Partes feminarum: Gender Representations in Baroque Music
This paper, presented at a conference at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 1997, remains, surprisingly, one of very few feminist discussions of the music of Barbara Strozzi, as opposed to biographical studies. Moreover, I am unaware of any published discussions of Bach's Coffee Cantata that take up what seem to me the work's obvious points of interest from the perspective of feminist theory or gender studies. Click here to read the paper.
Fugues and Fingering: Scales and Other Technical Devices in Bach's Contrapuntal Works
This presentation offers various examples of keyboard pieces in which sophisticated contrapuntal devices are integrated with virtuoso techniques such as hand crossing, showing that Bach drew inspiration simultaneously from intellectual and technical types of musical thought. Scales seem to have had particular significance, for several possible reasons considered in the paper, which I presented at a meeting of the New England Chapter of the American Musicological Society at Providence College on Sept. 30, 2006. Click here for the paper (large file due to embedded grahpics). (This is a different paper, albeit with a similar title and topic, from “Fugues, Form, and Fingering: Sonata Style in Bach's Preludes and Fugues,” which I contributed to Variations on the Canon: Essays in Musical Interpretation from Bach to Boulez in Honour of Charles Rosen on his Eightieth Birthday [University of Rochester Press, 2008], pp. 12–21; click here to order the volume.])
A Bach Manuscript Recovered:
Berlin, Bibliothek der Hochschule der Künste, Spitta Ms. 1491
Many manuscripts containing early copies of works by J. S. Bach and other composers disappeared during World War II from the European archives in which they were preserved. Some of these have emerged in subsequent years, to be returned to their rightful owners. In 1998 I had the good fortune to play a role in the retrieval of one such manuscript, especially important as the unique source for a collection of organ chorales attributed to Johann Christoph Bach, an older relative of Johann Sebastian. A short version of the paper was published that year in the newsletter of the American Bach Society; click here for the complete paper.
When Did the Clavichord Become C.P.E. Bach's Favorite Instrument? An Inquiry into Expression, Style, and Medium in Eighteenth-Century Keyboard Music
This paper, written for a symposium on the clavichord that took place in 1999, was subsequently published in modified form in De clavicordio IV: Proceedings of the IV International Clavichord Symposium, Magnano, 8–11 September 1999 (Magnano: Musica Antica a Magnano, 2000), pp. 37–53. A French translation by Jean-Claude Teboul appears in Ostinato rigore 23 (2004): 139–57. Click here to read the paper in its original form. The recordings can be heard by clicking on the following links, then right-clicking on the word "download" and saving to your local computer. I made the recordings on the Swedish clavichord of circa 1770 at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota (more information here).
1. Sonata in E minor (W. deest), second movement (Andante)
2. Sonatina in G, W. 64/2 (H. 8), second movement (Largo)
3. Sonata in B minor, W. 65/13 (H. 32.5), first movement (Poco allegro)
4. Sonata in C, W. 90/3 (H. 524), first movement (Allegro di molto)
The Last Bach-Family Engraved Print: The Musical Supplement to C.P.E. Bach's Versuch
This paper discusses the compositional and publication history of C.P.E. Bach's Probestücke, a set of eighteen pieces, each in a different key, that accompanied his well-known Versuch (in English, the Essay on the True Manner of Playing Keyboard Instruments). I presented versions of this material at a number of public fora during 2003, including the Clavichord Symposium sponsored by the Boston Clavichord Society during the Boston Early Music Festival . A portion of it was published as part of my edition of the Probestücke in Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works, volume I/3 (Los Altos: Packard Humanities Institute, 2005). The present paper includes otherwise unavailable material on the continuing use of Bach's Probestücke into the nineteenth century and their possible influence on Beethoven. Click here for the paper (large file due to embedded grahpics).
Critical Editions of C. P. E. Bach's Concertos for Keyboard and Strings W. 4, 5, 6, and 24
During the 1980s I prepared editions of two concertos by C. P. E. Bach (W. 6 and 24) for publication in The Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Edition. The project was halted after issuing just four volumes, and my editions of those two concertos were never published. More recently, my revised versions of those editions were included, in partial form, in Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Collected Works (Los Altos: Packard Humanities Institute), vols. III/9.2 (2009) and III/9.8 (2010; Click here for further information or to order). But those volumes do not include my reconstructions of the earliest version of W. 6, nor of W. 4 and 5, which I subsequently edited, and the notation and many other details have been altered in ways that do not reflect the original texts. Click here for the complete version of each edition, incorporating the full musical text as well as audio files for early and late forms of each concerto, with comprehensive historical and textual commentary.