Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach 1720

Following the acclaimed, award-winning publication of The Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach 1722 & 1725 (Best Edition 2020, German Music Publishers Association), Edition Peters is proud to present the Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach 1720 in a new premium Urtext edition by world-renowned Bach scholar Christoph Wolff.

Bach’s ‘notebooks’ provide a fascinating glimpse into the domestic music academy of the Bach family home. They contain original compositions, exercises, and model examples by other composers, all collected with a view to providing a rounded musical education to family members. The Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was compiled for Johann Sebastian’s eldest son, who himself went on to become one of the leading organists, improvisers and composers of his day. The book contains systematic exercises, first or early versions of three of Bach’s most important keyboard cycles (some of the preludes from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Preambulums for the Two-part Inventions and Fantasias for the Three-part Sinfonias) and suites by Richter, Telemann and Stölzel among other items.

This luxury linen-bound edition with gold-embossed cover lettering is in line with the quality of the production of the much-praised Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach. It is produced in the original landscape format, ideal for use on a keyboard stand, and contains illustrations, premium-quality new engravings and full critical commentary.

This edition is the first new Urtext edition of the notebook in 60 years. It presents cutting-edge scholarship from the world’s leading Bach authority Professor Christoph Wolff including the most up to date research regarding attributions of authors and writers, new fragments brought to light by recently rediscovered manuscripts and the latest dating of sources.

• New Urtext Edition of the Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach 1720 by Christoph Wolff
• First new Urtext Edition for 60 years
• Highest possible level of scholarship
• Follows acclaimed publication of The Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach 1722 & 1725
• Landscape format, optimal for piano and keyboard players
• Premium linen binding
• Bibliophile edition

Praise for The Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach:

“Every aspect of this edition screams quality; it is quite simply a thing of great beauty!” - Pianodao.com

“There are countless editions of the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. Edition Peters has now published a complete edition for the first time, containing the complete material from Bach's 1722 and 1725 notebooks. Christoph Wolff, renowned Bach specialist, professor at Harvard University and long-time director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is the editor of this bibliophile Urtext edition.

Bibliophile is the right term here [...] the publication shows the company’s deep connection to Bach in several ways. In addition to a foreword, the inside pages contain all piano pieces from Bach's books in a clean, very well-placed typesetting. Reproductions of Bach’s original manuscript make the bridge between the past and the present easy to understand. Close to the original and very beautifully realised, this Notebook is worthy of distinction.” - Deutsche Musikverleger-Verband (Best Edition 2020)