Bach Bibliography

http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/tomita/bachbib/

Yo Tomita
School of Music / Sonic Arts Research Centre
Queen's University Belfast, UK
What is “Bach Bibliography”?
Online resource for scholars studying the life
and works of J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Offering a range of useful features:
– Closely-integrated cross references
– Highly-structured search options
– Inclusion of unpublished papers, thesis, online
review of hot-from-the-press books
What is “Bach Bibliography”?
Released online in May 1997
Currently accessed c.200 times per day
Receives contributions from c.70 scholars
world wide.
 Focus of this presentation
Background
Search Strategies
Under the Bonnet
Future Plans
 Background
J. S. Bach is one of the most well-
researched composers
Flood of new publications every year
Research becoming increasingly
900

800

specialized and fragmented:

700

–600Biographical Studies, Historical Studies, Manuscript Studies,

500
Compositional Process, Rhetorical Approach, Music Analysis,
400Symbolism, Theological Studies, Mathematical Approach, Historical
300Performance, Interpretation, etc.

Difficult to follow the latest research

200

100

0
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000
 History of Bibliographical Studies
Table 1: The coverage of ‘Bach-Schrifttums’ published in the Bach-Jahrbuch
Coverage Items BJ Compiler Notes
1800–1904 453 2 (1905) Max Schneider mostly German literatures; no pp given
1905–1910 321 7 (1910) Max Schneider some with page numbers
1910–1944 299 (see notes) Christoph Wolff in Bach-Bibliographie (1985)
1945–1952 941 40 (1953) Wolfgang Schmieder more systematically described
1953–1957 402 45 (1958) Wolfgang Schmieder
1958–1962 807 53 (1967) Erhard Franke
1963–1967 715 59 (1973) Rosemarie Nestle
1968–1972 884 62 (1976) Rosemarie Nestle
1973–1977 845 66 (1980) Rosemarie Nestle
1978–1980 560 70 (1984) Rosemarie Nestle
1981–1985 1144 75 (1989) Rosemarie Nestle
1986–1990 1174 80 (1994) Rosemarie Nestle
1991–1995 1331 86 (2000) Karin Germerdonk
[1996–2000 c.1500 91 (2005)] projection based on data shown in Figure 1
Blue -- also repr. in Bach-Bibliographie, ed. Christoph Wolff (Kassel, 1985)
 Data collection
Main body of data come from the Bach-
Jahrbuch
Support receiving from:
– Many individuals
– The American Bach Society
– The Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Ohio
– The Bach-Archiv Leipzig
Lots of my time being invested into the
collection of additional information
 Size
Currently it contains 19,029 records

Table 2
Comparing the scope of bibliographical data for Bach Studies

Bibliographical Reference items coverage notes

The on-line Bach Bibliography 18300 1800–2003 plus c.700 of pre-1800 ref.
‘Bach-Schrifttums’ in Bach-Jahrbuch 9876 1800–1995 see Table 1 for details
RILM online 7857 1967–2003 keyword search ‘Bach’
IIMP CD-ROM (reviewed in 1998) 1588 1920–1995 keyword search ‘Bach’
ArticleFirst 629 1990–2003 keyword search ‘Bach’
Search Strategies
DEMONSTRATION
 Under the Bonnet (1)
Database format
– 1985-86 (ViewStore on BBC Micro)
– 1986-92 (dBase IV on IBM compatible PC)
– 1992- (Idealist on Windows PC)
– (1997-: comma delimited text file on the Webserver)
Relational Database
– Main Bibliography database
– Periodical database (also managing abbreviations and the
progress of research)
 Under the Bonnet (2)
Table 3
Selection criteria of references for the Bach Bibliography
Selected references Excluded references

Published books of scholarly Printed editions of music and

contents and reviews
Published articles of scholarly
contents (including reviews and
correspondence)
Published facsimiles
Unpublished dissertations (Master
and Doctor) from universities
Unpublished papers read at
recognised conference or meeting
scores (except those of a highly
scholarly nature)
Recording and its reviews (except
accompanying books or booklets
of a highly scholarly nature)
Books for children
Fiction
On-line essays posted on the
internet
 Under the Bonnet (3)

Table 4
Additional fields made available in each record
Field Notes
Genre general classification of genre, i.e. vocal, keyboard, instrumental, etc.
Music specifying Bach’s works (in 3-letter abbreviation) discussed
Aspect specifying the aspect of discussion in 3-letter abbreviation
Publication type book, article, thesis, facsimile, music, unpublished paper, review
Language used specifying with 3-digit telephone codes: 001=English; 049=German;
033=Dutch...
Reviews list of its reviews or author’s own summary in separate publication
Created date on which the record was first created
Modified date on which the record was last modified
Memo reserved for future use for feedback, comments, etc.
 Under the Bonnet (4)
Search engines written in perl by Malcolm Vincent
(formerly a QUB staff at computer services)
– Relatively simple, portable, and platform independent
This set of scripts is available for other scholars
– Used by Dr. Paul Laird of University of Kansas for his
“International Inventory of Villancico Texts” database (
http://www.sun.rhbnc.ac.uk/Music/ILM/IIVT/)
 Future Plans (1)
Data Collection and Editorial Control

Invite collaboration of other scholars

Dynamic link to RIPM?
Integrated into a much larger system of
musicological project conceived in e-Science
model
 Example model of an e-Science approach to
Bach Source Studies

1. Basic OMR
AA
AA AA
AA AA
AA AA
AA 2. Advanced OMR
Digital Image Library
of Sources
3. Graphoanalysis

DD 4. Staff measuring
Bach’s Scribe
Middleware
EE
FF GGHH I
Bach’s sources I JJ K USER
Bach’s works
K Bach Bibliography
 Future Plans (2)
Enhance search facilities

Sort search results in alphabetical /

chronological order
Sort search results according to the relevance
to queries
Widen/narrow down the search
 Future Plans (3)
Introduction of AI-driven search techniques
Table 5
Knowledge required for measuring the significance of a scholarly contribution
category of about the author about the book about the article
knowledge
knowledge publication publisher’s prestige by its prestige of the journal by
extractable from record history of continuity its history of continuity
the existing participation in page numbers page numbers
database NBA project year of publication
number of reviews
knowledge to specialisation specific scholarly prestige of the journal by
be assigned education contributions referee status
(either manually posts held the number of citation by specific scholarly
or by vote on others contributions
the internet) the number of citation by
into database others