Contemporary scribal manuscript of the Toccata in D minor for harpsichord, BWV 913, n.d. [probably first quarter 18th century]

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Contemporary scribal manuscript of the Toccata in D minor for harpsichord, BWV 913, n.d. [probably first quarter 18th century]
A crucial new manuscript source for the Toccata in D minor, for which no autograph survives. Recently discovered and unrecorded in the thematic catalogues, this contemporary scribal manuscript preserves a unique variant of the work, diverging from both the ‘early’ and ‘revised’ versions.

Full score notated in dark brown ink on seven two-stave systems per page. 14 pages, 340 x 208mm, on three bifolia and a singleton, 14-stave hand-ruled paper, watermark: coat of arms containing three annulets (cf. Heawood 701-3), title on p.1 ‘Toccata di Joh: Sebast: Bach’. Modern card boards with ties.

Provenance:
(1) Reputedly in the collection of Hermann von Beckerath, Munich (1909-1964, cellist and musicologist), perhaps by descent from his grandfather, Rudolf von Beckerath (1833-1888; violinist, friend of Brahms, autograph collector).

(2) Sotheby's, 24 May 2016, lot 85.

(3) Schøyen Collection, MS 5571.

A provisional dating for the Toccata in D minor is given by Peter Wollny on stylistic grounds to Bach’s Arnstadt years, 1703-7 (see NBA V/9.1, critical report (1999), p.77). Bach served as organist at the Neue Kirche during this time, blessed with a relatively generous salary and light duties, which allowed plenty of time for composition. The Toccata exists in two versions: ‘early’, BWV 913.1, and ‘revised’, BWV 913.2 (for a full listing of the sources for each, see bach-digital.de, works 00001085 and -6); Wollny suggests the later, revised version could date to 1706-7. The present manuscript is closer to the early version, first published almost a century later by Hoffmeister & Kühnel in Leipzig in 1801, with a dedication to the composer’s elder brother, Johann Christian Bach (‘In honorem delectissimi fratris Joh.Christ. Bach Ohrdruffiensis’ [i.e. ‘of Ohrdruf’, the town in which Bach first studied under his brother]).

No autograph manuscript for either version of this harpsichord toccata survives – a common fate of many of the original manuscripts of the keyboard works. As such, the contemporary copies made in the circle of Bach’s pupils for his harpsichord and organ works are particularly important for the preservation of Bach’s canon. The present manuscript is the only contemporary copy given as a source for the early version of the Toccata on bach-digital.de but, as Wollny has indicated, the 1801 edition nevertheless deviates from our score.

Unpublished; not recorded in Schmieder’s entry in the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (1990), p.675, nor in the critical report to the Neue Bach Ausgabe (ibid.).