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J.S. Bach Premium Editions
There are countless editions of the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. Edition Peters has now published a complete edition for the first time, containing the complete material from Bach’s 1722 and 1725 notebooks. Christoph Wolff, renowned Bach specialist, professor at Harvard University and long-time director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is the editor of this bibliophile Urtext edition.
Bibliophile is the right term here [...] the publication shows the company’s deep connection to Bach in several ways. In addition to a foreword, the inside pages contain all piano pieces from Bach’s books in a clean, very well-placed typesetting. Reproductions of Bach’s original manuscript make the bridge between the past and the present easy to understand. Close to the original and very beautifully realised, this Notebook is worthy of distinction.
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New Critical Edition · Edited by Christoph Wolff
In 1721 a 20-year-old soprano employed at the princely court in Köthen married the court’s Kapellmeister, set to become the greatest composer of the age. As his second wife she married into a young family with four children, and a busy household filled with music. The music book that Johann Sebastian Bach presented to his new wife Anna Magdalena in 1722, and replaced more lavishly in 1725, treats us to a tantalizing glimpse inside this unique family, allowing us to sit beside Bach as a composer, teacher, husband and father.
Over the years, these notebooks became a place for the family to share instructional exercises, favorite pieces – by Bach and other composers – to play or sing, early composition efforts from the children, and first versions of some of Bach’s more ambitious keyboard works.
What is usually presented as ‘the’ Anna Magdalena Notebook is a set of excerpts from the 1725 collection. The scholarship that informed the New Bach Edition in 1957 has been greatly developed and expanded since then.
Now, for the first time, Edition Peters presents a new Urtext edition of the Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach, containing all the material from the 1722 and 1725 books together in one volume, in the original landscape format.
Edited by pre-eminent Bach scholar Christoph Wolff (Harvard Professor and former Director of the Leipzig Bach Archive), this new publication represents the very latest in Bach scholarship, reflecting up-to-the-minute research on texts, authorship and copyists.
With an extensive preface, detailed critical commentary, and beautifully engraved notation, the hardcover clothbound edition with gold embossing offers a truly best-in-class publication.
Premium Scholarly Edition EP 11500 · ISMN 979-0-014-12600-1 Practical Student Edition EP 11501 · ISMN 979-0-014-12601-8
The practical edition of the volume draws from the scholarly edition, and presents a selection of the most popular pieces from the two notebooks, perfect for use by students of all ages and their teachers.
Welcome to Bach’s Home
Bach’s ‘notebooks’ provide a fascinating glimpse into the domestic music academy of the Bach family home. They contain original compositions, exercises, and model examples by other composers, all collected with a view to providing a rounded musical education to family members.
Johann Sebastian Bach et al. Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, 1720
New Critical Edition · Edited by Christoph Wolff
J.S. Bach statue, St Thomas Church, Leipzig
The Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was compiled for Johann Sebastian’s eldest son, who himself went on to become one of the leading organists, improvisers and composers of his day. The book contains systematic exercises, first or early versions of three of Bach’s most important keyboard cycles (some of the preludes from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Preambulums for the Two-part Inventions and Fantasias for the Three-part Sinfonias) and suites by Richter, Telemann and Stölzel among other items.
This luxury linen-bound edition with gold-embossed cover lettering is in line with the quality of the production of the much-praised Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach. It is produced in the original landscape format, ideal for use on a keyboard stand, and contains illustrations, premium-quality new engravings and full critical commentary.
This edition is the first new Urtext edition of the notebook in 60 years. It presents cutting-edge scholarship from the world’s leading Bach authority Professor Christoph Wolff including the most up to date research regarding attributions of authors and writers, new fragments brought to light by recently rediscovered manuscripts and the latest dating of sources.
• First new Urtext Edition for 60 years • Highest possible level of scholarship • Follows acclaimed publication of The Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach 1722 & 1725 • Landscape format, optimal for piano and keyboard players • Premium linen binding • Bibliophile edition
