New Edition of the Complete Works
The New Bach Edition is an Urtext edition offering the world of scholarship a reliable musical text which is equally useful in performance. Prepared with the most exacting methods of source criticism, it has set new standards for modern scholarly-critical editions in the latter half of the 20th century. Work on the New Bach Edition led to the rediscovery of lost compositions and resolved many questions of authenticity in the Bach canon. Most of all, however, the close study of the sources has occasioned a large-scale revision of the chronology of Bach’s life, thereby forming the basis for a new image of the composer in our time.
In each series, the volumes not only contain those works by Bach which have survived intact but also those existing as fragments. In addition to a preface, each musical volume presents a selection of the relevant sources in facsimile. It is also accompanied by a separately published critical report.
The edition will appear in over 100 volumes divided into the following series:
Series I: Cantatas (47 volumes)
Series II: Masses, Passions, Oratorios (12 volumes)
Series III: Motets, Chorales, Lieder (4 volumes)
Series IV: Organ Works (11 volumes)
Series V: Keyboard and Lute Works (14 volumes)
Series VI: Chamber Music (5 volumes)
Series VII: Orchestral Works (7 volumes)
Series VIII: Canons, Musical Offering, Art of Fugue (3 volumes)
Series IX: Addenda (4 volumes)
Supplement: Bach Documents (10 volumes)
The following purchasing options are available for this edition:
Purchase of individual volumes at retail sales prices
Full subscription (a price advantage of approx. 20 %)
For further information please ask your customer service.
The New Bach Edition (NBA), now completed and available in 104 music volumes and 101 critical commentaries, is regarded as a work of musical scholarship of the first rank. The publication of this immense project stretched over 56 years. However, since the publication of some of the earlier volumes, new sources have been discovered and others newly evaluated, new knowledge has been acquired and further editorial experience amassed. In the interest of a continued practical and musicological usability of the historical scholarly-critical complete edition, it is essential to update selected volumes.
The Bach Archive Leipzig and Bärenreiter have therefore decided to publish approx. 15 volumes or works in revised editions. The New Bach Edition – Revised (NBArev) resembles the NBA in its outward appearance, but each volume now contains a more detailed foreword in German and English, discussing the genesis of the works and how the sources have come down to us as well as a concise critical report in German.
The Bach Archive Leipzig is the internationally recognised centre for Bach research. This guarantees that the New Bach Edition – Revised will be prepared by first-class editors. Volume by volume, editions of the highest standard will be created for the NBArev.
The Mass in B minor will be the first work to be published during the summer of 2010. This work was originally published in 1954 (edited by Friedrich Smend) as the second volume of the NBA. The revised edition, edited by Uwe Wolf (Bach Archive Leipzig), takes into consideration the results of the latest research and scientific examination methods (x-ray spectography) into Bach’s manuscript score.
The edition will comprise the following volumes:
Mass in B Minor
Weimar Cantatas BWV 31, 132, 143, 161, 172
Chamber Music with Violin
St. John Passion „O Mensch bewein“ (1725)
Organ Chorales I
Pre-Weimar Cantatas BWV 21, 106, 131, 150
St. John Passion „Herr, unser Herrscher“ (1749)
Klavierübung I
Chamber Music with Flute
Motets
Organ Chorales II
Six Suites for Violoncello Solo
Pictorial Documents of J. S. Bach’s life
Texts to the Vocal Works
For the first time annotations by J. S. Bach and C. P. E. Bach can be differentiated using ink analysis (x-ray spectrography of over 500 places in the score). All corrections, additions and alterations by Bach’s son and places which remain doubtful (because of iron gall ink erosion) appear in the edition in square brackets.
From J. S. Bach, Mass in B Minor: Symbolum Nicenum, Et resurrexit
From J. S. Bach, Mass in B Minor, Gloria
In grey: Additional information of the „Dresden parts“
Valuable information to the readings of the autograph score of the Missa can be drawn from the “Dresden parts” of 1733, largely written by Bach himself. The different readings of the parts are clearly differentiated from the readings of the autograph score by the use of passages printed in grey.
The following purchasing options are available for this edition:
Purchase of individual volumes at retail sales prices
Full subscription (a price advantage of approx. 20 %)
For further information please ask your customer service.
A strong plot, and fabulously imaginative music: but until now Handel’s “Giustino” has not been one of his most frequently-performed operas. With the new edition this could all change.
Franz Schubert’s stage works have never become firmly established in the repertoire. And yet they contain interesting examples of Romantic opera aesthetics. And with the 2028 Schubert anniversary year in mind, they offer a variety of opportunities for productions.
