Yoshitake Kobayashi’s Article “On the Chronology of the Last Phase of Bach’s Work– Compositions and Performances: 1736 to 1750”– An Analysis with Translated Portions of the Original Text

Yoshitake Kobayashi, at present the most productive scholar at the Johann Sebastian Bach Institute in Göttingen, published in the Bach-Jahrbuch for 1988 a sixty-six page article: Zur Chronologie der Spätwerke Johann Sebastian Bachs. Kompositions- und Aufführungstätigkeit von 1736 bis 1750. The results of Kobayashi's decade-long research are of such importance that Bach lovers who want to keep abreast of the most recent findings but who do not readily read German, might welcome a condensation and free translation of his article. Kobayashi begins by raising the question of whether a new investigation of the chronology of Bach's music is not a superfluous venture in view of the lasting value of Alfred Diirr's ¹ and Georg von Dadelsen's ² studies. The fact that his article is dedicated to Alfred Dürr in honor of his seventieth birthday indicates that Kobayashi regards his own efforts as a continuation of Dürr's lifelong work on Bach chronology. ³ While the basic substance of Dürr's and von Dadelsen's new chronology has indeed proven its solidity, ⁴ in a fair number of cases additions and more precise datings have been supplied and a few errors corrected. Hans-Joachim Schulze has made substantial contributions by identifying a number of formerly anonymous copyists. ⁵ 150Their participation in the task of copying the parts of many of Bach's vocal compositions not infrequently facilitated a more precise dating. Andreas Glöckner's careful investigation of the handwriting of the young Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and of the copyist Johann Ludwig Dietel clarified a number of compositional details for the period 1729 to 1735. ⁶ Furthermore, investigations of the circumstances and times of origin of single compositions have yielded new insights and dates. Foremost among them was Joshua Rifkin's convincing demonstration that Good Friday 1727 was the true date of the first performance of the St. Matthew Passion. ⁷ Also, Christoph Wolffs studies about Cantata 23, Bach's test-piece for the position of Thomas Cantor, ⁸ and about the genesis of The Art of Fugue ⁹ have led to new conclusions. These, in turn, have produced new theories, among which, I may add, Ulrich Siegele's account of Bach's plan of The Art of Fugue as a work in twenty-four movements, is the most intriguing. ¹⁰