach increased. It was bought by a wealthy family called "Voss" and it entered their collection (so again being stored correctly and recorded in their collection which is why we can continue to trace the pieces movements). The "Voss" family donated their large collection to a library in Berlin. A couple of other people then recorded it in their collections between 1851 - 1910 i dont know why the library let it go maybe they needed money. it was bought at Sotheby's auction at 1910 by another wealthy individual and thats how it goes up until the present day. Seemed to change hands whenever someone who owned it died and then whoever inherited it next and didnt want it just sold it. It was last sold in 2016 at Christie's auction for £2.5 million. I FIND IT INTERESTING HOW OLD THINGS SURVIVE TO THE PRESENT DAY. shame that most of Bachs works in his own hand have been destroyed, a lot of copies were made (which are also old) before losing the original so we still have the music though. Some do estimate however that as much as half of Bachs work is totally lost in any form.
Wow! Thank you very much for that illuminating history! As you point out, the various custodians had resources (and brains!) that ensured the survival of what might otherwise have been lost. How sad that such a substantial portion of JSB’s output ended up lost, as you report. My sincere thanks to you again!
This estimate is pretty sad as Bach was such a genius and an unimaginable enrichment to the musical world. :/ I would love to know more about the stuff Bach wrote. But some pieces we may never know. Do you know if any pieces by Bach were recently rediscovered? I would love to know.
@@TechnoRaabe Not many in the last 100 years. One of the most recent re-discoveries was in 2004/5. I love (and hate) this story because I imagine other old buildings throughout the world that have potentially not been properly explored for a couple of hundred years that could also be storing old things. This is a profound example of that. An old library in Weimar Germany (built 1560s) where Bach worked in a high musical position has been used to store ancient documents since it was built. One of the most important and oldest is a 1500s copy of the Luther Bible - an early translation of the old and New Testament so incredibly important and old. This library safe kept irreplaceable treasures. By the 2000s it held 100,000+ manuscripts. The library suffered a major fire in 2004, less than one month before everything was due to be moved to another site possibly for restoration works to begin. I’m guessing but that could have been the reason for the fire starting - careless workmen had begun their preparation for whatever it was they were doing and something as simple as a cigarette not being put out properly could easily ignite old very dry wood, paper etc. That is what officials say started the tragic notre dame fire a few years ago. Anyway I am guessing and I digress. In this library were a lot of boxes full of manuscripts that had not been touched for a generation. The boxes that contained the two page aria by Bach had not been found sooner because it was among items simply moved for storage purposes from another library that burned down in 1774. From the Duke of Weimars huge personal library that burned down then. They were then moved again for storage to this library that had a fire in 2004 and no one ever got around to checking all the contents apart from perhaps looking at the few manuscripts at the top of the box. To an untrained and very busy librarian they would have known the contents were quite old (1700s) so worth safekeeping but that sort of thing would have been common in a library like this one in Weimar. Also, the music was at the end of a book so easily missed and they would have had old manuscripts like this everywhere and much older (1500s). After the 2004 fire a Bach scholar was given access to everything that was saved and came across the box with the two page aria by bach written in 1716, a piece likely that went with a poem and that was written probably for the dukes birthday. It was at near the last two pages of a larger document containing a poem and writings and at the end, bachs music. If the fire hadn’t had occurred in this library the music would have likely stayed hidden for much longer because the only reason it got checked was because officials wanted to document everything that was salvaged from the fire. The book that the Bach aria was found in garnered particular attention and was sent to the restoration room because of the high quality of the binding it was housed in. Once the work was confirmed to be in bachs hand it was authenticated and first performed in June 2005. It is cataloged as BWV 1127.
Over and over again...i cant help but to think god was dictating the notes directly through bach in every thing he composed...perfection like this can only come from the first cause of all causes.
La mejor obra compuesta para Clave-Laúd.. que luego fue transcripta para Laúd, y hoy la obra más famosa para Bach para guitarra moderna, la fuga es estupenda.
The prelude is related to the symphony (3 parts invention) in E major. It has the same structure, even that strange chord followed by a fermata, its resolution after the pause (the fermata) - and the fourth suspension and resolution in the last chord of the piece. The chromatism in those parts of the fugue are gorgeous, I don´t know where Bach got those harmonic insights from.
Wow i wish i knew some musical theory like you.. would be nice to understand what hes doing exactly. Although as you say where does be get the inspiration for such lines, they just amazing and always finish so perfectly.. could you elaborate a bit?
First things first, I heavily appreciate your devotion to upload works by Bach. There's no doubt that it's a miracle his music survived til' this day even after two or three centuries (Despite that some of his works were lost), I am thankful a channel like yours dedicated specifically to immortalize this genius exists. I've loved plenty of works by Bach that you've uploaded, but this one in my opinion was the most beautiful keyboard work I've come across. Both the Prelude and Fugue are just stunningly mesmerising. (Excuse me if I barely mentioned the allegro right after), But anyways I must tell you that you've earned my support❤
Lovely to hear BWV 998 played on the hybrid lute-harpsichord (gut strings) for which it was intended. Classical guitarists have always claimed an indirect lineage from Bach because this and other pieces have been wrongly claimed to have been “lute” works, which they were not, even though they sound lovely on guitar too.
Да, некоторые пианино отдают за безплатно, а клавесины очень дорогие, но я очень рад что в моей музыкальной школе я имею возможность поиграть хотя бы на спинете
Seven months late, but this piece wasn't actually composed for lute. The score originally indicated "lute-keyboard". Most modern scholarship on the subject of his lute suites pretty much agree it was never intended to be played by lute. And if you look at how the pieces play on the lute you can tell he probably never touched one given how awful the pieces are to play on lute.
Yes, this wasn’t meant for the lute. This is just a harpsichord with a special stop. (Yes they are called stops) It moves a piece of leather and touches it to the string. This gives it a lute-like sound.
Panda Actually, this was not played with the lute stop. This recording uses a specifically designed instrument called a Lute-Harpsichord (or Lautenwerk) which has a round body and uses gut, rather than metal strings, providing a lute-like sound that is more resonant and prolonged than the lute stop on a normal harpsichord. (see the album info at the end of the video)
If you're rich and famous you can omit apostrophes ("Bach's", not "Bachs") but ordinary people should include them. They should also capitalize "i" when referring to themselves.
Bach should have ended the piece on that II7d sus4 chord near the end - leave them wanting more. The archs are brilliant, they have the effect of making me hyper focus. I'm guessing the arcs are showing the primary underlying harmonic motion like a schenkerian analysis. Amazing
this is a really beautiful piece that is also a gem of the guitar repertoire! i want to record this piece soon but i still need to tidy up the fugue haha 🥲
I dont get why no one can play the prelude correctly, you can clearly see that the base notes are paused after a quarter note, but you can hear that they just ring through. No one seems to be able to play it correctly.
Probably thinking about lute- harpsichord i dont know, but on harpsichord on i have played five times it is very hard yo control dynamic and leght of the notes so it is snd if you press not thst long you have no way to stop it bevause harpsichord has no dempfers as piano has. And about guitar about the same way jf you play that long note ypu loose control of lenght you just let it ring, pluss you have to play the upper voices, yeah thats what I think, myb.
