Johann Sebastian Bach (1685‐1750) is one of the most studied and researched composers of the western classical music tradition. This Web site is a colossal tribute both to the composer and to the corpus of work relating to his music. A collection of 16,480 entries record bibliographic details of all scholarly pertinent references. The hosting of this database on the world wide Web provides excellent facilities for the international academic research community.
What started out as the single‐handed endeavour of a dedicated Bach scholar is now a major resource. Yo Tomita, supported by the Queen’s University of Belfast School of Music, created and is responsible for maintaining this bibliography. The Web site also owes a debt to Max Schneider who in 1905 produced a listing of some 480 Bach references covering the period 1800‐1904. This listing was published in the second issue of the Bach Jahrbuch. Five years later the listing was updated and appeared in the seventh issue of the Bach Jahrbuch (1910). Since then a bibliography has been included every five years, the latest appearing in 1999.
Contributions to the Bach Bibliography Web site are sought from authors whose works might be listed. This goes some way to alleviating the task of keeping up to date with the growing number of records. The scope of the bibliography is more than generous and includes both published and unpublished material such as: published books of scholarly contents and reviews, published articles of scholarly contents (including reviews and correspondence), published facsimiles. Unpublished dissertations (Masters and Doctorates) from universities and unpublished papers read at recognised conferences or meetings are also included. Items which are not considered for inclusion are: printed editions of music and scores (except those of a highly scholarly nature), a recording and its reviews (except accompanying book or booklet of a highly scholarly nature), books for children and fiction.
As one might expect the usual fields within the database such as author, title and date are all searchable as part of the simple search. Perhaps the greatest strength of the resource is the advanced search facility that is built into the Web site. In particular, the ability to interrogate on the basis of subject category and on specific aspects of discussion renders the bibliography a live research tool. The user may choose to search by musical category selecting from: vocal, keyboard (organ), keyboard (clavier), instrumental. These terms are narrowed further, for example vocal is subdivided into chorale, cantata, mass, oratorio and passion, while among the keyboard clavier section terms such as fugue, prelude, fantasy and concerto can be chosen. This amounts to a sort of classified thesaurus and it works very well. Tomita, the site editor, points out that “These fields become especially powerful if users want to find out specific groups of references, such as the discussions of ‘cantata’ with ‘authenticity’ of ‘St MatthewPassion’ with ‘theological’ aspect, or even of ‘keyboard suites’ with ‘analytical’ contents.” Upon execution of the search the items retrieved are displayed on a separate page. There is a limit of 200 returned hits and these are displayed clearly but in no apparent order. On choosing a summary the user may gain further detail in the “record view form” where full details are displayed.
A separate and very well designed full listing of the journals and serials which are indexed in the bibliography is included on the Web site (this in itself is a wonderful resource). Also Yo Tomita has set up a review section where regular reviews of material submitted to the Web site appear. These reviews are well presented and often include illustrations.
In conclusion this Web site must be highly recommended, it is free to use and represents a serious and fitting contribution to the rich world of J.S. Bach studies now over 250 years old, and to the subject of musicology in general.
