Keeping it in the family: Bach is one of the great composers - but did he take credit where it wasn't due?
Credit: Elias Gottlob Haussmann
SYDNEY: A forensic analysis of 18th century letters and musical manuscripts has shown that Johann Sebastian Bach’s second wife may have written or co-composed some of the genius composer’s best-known works.
Bach was born in 1685 and died in 1750. He was a renowned organist, and is one of the most famous composers of all time.
Assistant composer
The new analysis of his work – by Australian forensic anthropologist Martin Jarvis of Charles Darwin University in Darwin – involved comparing documents written by Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena, with musical notation written by Bach and others who copied his work.
“My forensic work reveals that our current understanding of Anna Magdalena's role in the life and musical output of Johann Sebastian Bach cannot be correct," Jarvis told Cosmos Online.
"I believe there is evidence that shows that Anna Magdalena was at the very least a composition student of Bach, and more probably his assistant composer,” he said.
His research was revealed today at the 19th International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences in Melbourne.
Similar handwriting
The results cast new light on the relationship between Bach and Anna Magdalena, a first class musician in her own right.
Jarvis said that his analysis reveals the pair knew each other about seven years before widely accepted history shows, and that she was probably Bach’s student before the married.
Bach and Anna Magdalena are believed to have had very similar writing. To tell the handwriting apart, Jarvis delved into the historical records and came up with a letter purporting to be written by Anna Magdalena, asking a council for custody of their children after Bach’s death.
Jarvis compared this letter with another letter accepted as having been written her, and he also studied a large number of manuscripts handwritten by Bach, Anna and other contemporaries containing musical notation and text in old German and French.
The analysis suggests Anna Magdalena may have played a role in composing violin sonatas and partitas and the cello suites. The violin sonatas are known from three manuscripts, one signed by Bach, dated 1720, and two others, one written by Anna and one by German organist and Bach copyist Johann Peter Kellner.
“My theory is that even though we have an autographed copy by Johan Sebastian dated 1720, [the sonatas] couldn’t have been complete in 1720,” said Jarvis, suggesting that the version written by Anna was a stage prior to the finished manuscript.
No credit for female composers
“For many reasons, I think it is distinctly possible that Anna Magdalena also played a role in the composition of the cello suites, not least of which is the fact that the initial owner of the manuscript has indicated in French that [the copy] was ‘written’ by Mrs Bach,” said Jarvis.
The find is possibly explained by the fact that “in the early 18th century women were not allowed to take credit for composition,” he added.
Bryan Found, a handwriting expert at La Trobe University and the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department, both in Melbourne, commented that the research was a “tremendously interesting project”.
He said that “while the probity value [of handwriting analysis] isn’t as high as DNA evidence, it does however form a body of material from which conclusions can be reliably drawn.”
