Week 22 Supplement: New discoveries

Four exciting new entries to the BWV catalogue!

I’m absolutely thrilled to announce the discovery of four new organ works by J.S. Bach, which greatly expand and enrich our understanding of his style and 18th-century music more broadly. Since the works were discovered in the archives of the Cook Music Library at Indiana University, I’ve assigned provisional BWV numbers crediting “IU.”

For legal reasons, it’s impossible to share images of the holograph manuscripts, but I’ve been given dispensation to share recordings of all four pieces. It’s too early to know very much about this music—I’m still working on identifying the chorale melodies and thus the relevant liturgical occasions—but I’ll offer brief remarks about each piece.

BWV IU 1, “Die Geschichte von der letzten Nacht”

The title of this piece is intriguing: it surely indicates a programmatic work about Holy Thursday. But how different this music is from any of the settings of “Jesus Christus unser Heiland”! Instead, it reminds me of the rhythmic drive, melodic catchiness, and harmonic addictiveness that characterizes “Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ.” Remember that that’s also Passiontide music: Bach’s theology could be radically different from ours.

The other extraordinary feature of this piece is its harmonic language, making incessant use of German augmented sixth chords (and leading to the subdominant!), not entirely unheard of for Bach, but never in this quantity and in quick music. The effect would be unusual for almost any repertoire really. Perhaps the harmonic surprises have some of the Passion connotations that they might in “O Mensch bewein.”

BWV IU 2, “Knie”

You’ve heard of Bach's Feet: now get ready for Bach’s Knees. An equally unusual title for what seems to be a work of personal devotion. There’s a possible reference to the story of Mary of Bethany (who anointed Christ’s feet with nard and then wiped them with her hair), another story close to the events of the Passion. And this piece has some musical characteristics in common with other Passion-adjacent music: it’s not far off from the musical universe of the “Great Eighteen” “O Lamm Gottes” to my ear.

The big exception is in the harmony, which is so enriched with sevenths and ninths that it must surely reflect some French influence. (The closest Baroque music gets to this sound is Rameau.) Also pointing toward French style is the incessant use of port de voix ornaments in the melody.

BWV IU 3, “Ihre Bedeutung”

Another title hinting at personal devotion—are these possibly works for private performance at the clavichord? Might they provide musical links with Bach’s interest in Pietist theology?

Equally exciting about this piece is its structure: given the changes in register in the right hand, it seems almost certain that this is an extremely literal arrangement of a duet from a lost cantata. In other words, it picks up where Schübler Chorales like “Meine Seele erhebt den Herren” leave off. Perhaps the same treatment could be extended to other cantata duets, like “Alles, was von Gott geboren” from Ein feste Burg.

BWV IU 4, “Liebesgedicht”

The title, which sounds like nothing so much as a Schumann song, is in a different hand and may indeed be a Romantic addition. That leaves something of a mystery surrounding what this piece is: a ground bass where the chords keep getting mixed up? The steady growth of density indicates something like the multi-verse structure of “O Lamm Gottes” or “Christ ist Erstanden,” although the accompanying figuration does not change nearly as much as in those works.

In any case, these musical and textual mysteries will surely leave scholars and organists with much to work out in coming years. Expect a more fullsome announcement of this discovery in the next Bach-Jahrbuch.