florida state university college of music performance practice

Rifkin‟s thesis. This dissertation will evaluate recordings post Rifkin‟s minimalist call of
Bach‟s concerted works, to observe if theory and practice have wedded or if there
continues to be a disconnect between the two.
Robert Marshall has spent much of his career contemplating Bach the
phenomenon, 206 and makes the point that the year 2000 not only observes the 250 th
anniversary of Bach‟s death but also marks the 50 th anniversary of the modern era of
Bach research. 207 While Marshall hails the achievements in Bach scholarship over the
past fifty years, he is critical of the impoverished state of a psychological understanding
of Bach. Marshall believes a Freudian-like analysis, similarly completed of monumental
figures such as Michelangelo, da Vinci, Luther, Gandhi and musical personalities like
Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, is overdue. 208 While he admits the scarcity of personal
documents by Bach is one reason for the delay of such a psychobiography, he points to
obvious factual events such as his father‟s remarriage, being orphaned at an early age,
filial tension, conflicts with civic and church authorities, as well as Marshall‟s perceived
overtones of sexual innuendos, all provide a multiplicity of opportunities to see Bach in a
unique perspective. 209 This perspective, if fully convincing, could chip away at the iconic
image of Bach and humanize the composer. 210
Five years later, Christoph Wolff (2005) objected to Marshall‟s references of
sexual innuendos particularly regarding the Geyersbach incident. 211 Rather, Wolff
concludes the incident amounts to nothing more than Bach ridiculing Geyersbach‟s poor
talent on the bassoon and demonstrates Bach‟s temper. 212 Perhaps, more importantly,
Wolff‟s same essay contributes to our understanding of how Bach himself was able to
contribute to his own legacy of genius. Again no personal document of Bach survives
206
Read Robert Marshall, “Truth and Beauty: J.S. Bach at the Crossroads of Cultural History,” Bach 21.2
(Summer 1990) 3-14.
207
Robert Marshall, “Toward a Twenty-First-Century Bach Biography,” The Musical Quarterly 84.3 (Fall
2000): 497.
208
Marshall, “Toward a Twenty-First-Century Bach Biography,” 500.
209
Marshall, “Toward a Twenty-First-Century Bach Biography,” 503.
210
Robert Marshall, “Toward a Twenty-First-Century Bach Biography,” 500.
211
The excerpt of the Geyersbach incident may be found in The New Bach Reader, p. 43. Further opinion
on the incident may be found in Sara Botwinick, “Fear not the Zippel Fagottist! A Tale of Avoidance and
Prejudice” Bach Notes 4 (Fall 2005) 8-9. and Sara Botwinick, “From Ohrdruf to Mühlhausen: A
Subversive Reading of Bach‟s Relationship to Authority,” Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach
Institute 35.2 (2004) 1-59.
212
Christoph Wolff, “Images of Bach in the Perspective of Basic Research and Interpretative Scholarship,”
The Journal of Musicology 22.4 (Fall 2005) 509.
43