Rethinking Editions

Abstract

The monument culture of the nineteenth century has left a lasting impact on our understanding of J. S. Bach—an impact that extended even to editions of his music. The Mass in B Minor offers a paradigmatic example in the intersecting ways that historians and editors have viewed its evolution and its identity. Every edition until recently has proceeded from an understanding of the Mass as an integral, fully realized creation, produced over many years but melded by Bach’s genius into a single coherent whole. A more careful and unbiased look, however, reveals something more complex and contingent—a shifting congery of texts that presents challenges not only to the individual editor but to our very notions of what a critical edition should do.