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CRITICAL EDITIONS Johann Sebastian Bach. Messe in h-Moll, BWV 232, with Sanctus in DDur (1724), BWV 232III: Autograph: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin- Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Commentary by Christoph Wolff. Kassel: Bärenreiter, c2007. (Bärenreiter Faksimile.) (Faksimile-Reihe Bachscher Werke und Schriftstücke; Neue Folge, Bd. 2.) (Documenta musicologica. Zweite Reihe: Handschriften-Faksimiles, Bd. 35.) [Facsim. reprod.: Mass in B Minor (color), 188 p.; facsim. reprod.: Sanctus in D major (early version) (color), 20 p.; commentary in Eng., Ger., Jap., p. ii-xxxiv; structure of manuscripts, p. xxxv-xxxvii; facsim. 1924 (b&w), 7 plates. Cloth. Limited ed. of 500 copies. Bärenreiter BVK 1911; ISBN 3-7618-1911-0, 978-3-7618-1911-1. [euro]398.]
Johann Sebastian Bach. Messe h-Moll, BWV 232. Herausgegeben von Joshua Rifkin. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, c2006. (Breitkopf Urtext.) [Scoring, 1 p.; pref., models for the Mass in B Minor in Ger., Eng., p. v-xviii; full score, 253 p.; Krit. Bericht, p. 254-73. Partitur-Bibliothek Nr. 5363; ISMN M-004-21170-0. Duration: ca. 110 min. [euro]74.]
Johann Sebastian Bach. Messe h-Moll: für Singstimmen und Orchester, BWV 232. Herausgegeben von Joshua Rifkin; Klavierauszug von Alfred Dürr. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, c2006. (Breitkopf Urtext.) [Scoring, 1 p.; pref. in Ger., Eng., p. 5-8; vocal score, p. 9-228. ISMN M- 004-18251-2; Edition Breitkopf Nr. 8700. Duration: ca. 110 min. [euro]11.50.]
Joseph Kerman, writing in the early 1980s, mused that "there is something wrong with a discipline that spends (or spent) so much more of its time establishing texts than thinking about the texts thus established" (Contemplating Music [Cam - bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985], 48). This strongly stated critique comes in the context of a broader assessment of "Musicology and Positivism: The Postwar Years" (pp. 31-59), which focuses attention on Bach studies in general and on the work of Arthur Mendel in particular. Reviewed here are yet two more new editions demonstrating this continuing textual conundrum as addressed by two of the most accomplished Bach scholars active today.
Kerman concedes "that absolutely central texts were still unavailable in those years [the 1940s and 1950s]" (p. 48). In - deed, a page later he lauds the "brilliant achievement of positivistic musicology" accomplished "in an astonishing revision of their chronology [of Bach's compositions]." But, this concession serves as a preamble to an excursus on "what it [positivistic musicology] has chosen not to do" (p. 49).