florida state university college of music performance practice

conductors of the Berliner Singakademie, founded in 1789. The founder and first
conductor of the Berliner Singakademie, Carl Friedrich Fasch, frequently programmed
the vocal music of Bach at a time when it wasn„t as popular to do so. Fasch taught
Mendelssohn‟s teacher, Carl Freidrich Zelter, who like his teacher became the conductor
of the Berliner Singakademie in 1800. This pedigree of influence on Mendelssohn cannot
be denied or overestimated. Fasch, Zelter and Mendelssohn were convinced of the
supremacy and genius of Bach‟s music. However, that did not inhibit them from making
changes to his compositions to make his music “breathe” and more contemporaneous in
their lifetime.
In the nineteenth century, several Bach biographies of were published. There was
Nikolaus Forkel‟s 1802 account, which included many recollections by Bach‟s sons, Carl
Philipp Emmanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. Forkel‟s biography was written
amidst high nationalistic sentiments in German territories so it comes as no surprise that
Forkel‟s Bach is portrayed in a heroic manner. The Prussian government official, Carl
Bitter, completed a two-volume biography in 1865 that is eminently based on its use of
modern methods of archive research. Bitter emphasized Bach‟s vocational devotion as a
Lutheran church musician. In 1873 and 1880 Philipp Spitta completed the most
celebrated and cited of all Bach‟s biographies. Its attention to comprehensiveness and
detail is achieved in almost an entirely objective manner. Spitta‟s contribution to the
literature focused on the philological, historical, aesthetic and theological-intellectual
aspects of Bach‟s compositions.
Among the various biographies in the nineteenth century and a century after
Bach‟s death an important venture commenced in 1850, known as the Bach-Gesellschaft.
The society was formed with the purpose of preserving the posterity of Bach‟s complete
works and to transmit his colossal oeuvre without little to no editorial additions. Members
of the society represent many influential music figures of the time, including Moritz
Hauptmann, then Cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig, composer, critic and student of Bach‟s
works, Robert Schumann and Wilhelm Rust, who served as the project‟s editor-in chief
and contributed to an impressive 26 of 46 volumes of the Bach-Gesellschaft.
Uri Golomb points out that by the close of the nineteenth century two contrasting,
but sometimes integrating images had emerged regarding the iconic status of Bach. Bach
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