The Critical Discographies from Choral Music On Records Pages at the Teri Noel Towe Home Pages
Johann Sebastian Bach
The Critical Discographies from Choral Music On Records
This remarkable photograph is not a computer generated composite; the original of the Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment, all that
remains of the portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach that belonged to his pupil Johann Christian Kittel, is resting gently on the surface
of the original of the 1748 Elias Gottlob Haussmann Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach.
1748 Elias Gottlob Haussmann Portrait, Courtesy of William H. Scheide, Princeton, New Jersey
Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment, ca. 1733, Artist Unknown, Courtesy of the Weydenhammer Descendants
Photograph by Teri Noel Towe
©Teri Noel Towe, 2001, All Rights Reserved
The Critical Discographies from Choral Music On Records
In recent weeks, I have been honored by several requests that I arrange to post at my homepages the four critical discographies
that I contributed to the anthology, Choral Music on Records, which was organized and edited by the distinguished British critic
and writer on music, Alan Blyth, in 1989, and published by the Cambridge University Press in 1991.
One of the four essays, a critical discography of George Frideric Handel's Messiah, is a heavily revised version of an article that
appeared in Opus in 1985, and it is one of the group of articles that I wrote during the Bach-Handel-Scarlatti Tercentenary that won
me my first ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award in 1986. The remaining three discographies, in which I discuss and evaluate the
recordings of the Mass in B Minor, BWV 232, and the the two surviving Passion settings by Johann Sebastian Bach, won me my
second ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award in 1992.
These recent requests have not been the first I have received over the years, and, in part because the anthology is still technically in
print, if difficult to find, and in part because I have been simply too lacksadaisical to undertake to confirm with the Cambridge
University Press my vague recollection that my agreement with the Cambridge University Press permitted me to republish the
discographies in an anthology of my own writings with proper credit to the source, I simply have ignored the requests. I must also
confess that I also felt uncomfortable about posting discographies that are a dozen years out of date, when I knew that I had little
interest in investing the many, many hours that would be needed to audition, analyse, and evaluate the many recordings of these
masterpieces that have been published since I closed the books on these discographies in the late fall of 1989.
While I freely admit that, to some extent, I have been goaded into clearing the rights to post these articles as a response to the
outrageous, at times defamatory, and often ad hominem attacks that have been made on me by various Performance Practice
Puritans and HIP-ocrites who shrilly contend that I am nothing but a pretentious old windbag and a loud-mouthed "know nothing",
the real inspiration for me was a recent plea from the remarkable, unsurpassable, and devoted Aryeh Oron, who created and
maintains the Bach Cantatas Website, an internet resource sans pareil for any and all who share his love -- and mine -- for the
sacred works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
After Aryeh learned of the existence of these discographies, he did not let go until I, both honored and humbled by his persistence,
agreed to take up the matter of the posting of the discographies on the internet with the powers that be at the Cambridge University
Press. I am truly am glad that Aryeh was so insistent, because a particularly pleasant by-product has been the re-establishment of
contact with the extraordinary Penelope Souster, the Music Editor at the Cambridge University Press with whom I worked as
closely on the project as I did with the equally extraordinary Alan Blyth. I want to express particular thanks to Penny for clearing
up the matter of my right to post the discographies so quickly. Penny also will know what I mean when I remind her that her
lobster still awaits! {:-{)}
I offer a word of warning about the discographies as they appear here at my Johann Sebastian Bach Pages. The texts are not
identical to the final versions that are to be found in Choral Music on Records. Instead, for convenieince and other purely personal
reasons, I have posted the final drafts that I sent to Alan and to Penny for them to edit and refine for publication in the book.
Nonetheless, please remember that the copyrights in these articles belong to the Cambridge University Press, and, should you
choose to honor me and my work product by quoting from them, please be sure to state that the source is Choral Music on
Records, that the final versions of the discographies are to be found in Choral Music on Records, and that the essays appear at
this website by courtesy of the Cambridge University Press.
Mass in B Minor, BWV 232
Saint Matthew Passion, BWV 244
Saint John Passion, BWV 245
Teri Noel Towe, December 8, 2001
P. S.: Please don't forget that, if you are interested in thorough, accurate discographies of the recordings of any of these
masterworks that have appeared since the preparation of these articles, you should go at once to Aryeh Oron's remarkable Bach
Cantatas Website.
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