Neumeister Collection

History#

Neumeister compiled his manuscript after 1790. It has been suggested that the 77 earliest works in the collection may have been copied from a single source, possibly a Bach family album put together in J. S. Bach’s early years. The five works by Neumeister’s own music teacher, Georg Andreas Sorge, were a later addition. Some time after 1807 the manuscript passed to Christian Heinrich Rinck (1770–1846), whose library was bought by Lowell Mason in 1852. After Mason’s death in 1873, his collection was acquired by Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. After satisfying themselves that the manuscript was genuine, they announced the discovery in December 1984. Their conclusions were confirmed in January 1985 by German organist (1937–2005), who had been working on the same material independently, and with a fatal lack of urgency, since 1981. Wolff acknowledged that he brought his announcement forward when he learned that Krumbach was in the field. Krumbach was unhappy with the way things turned out.

Works and composers#

The Neumeister Collection contains 82 chorales, most of them unpublished before the 1980s re-evaluation of the Neumeister manuscript. The attribution of a few pieces in the manuscript remains uncertain: * 3 by Johann Christoph Bach (1642–1703), brother of Johann Michael and cousin of Johann Sebastian * At least 24 by Johann Michael Bach (1648–1694), cousin and father-in-law of Johann Sebastian * Around 38 by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) * 1 by Daniel Erich (1649–1712) * 1 or more by Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) * 5 by Georg Andreas Sorge (1703–1778) * 1 possibly by Johann Gottfried Walther * 4 by Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663–1712) * 5 unattributed works From the state of the manuscript Wolff concludes that the five unattributed works were written by composers represented elsewhere in the collection, whose names were omitted by accident. Weighing both textual and stylistic evidence, he proposes Johann Michael Bach as the author of all five, while allowing that one could also have been written by J. S. Bach and another by Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow.

Johann Michael Bach#

The rediscovery of the Neumeister Collection quadrupled the number of keyboard works indisputably written by Johann Michael Bach, from eight to thirty-two, with six more arguably also his. Of the twenty-five pieces attributed to him in the manuscript, seven were known but had been credited to other composers and eighteen were entirely new, making this the largest single trove of his work. This remains the case even if, as some have suggested, one of the chorales that appears under his name would have been composed by Johann Heinrich Buttstett. Wolff has proposed that the five unattributed works in the volume could also be by Johann Michael Bach—confidently in three cases, less so in the other two. Generally attributed to J. M. Bach: # Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, # Meine Seele erhebt dem Herrn, # Herr Christ der einig Gottes Sohn, # Nun freut euch lieben Christen gemein (1), , however also attributed to J. Pachelbel # Nun freut euch lieben Christen gemein (2), # Gott hat das Evangelium (1), # Gott hat das Evangelium (2), # Gelobet seist du Jesu Christ, , BWV 723, previously attributed to J. S. Bach. # Jesus Christus unser Heiland, # O Herr Gott Vater in Ewigkeit, # Der du bist drei in Einigkeit, # Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, # Mag ich Unglück nicht widerstahn, # Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot, # Auf meinen lieben Gott, # Nun laßt uns Gott dem Herren, # Kommt her zu mir spricht Gottes Sohn, # Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt, # Warum betrübst du dich mein Herz, # Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, # Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darein, # Es spricht der Unweisen Mund wohl, # Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, # Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist, Likely by J. M. Bach: # In dulci jubilo, , BWV 751, partially attributed to J. S. Bach, possibly by J. G. Walther. Possibly by J. M. Bach, the five anonymous preludes: # Christ lag in Todesbanden, # Was mein Gott will das gescheh allzeit, # Ich ruf’ zu dir Herr Jesu Christ (in D minor), # Ich ruf’ zu dir Herr Jesu Christ (in G minor), # Heut triumphieret Gottes Sohn,

Johann Sebastian Bach#

The rediscovered manuscript prompted revisions to J. S. Bach’s catalogue and reconsideration of his musical development. The collection contains 40 chorales with a BWV number: ** Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, BWV 742, moved to Anh. III (the annex of the spurious works) in BWV 2a (1998). The Bach Digital website lists both Bach and Pachelbel as possible composers. They provide a new window on his formative years as a composer and cast the chorale preludes in the Orgelbüchlein, previously considered his earliest essays in the form, in a fresh light: the Orgelbüchlein pieces are not the work of a precocious beginner, but of an already practised hand.

Publication#

Wolff published the chorale preludes by J. S. Bach in 1985, and a facsimile of the complete collection in 1986. Scores of the other composers here: https://partitura.org/index.php/bach-johann-michael/

Entire Neumeister Collection#

A facsimile of the entire collection was published in 1986. In the 21st century facsimile renderings of the Neumeister manuscript became available on the Bach Digital website.

21st-century editions of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Neumeister Chorales#

Christoph Wolff’s 2003 edition Orgelchoräle der Neumeister-Sammlung (Organ Chorales from the Neumeister Collection), Score and Critical Commentary, Volume 9 of Series IV: Organ Works of the New Bach Edition (, NBA), includes 36 chorales (BWV 714, 719, 737, 742, 957 and 1090–1120). The B&H edition includes 35 chorale preludes of the Neumeister Collection: apart from the four BWV numbers not adopted in the NBA edition, it additionally omits BWV 1096 (likely composed by J. Pachelbel).

Performances and recordings#

The Bach chorales in the Neumeister Collection attracted the interest of organists even before they were published. They were first performed privately by Wilhelm Krumbach at Utrecht in January 1985, and publicly by John Ferris and Charles Krigbaum at Yale in March. Later the same year, Joseph Payne made the world-premiere recording for Harmonia Mundi at St. Paul’s Church in Brookline, Massachusetts, working from a photostat of the Yale manuscript, and Werner Jacob made the first recording of the Wolff edition for EMI-Angel on a restored Johann Andreas Silbermann organ at Arlesheim cathedral.

Sources#

• Sara Ann Jones. The Neumeister Collection of Chorale Preludes of the Bach Circle: An Examination of the Chorale Preludes of J.S. Bach and Their Usage as Service Music and Pedagogical Works, Doctor of Musical Arts Dissertation, Louisiana State University, 2002
• Jean M. Perreault, edited by Donna K. Fitch. The Thematic Catalogue of the Musical Works of Johann Pachelbel. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2004. ,
• Russell Stinson. “Review: The Neumeister Collection of Chorale Preludes from the Bach Circle (Yale University Manuscript LM 4708) by Johann Sebastian Bach – Orgelchoräle der Neumeister-Sammlung / Organ Chorales from the Neumeister Collection by Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph Wolff” pp. 352–361 in Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 40 No. 2, Summer, 1987.
• Russell Stinson, “Some thoughts on Bach’s Neumeister Chorales” in The Journal of Musicology, vol. 11, no. 4 (Autumn, 1993)
• Christoph Wolff (1991). “The Neumeister Collection of chorale preludes from the Bach circle”, in Bach: Essays on His Life and Music New Haven, CT: Harvard University Press.

External links#

• J.S. Bach’s Neumeister Chorales performed by James Kibbie on historic German baroque organs
• Scores of the other composers here: https://partitura.org/index.php/bach-johann-michael/