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The Manuscript Transmission of J. S. Bach's Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) and the Development of the Concept of Textual Authority, 1750-1850

Boomhower, Daniel F.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1489155807416477

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Musicology.
Despite being long considered to rank among the great musical statements in European compositional history, substantiating the textual identity of Bach’s Mass in B Minor has proven quite challenging. This results from the fact that Bach’s Mass as conveyed in a tangled body of original sources reflects a process of composition and compilation that stretched over nearly four decades and defies modern conceptions of artistic creation. The surviving manuscript sources reflect numerous different constituent elements composed for earlier uses which Bach then combined, along with other pre-existing bits and pieces, to form a totality that wholly reimagines the purpose and intent of its components. This study traces changing attitudes toward the integrity of musical compositions, the musical text of such compositions, and the notated sources that transmit those compositions, beginning with practices common in early eighteenth-century German courts and churches and continuing through to the foundation of the Bach Gesellschaft in 1850. In examining Bach’s music and its reception during the period between 1750 and 1850, this study demonstrates how changing intellectual and social concerns propelled the formulation of a stable textual entity that embodied the idea of the musical “work” and how music was adapted to new economic and social conditions. Over time the sources for Bach’s Mass in B Minor advanced varying representational objectives resulting in different versions of the Mass in B Minor that document distinct moments in history. Understanding changing attitudes toward notated musical objects allows for the contextualization of the concept of textual authority that arose during this period.
Susan McClary (Advisor)
257 p.
European History; Music
Johann Sebastian Bach Mass in B Minor Manuscript Transmission Textual Authority

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Citations

  • Boomhower, D. F. (2017). The Manuscript Transmission of J. S. Bach's Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) and the Development of the Concept of Textual Authority, 1750-1850 [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1489155807416477

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Boomhower, Daniel. The Manuscript Transmission of J. S. Bach's Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) and the Development of the Concept of Textual Authority, 1750-1850. 2017. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1489155807416477.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Boomhower, Daniel. "The Manuscript Transmission of J. S. Bach's Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) and the Development of the Concept of Textual Authority, 1750-1850." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1489155807416477

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1489155807416477
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© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.