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'Bist du mei mir' score, vocal version. parousie.over-blog.fr presents "Bist du mei mir" (see videos). Aria by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. "Bist du bei mir" "Or, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel1 Composed It, …More
'Bist du mei mir' score, vocal version.
parousie.over-blog.fr presents "Bist du mei mir" (see videos). Aria by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel.
"Bist du bei mir"
"Or, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel1 Composed It,
Johann Sebastian Bach Used It
(in the Clavier-Büchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach, 1722 and 1725)2
and Anyone Can Find It as BWV 508"
"It is played on hand chimes. It is played on solo trumpet, flute, harp, guitar, harmonica, keyboards, and violin. It is played by every type and size of instrumental ensemble. It is sung solo whether S, A, T, or B (despite having been written originally, it is maintained, for Anna Magdalena's soprano voice in E flat major) or in any voicing SATB combination and number of singers. It is sung in the Baroque manner by those trained for it or in a jazzy a cappella arrangement as, for example, by the Swingle Singers. It is played and sung at weddings and funerals, and occasionally at other church services, and sold in every kind of arrangement of vocal and instrumental sheet music. The song is well regarded by singers of classical German Lieder but it has not been included in the Lieder repertory, therefore not much recorded, because of the preference for nineteenth and early twentieth century Romantic Lieder. It is included in the examination by the Royal Schools of Music.3 Why isBist du bei mir so popular even among listeners who know little if any Bach or other Baroque composers? First and foremost, it is a hauntingly beautiful melody made grippingly memorable by the poem's directly spoken words, with an affect akin to Schubert's Gretchen am Spinnrade, but much, much stronger.
Little has been written about this song but what has been written is unanimous in praise of its sweet melody and of the simple text by an anonymous poet (thirty-one words in German) telling the beloved in effect that 'as long as you are with me to the end, I face death with ease.'4 This Lied, or aria, has attained wide currency in America mainly because of its contemporary popularity as a wedding song. But little impression has been made informing the interested public that although still listed in Schmieder's Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, the song is now believed to have been composed by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. Increasingly, the song still appears in other places as Bach BWV 508 but with a note that this is a spurious attribution and/or that Stölzel is probably the actual composer.5 But not always and not everywhere.
Quite possibly the Internet may become the more effective channel for telling the casual surfer looking for wedding songs or the Baroquely inclined searcher looking for a Bach web site that BWV 508 is indisputably a great and marvelous song for all time no matter who wrote it but, in fact, it probably was Stölzel's not Bach's composition. And, indeed, many of the Bach web sites now up and running are making that careful distinction while still maintaining the song's BWV identity. However, the questions still to be answered are: how did the song come to be considered Bach's; when and how was the spurious character of BWV 508 uncovered; who was Stölzel; and, lastly and perhaps unanswerable, what was the name and reputation of the poet whose words made such a deep impression on Stölzel to inspire him to compose this lovely yet haunting melody?
In a few sentences on his Bach web site Bernard S. Greenberg explains to the new and inexperienced Bach devotee why a work attributed to Bach may not, in fact, be by him at all and considered by scholars to be "spurious". It is clear that collecting and/or copying music without a proper citation was common in the Baroque era. It may have been done innocently and inadvertently, it may have been due to general carelessness, or it may have been stolen outright. As Greenberg puts it, "Bach himself sometimes copied music without careful attribution."6 It is known that Anna Magdalena, a trained singer and daughter of a musician, also copied music, first as her husband's musical amanuensis (her handwriting quite closely resembled his)7, and then by using music given her by Johann Sebastian for her continuing musical education. Together they created her notebooks, the source of Bist du bei mir for Bach scholars and their natural conclusion that Bach had composed the song.
In his notes to a CD of Bach Wedding Cantatas, Peter Holman describes the song as a "sacred vocal piece ... a minuet-like da capo aria ... once one of the most popular pieces associated with J.S. Bach...."8 He acknowledges the more recent attribution to Stölzel. However, a search for Stölzel CDs on the Internet and in the Schwann catalog turns up only a few Stölzel cantatas, concertos mostly for brass, and a passion oratorio. Some live performances of his works are known, but they are few. He is heard more on German radio than in the USA, appropriately enough. More unexpectedly, Stölzel's music was used in an avant garde 1997 ballet premiered and performed in Ulm. Interestingly, Stölzel's Concerto [Grosso] a 4 Cori was first on the program of a Mostly Mozart opening concert at New York's Lincoln Center on July 10, 1996. Since then, nothing. And, certainly, no recording that includes Bist du bei mir ever attributes it solely and exclusively to Stölzel. The citation is usually to Bach BWV 508 with the Stölzel add-on.
If, as Kenneth Whitton maintains in his 1984 book (see Endnote 4), the correct attribution of BWV 508 to Stölzel had recently been discovered, when did it happen and who was responsible for it? No amount of online research at highly reputable and authoritative institutional and organizational Bach sites in Germany, the USA, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Japan has turned up the name of the diligent discoverer. The number of written works on J.S. Bach - books, scholarly journal articles, dissertations, monographs, and so on - simply cannot be counted, but many would have to be perused to turn up the unnamed Bach-into-Stölzel scholar. In its January 13, 2000 daily anniversary list, the Internet music magazine Music & Vision (at mvdaily.com) noted that it was Stölzel's birth anniversary adding: "Some scholars believe that the famous song Bist du bei mir was written not by J.S. Bach, but by a son of Germany's Harz Mountains-- Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel...." It is curious that the M & Veditors claim that "some scholars" believe this to be so. It is usual to find a sentence in a text or a footnote saying that scholars now agree that BWV 508 was written not by JSB but by GHS without the author going on to say who were responsible in reaching this agreement and how it all came about. The reader remains uninformed.
Curiously, a single footnote appearing in a book by Karl Geiringer sheds some light. To quote the footnote verbatim:
According to a statement by von Dadelsen (KB, pp. 92 and 124) the tender aria Bist du bei mir (BWV 508) may have Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel as author. Up to 1945 the Berlin Singakademie owned a MS. entitled Airs divers comp. par M. Stölzel. This volume which is lost today contained the aria Bist du bei mir in a version for soprano, strings, and bass with the melody which appears also in the Clavier-Büchlein.9
Geiringer is referring to Georg von Dadelsen, a noted Bach scholar and one considered reliable regarding such a cautious statement of attribution. But no other scholars have yet been found who have lent their names to von Dadelsen's revision. Was von Dadelsen alone in his estimation about the real composer of the aria? This year, 2000, is a fortuitous one in that it is the 250th anniversary of Bach's death and, therefore, one knows that there will be an even greater outpouring of commemorative concerts, recitals, seminars, symposia, books, CDs, and popular and scholarly articles. It is hoped that the wellsprings of scholarly research into BWV 508's Bach attribution will result in new knowledge and be made known to those with a modicum of interest in such mysteries.
As for the life of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel we know the broad outlines.10 Stölzel was born January 13, 1690 in Gründstädtel, not far from Schwarzenberg in Saxony, about nineteen miles southeast of Zwickau. He died November 27, 1749 in Gotha. He studied at Leipzig University from 1707 to1710 where he joined the Collegium Musicum, which had been headed by Telemann before Stölzel's arrival at the University. For the next ten years Stölzel traveled extensively to Breslau, Halle, Venice (where he met Vivaldi), Rome, Florence, Prague, Bayreuth, and Gera during which time he studied, taught and composed. He married in 1719 and in 1720 he was appointedKapellmeister in Gotha (Saxe-Gotha) where he remained until his death. In 1739 he joined the Correspondirenden Societät der Musicalischen Wissenschaften of which Bach later became a member.
Bach was said to have great respect for Stölzel who was known to be a prolific composer in nearly every genre of the Baroque era. Most of Stölzel's works have been lost. Bach's familiarity with Stölzel's music may account for the use Bach made of it in the little exercise books he created, first for his son Wilhelm Freidemann and later for his second wife Anna Magdalena. Bach included a Partita in G Minor of Stölzel's in the Clavierbüchlein for Wilhelm Freidemann Bach. As a learning exercise, Friedemann (as Johann Sebastian addressed him) was given musical works by his father to copy out much as Johann Sebastian himself had done as a young music student. This same method of copying music as a learning exercise was introduced to Anna Magdalena. Bist du bei mir may have been transcribed and set by Johann Sebastian as a solo aria appropriate for his wife's voice, and she may also have had to do some of the copying. No one will ever know how the actual transmission occurred"...
See archives: http://www.carolinaclassical.com
parousie.over-blog.fr presents "Bist du mei mir" (see videos). Aria by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel.
"Bist du bei mir"
"Or, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel1 Composed It,
Johann Sebastian Bach Used It
(in the Clavier-Büchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach, 1722 and 1725)2
and Anyone Can Find It as BWV 508"
"It is played on hand chimes. It is played on solo trumpet, flute, harp, guitar, harmonica, keyboards, and violin. It is played by every type and size of instrumental ensemble. It is sung solo whether S, A, T, or B (despite having been written originally, it is maintained, for Anna Magdalena's soprano voice in E flat major) or in any voicing SATB combination and number of singers. It is sung in the Baroque manner by those trained for it or in a jazzy a cappella arrangement as, for example, by the Swingle Singers. It is played and sung at weddings and funerals, and occasionally at other church services, and sold in every kind of arrangement of vocal and instrumental sheet music. The song is well regarded by singers of classical German Lieder but it has not been included in the Lieder repertory, therefore not much recorded, because of the preference for nineteenth and early twentieth century Romantic Lieder. It is included in the examination by the Royal Schools of Music.3 Why isBist du bei mir so popular even among listeners who know little if any Bach or other Baroque composers? First and foremost, it is a hauntingly beautiful melody made grippingly memorable by the poem's directly spoken words, with an affect akin to Schubert's Gretchen am Spinnrade, but much, much stronger.
Little has been written about this song but what has been written is unanimous in praise of its sweet melody and of the simple text by an anonymous poet (thirty-one words in German) telling the beloved in effect that 'as long as you are with me to the end, I face death with ease.'4 This Lied, or aria, has attained wide currency in America mainly because of its contemporary popularity as a wedding song. But little impression has been made informing the interested public that although still listed in Schmieder's Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, the song is now believed to have been composed by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. Increasingly, the song still appears in other places as Bach BWV 508 but with a note that this is a spurious attribution and/or that Stölzel is probably the actual composer.5 But not always and not everywhere.
Quite possibly the Internet may become the more effective channel for telling the casual surfer looking for wedding songs or the Baroquely inclined searcher looking for a Bach web site that BWV 508 is indisputably a great and marvelous song for all time no matter who wrote it but, in fact, it probably was Stölzel's not Bach's composition. And, indeed, many of the Bach web sites now up and running are making that careful distinction while still maintaining the song's BWV identity. However, the questions still to be answered are: how did the song come to be considered Bach's; when and how was the spurious character of BWV 508 uncovered; who was Stölzel; and, lastly and perhaps unanswerable, what was the name and reputation of the poet whose words made such a deep impression on Stölzel to inspire him to compose this lovely yet haunting melody?
In a few sentences on his Bach web site Bernard S. Greenberg explains to the new and inexperienced Bach devotee why a work attributed to Bach may not, in fact, be by him at all and considered by scholars to be "spurious". It is clear that collecting and/or copying music without a proper citation was common in the Baroque era. It may have been done innocently and inadvertently, it may have been due to general carelessness, or it may have been stolen outright. As Greenberg puts it, "Bach himself sometimes copied music without careful attribution."6 It is known that Anna Magdalena, a trained singer and daughter of a musician, also copied music, first as her husband's musical amanuensis (her handwriting quite closely resembled his)7, and then by using music given her by Johann Sebastian for her continuing musical education. Together they created her notebooks, the source of Bist du bei mir for Bach scholars and their natural conclusion that Bach had composed the song.
In his notes to a CD of Bach Wedding Cantatas, Peter Holman describes the song as a "sacred vocal piece ... a minuet-like da capo aria ... once one of the most popular pieces associated with J.S. Bach...."8 He acknowledges the more recent attribution to Stölzel. However, a search for Stölzel CDs on the Internet and in the Schwann catalog turns up only a few Stölzel cantatas, concertos mostly for brass, and a passion oratorio. Some live performances of his works are known, but they are few. He is heard more on German radio than in the USA, appropriately enough. More unexpectedly, Stölzel's music was used in an avant garde 1997 ballet premiered and performed in Ulm. Interestingly, Stölzel's Concerto [Grosso] a 4 Cori was first on the program of a Mostly Mozart opening concert at New York's Lincoln Center on July 10, 1996. Since then, nothing. And, certainly, no recording that includes Bist du bei mir ever attributes it solely and exclusively to Stölzel. The citation is usually to Bach BWV 508 with the Stölzel add-on.
If, as Kenneth Whitton maintains in his 1984 book (see Endnote 4), the correct attribution of BWV 508 to Stölzel had recently been discovered, when did it happen and who was responsible for it? No amount of online research at highly reputable and authoritative institutional and organizational Bach sites in Germany, the USA, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Japan has turned up the name of the diligent discoverer. The number of written works on J.S. Bach - books, scholarly journal articles, dissertations, monographs, and so on - simply cannot be counted, but many would have to be perused to turn up the unnamed Bach-into-Stölzel scholar. In its January 13, 2000 daily anniversary list, the Internet music magazine Music & Vision (at mvdaily.com) noted that it was Stölzel's birth anniversary adding: "Some scholars believe that the famous song Bist du bei mir was written not by J.S. Bach, but by a son of Germany's Harz Mountains-- Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel...." It is curious that the M & Veditors claim that "some scholars" believe this to be so. It is usual to find a sentence in a text or a footnote saying that scholars now agree that BWV 508 was written not by JSB but by GHS without the author going on to say who were responsible in reaching this agreement and how it all came about. The reader remains uninformed.
Curiously, a single footnote appearing in a book by Karl Geiringer sheds some light. To quote the footnote verbatim:
According to a statement by von Dadelsen (KB, pp. 92 and 124) the tender aria Bist du bei mir (BWV 508) may have Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel as author. Up to 1945 the Berlin Singakademie owned a MS. entitled Airs divers comp. par M. Stölzel. This volume which is lost today contained the aria Bist du bei mir in a version for soprano, strings, and bass with the melody which appears also in the Clavier-Büchlein.9
Geiringer is referring to Georg von Dadelsen, a noted Bach scholar and one considered reliable regarding such a cautious statement of attribution. But no other scholars have yet been found who have lent their names to von Dadelsen's revision. Was von Dadelsen alone in his estimation about the real composer of the aria? This year, 2000, is a fortuitous one in that it is the 250th anniversary of Bach's death and, therefore, one knows that there will be an even greater outpouring of commemorative concerts, recitals, seminars, symposia, books, CDs, and popular and scholarly articles. It is hoped that the wellsprings of scholarly research into BWV 508's Bach attribution will result in new knowledge and be made known to those with a modicum of interest in such mysteries.
As for the life of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel we know the broad outlines.10 Stölzel was born January 13, 1690 in Gründstädtel, not far from Schwarzenberg in Saxony, about nineteen miles southeast of Zwickau. He died November 27, 1749 in Gotha. He studied at Leipzig University from 1707 to1710 where he joined the Collegium Musicum, which had been headed by Telemann before Stölzel's arrival at the University. For the next ten years Stölzel traveled extensively to Breslau, Halle, Venice (where he met Vivaldi), Rome, Florence, Prague, Bayreuth, and Gera during which time he studied, taught and composed. He married in 1719 and in 1720 he was appointedKapellmeister in Gotha (Saxe-Gotha) where he remained until his death. In 1739 he joined the Correspondirenden Societät der Musicalischen Wissenschaften of which Bach later became a member.
Bach was said to have great respect for Stölzel who was known to be a prolific composer in nearly every genre of the Baroque era. Most of Stölzel's works have been lost. Bach's familiarity with Stölzel's music may account for the use Bach made of it in the little exercise books he created, first for his son Wilhelm Freidemann and later for his second wife Anna Magdalena. Bach included a Partita in G Minor of Stölzel's in the Clavierbüchlein for Wilhelm Freidemann Bach. As a learning exercise, Friedemann (as Johann Sebastian addressed him) was given musical works by his father to copy out much as Johann Sebastian himself had done as a young music student. This same method of copying music as a learning exercise was introduced to Anna Magdalena. Bist du bei mir may have been transcribed and set by Johann Sebastian as a solo aria appropriate for his wife's voice, and she may also have had to do some of the copying. No one will ever know how the actual transmission occurred"...
See archives: http://www.carolinaclassical.com