An Australian professor's theory that some of J.S. Bach's masterpieces were in fact written by his second wife has met with intense criticism from many scholars and musicians.
Martin Jarvis, who is a professor of music at Charles Darwin University, proposes that Anna Magdalena Bach may actually have written the Cello Suites and several other of Bach's masterpieces. A documentary film about Jarvis' claim, Written by Mrs Bach, will air at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) next week.
Jarvis collaborated with British composer Sally Beamish and American forensic document examiner Heidi Harralson to make the film, which includes evidence from Harralson, who analyzed the composer's signature and the manuscripts of his famous works.
Here's a trailer for the new film:
Anna Magdalena, who worked as a music copyist before her marriage, often made copies of her husband's scores.
Jarvis studied manuscripts known to be in Bach's hand and those copied by Anna Magdalena. At the heart of his theory is a manuscript of the Cello Suites written in Anna Magdalena's hand. Jarvis says that the quality of her handwriting, as well as errors and corrections made to the manuscript, suggest that Anna Magdalena was composing, rather than merely copying.
Cellist Steven Isserlis, writing in British newspaper The Guardian, begs to differ: "I'm afraid that his theory is pure rubbish. Anna Magdalena Bach did not write the Bach suites, any more than Anne Hathaway wrote Shakespeare's plays, George Henry Lewes wrote George Eliot's novels, or Freddie Starr ate his friend's hamster." (This last example is from a famous British tabloid headline.)
Noted Bach scholar and Harvard professor Christoph Wolff expressed his exasperation with Jarvis' arguments to the National Review Online. "I am sick and tired of this stupid thesis," Wolff said. "When I served as director of the Leipzig Bach Archive from 2001 to 2013, I and my colleagues there extensively refuted the basic premises of the thesis, on grounds of documents, manuscript sources, and musical grounds. There is not a shred of evidence, but Jarvis doesn't give up despite the fact that several years ago, at a Bach conference in Oxford, a room full of serious Bach scholars gave him an embarrassing showdown."
The conference in question took place in 2008. Jarvis first proposed his theory in 2006, and received a similar firestorm of criticism from scholars and musicians.
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