florida state university college of music performance practice

German territories. 154 During the writing of the biography, most Germans were resisting
the ideals of the French Enlightenment as well as Napoleon‟s attempt of domination. 155
During this time the Germans found pride in the fact that Bach represented and promoted
cultural unity and served as an example of the achievements and ingenuity of the German
people. 156 Forkel‟s biography was diligent in providing as much evidence as possible
from the reports of Bach‟s sons. However, he was not as careful in avoiding adding
subjective opinion into the work. 157
Unfamiliar to many is the 1865 two-volume biography, Johann Sebastian Bach,
completed by a Prussian government official, Carl Heinrich Bitter. 158 It, too, is an
impressive scholarly achievement with a sizeable scope of sources used and assessments
of Bach‟s music. This is the first known Bach biography to utilize modern methods of
archival research. 159 In addition, Melamed and Marissen make mention that Bitter‟s
biography was the first to elevate, followed by Spitta, Bach‟s image as a “Great Pious
Lutheran.” 160 Despite its merits, the Bitter biography was eclipsed within the decade by
what is commonly known as “the Spitta.” 161
In 1873 and 1880 Philipp Spitta (1841-1894) wrote perhaps the most
recognized and famous Bach biography, J.S. Bach, which chronicled the life of Bach in a
detailed, comprehensive, and almost entirely objective manner. The two-volume
biography, even by today‟s standards, is a remarkable accomplishment given the
resources available to Spitta during his research. In the work, Spitta focused on the
philological, historical, aesthetic and theological-intellectual aspects of Bach‟s
compositions. 162 Many scholars marvel at how accurate many of his ideas and theories
were concerning Bach when they have only been recently corroborated with hard
evidence. 163
154
Wolff, ed. The New Bach Reader, 418.
155
Geck, Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work, 9.
156
Ibid.
157
Wolff, ed. The New Bach Reader, 418.
158
Geck, Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work, 10.
159
Daniel R. Melamed and Michael Marissen, An Introduction to Bach Studies, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998), 33.
160
Melamed and Marissen, An Introduction to Bach Studies, 34.
161
Geck, Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work, 11.
162
Geck, Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work, 13.
163
Wolff, ed. The New Bach Reader, 505.
33