Bach: Flute Sonata in A Major: BWV 1032

[worov]

Hi, everybody !

I have just downloadeed Bach's Flute Sonata in A major, BWV 1032 (Breitkopf edition). Right here :

http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg ... WV1032.pdf


Viewing the PDF, there seems to be something wrong at the end of the first movement (Vivace). At page 5, there are some staves which don't appear well at the bottom of the page. Does anyone have access to the book ? I think a new scan should be done.

What does everyone think ?

[Philidor]

45 bars were lost from the manuscript, leaving only the first 62 and last 2. There are modern reconstructions but I suspect they're all in copyright. The Bärenreiter edition is a good one.

ETA I've not checked if anyone's done a PD reconstruction of the missing bars. If not, it would be great if a Bach scholar did one so the IMSLP score could be "complete."

[worov]

45 bars were lost from the manuscript, leaving only the first 62 and last 2.

I wasn't aware of that. That explains everything. Thank you for the information. The Bärenreiter was first published in 1963 according to their website :

https://www.baerenreiter.com/html/compl ... htm#serie6

Other dates appear : 1973, 1983. My knowledge of German is not very good. I suspect that there must have been some re-edition, some revisions.

Since this is an urtext edition published more than 25 years ago, I understand that it is public domain in Canada and several countries from Europa and could be uploaded on the EU server, though it is still copyrighted in the United States. Am I correct ?

I don't have the book though. Does this edition present a reconstruction of the missing bars ?

[Philidor]

Since this is an urtext edition published more than 25 years ago, I understand that it is public domain in Canada and several countries from Europa and could be uploaded on the EU server, though it is still copyrighted in the United States. Am I correct ?

Good question! I don't know the answer. But someone should be along who does.

I don't have the book though. Does this edition present a reconstruction of the missing bars ?

Yes. If I remember right, it's a good one. But see here:

Completions of the first movement have been published by Gustav Schreck (Peters), Georges Barrère (Boston), Alfred Dürr (Bärenreiter), William Bennett (Chester), and Bart Kuijken (Breitkopf u. Härtel). The copyright status of these completions being unclear, this edition provides a new completion, bars 63 to 87, by Peter Billam. Also, since the manuscript leaves the right hand of the keyboard part blank in bars 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 25, 26, 27, and in the last beat of bar 37, these bars have also been completed by Peter Billam.

Source

Background on the loss:

The manuscript of the Sonata in A is titled Sonata a 1 Traversa è Cembalo obligato di J. S. Bach in Bach’s handwriting. It was discovered by von Winterfeld in an antique shop in Breslau and presented to the Preuß. Staatsbibliotek in Berlin; during the second world war it was moved to the monastery of Grüssau in central Silesia. At the end of the war, it was removed by the Polish government to the Jagiellon University in Cracow, and in 1977 was presented to the Deutsche Staatsbibliotek in Berlin. The manuscript is written on nineteen staves, and apart from this sonata it also contains a concerto for two keyboards and string orchestra. The concerto occupies the top sixteen staves on each page, and, with typical economy, the Sonata fills up the lowest three staves. Eight of the manuscript pages are intact, but unfortunately, on six of the pages the lowest part has been cut away, so that we lack some forty-five bars at the end of the first movement.

The Bart Kuijken reconstruction sounds interesting.

[pml]

Reconstructions usually involve original creative effort on the part of the editor, and where that work is substantial, generally it is our policy to acknowledge the editor’s rights in these cases. So any completion of the missing bars is usually going to involve separate, creative rights that are independent of the “urtext” determination, and the only criterion that is going to be relevant is the extent of creativity employed.

Also bear in mind a similar policy concerns editorial additions such as full keyboard realisations from figured bass, or instrumental fingering that wasn’t part of the original score.

Cheers, Philip