The Neue Bachgesellschaft (New Bach Society), founded in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century became an international organization after the Second World War. Germany was divided into two separate, independent states, and the Bachgesellschaft was no longer administered by one central office but rather by one in East and one in West Germany. This stimulated the search for and development of new chapters, and a group of Bach Society members in the United States became primary candidates to form one of those chapters.
The oldest American Bach organization was the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, founded around the same time as the Neue Bachgesellschaft. The conductor (1970-1980) of the Bethlehem Bach Choir, Alfred Mann, consulted with American members of the Neue Bachgesellschaft and offered the Bach Choir’s headquarters as the American office; thus in 1971 preparations for organizing an American chapter of the Neue Bachgesellschaft were begun. Mann was greatly helped in this endeavor by the Choir’s archivist, Richard Watt, Professor of German at Lehigh University, who for a time assumed informal secretarial functions. Mann followed up these organizational preparations with a visit with Professor Christhard Mahrenholz, then president of the Neue Bachgesellschaft, at his home in Hanover, Germany, to consult with him about the organization of the new chapter.
The American Bach scholar Arthur Mendel agreed to call a meeting at Princeton University to inaugurate the American chapter. At that meeting, later in 1971, Gerhard Herz, Bach scholar at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, was elected the first chairman of the American Chapter of the Neue Bachgesellschaft, and a board consisting of Herz, Mendel, and Mann (the latter acting as chapter secretary), was named to administer it.
The chapter held its first membership meeting in Bethlehem during the Bach Choir’s 65th Festival at the end of May, 1972. The terms of chapter officers, at first appointed pro tem, coincided with those for the officers of the Neue Bachgesellschaft. Successive chairmen of the American Chapter were: Robert Marshall, Brandeis University, Robert Freeman, then of University of Rochester and Director of the Eastman School of Music, and George J. Buelow, Indiana University.
On assuming the chairmanship in 1987, Buelow suggested to the board that the growth of the chapter warranted its independence. He helped to establish the American Bach Society (ABS), which included the important step of achieving the status of a non-profit corporation in 1988, and became its first President in 1989. An informal affiliation with the Neue Bachgesellschaft continued (as have affiliations with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem and the Riemenschneider Bach Institute at Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio). Buelow was succeeded as President by Don O. Franklin, University of Pittsburgh (1992-1996), George B. Stauffer, then at the City University of New York (1996-2000), and currently, Robin A. Leaver, Westminster Choir College of Rider University (2000- ).
Alfred Mann and George J. Buelow
Some Milestones
Awards and Research Fellowships
The William H. Scheide Award and Research Fellowship were established in 1991. The Award honors a publication in the area of Bach studies by a scholar in the early stages of his or her career. The Research Fellowship provides support for a research project in Bach studies.
William H. Scheide Award
1992. John Butt, Bach Interpretation: Articulation Marks in Primary Sources of J. S. Bach. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
1994. Jeanne Swack, “On the Origins of the ‘Sonate auf Concertenart’,” JAMS 46 (1993): 369-414.
1996. Michael Marissen. The Social and Religious Designs of J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Princeton University Press, 1995.
1998. Peter Wollny, “Neue Bach-Funde,” Bach-Jahrbuch 83 (1997): 7-50.
2000. Daniel R. Melamed and Reginald L. Saunders, “Zum Text und Kontext der ‘Keiser’ Markuspassion,” Bach-Jahrbuch 85 (1999): 35-50.
William H. Scheide Research Fellowship
1992. Russell Stinson, “Bach the Teacher: A Study of his Pupils and Pedagogical Methods.”
1996. Melvin Unger, “The ‘Theologia Crucis’ in J. S. Bach’s Cantatas.”
1998. Stephen Crist, “Originality and Convention in the Arias of J. S. Bach.”
2000. David Schulenberg, “A Study of the Development of Bach’s Weimar Compositional Style in the Context of Repertory Associated with Dresden.”
Bethlehem Bach Choir / American Bach Society Biennial Performance Prize
2000. Margaret Bragle, mezzo-soprano. Soloist at the Bethlehem Bach Festival 2001.
Bach Perspectives
The series of Bach Perspectives, published by the University of Nebraska Press in collaboration with the American Bach Society, was inaugurated in 1994:
Vol 1. [no separate title], edited by Russell Stinson (1995)
Vol 2. J. S. Bach, the Breitkopfs, and Eighteenth-Century Music Trade, edited by George B. Stauffer (1996)
Vol 3. Creative Responses to Bach from Mozart to Hindemith, edited by Michael Marissen (1998)
Vol 4. The Music of J. S. Bach: Analysis and Interpretation, edited by David Schulenberg (1999)
Vol 5. Bach in America, edited by Stephen Crist (2002)
Vol 6. In preparation
Tri- and Biennial Meetings
1976 Bethlehem
1979 Bloomington
1982 Rochester
1985 Ann Arbor
1988 Cambridge,
Mass.
1990 Berea
1992 New York
1994 Atlanta
1996 Berkeley
1998 New Haven
2000 Washington,
DC
2002 Houston