Towards a Theory of Bach's Pre-Compositional Style

• Analysis of the bar structure of Bach's Matthäuspassion, BWV 244, shows that contiguous movements fall into groups of large round numbers, and that these groups are textually organized. Are these groupings an artificial imposition on the score or did Bach put them there? Pre-compositional principles from Bach's contemporaries (Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Koloff, Johann Mattheson, and Meinrad Spiess) are tested against the analytical findings from the Matthäuspassion. Three levels of analysis based on the two earliest MS scores (Johann Christoph Altnikol's copy of BWV 244b and Bach's later MS of BWV 244) provide thought-provoking results that strongly imply pre-compositional organization.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Konst -- Musikvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts -- Musicology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Bach

compositional procedure

Music

Musikvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)