Contemporary
Hans-Joachim Schulze
b. 1934 · Leipzig · German musicologist specialising in Johann Sebastian Bach
Hans-Joachim Schulze was born in Leipzig on 3 December 1934 and is one of the most distinguished German musicologists of his generation in the study of Johann Sebastian Bach. His career unfolded almost entirely in the city where Bach served as Thomaskantor, which gave his research a very direct documentary foundation.
He trained in musicology in Leipzig, first at the Hochschule für Musik between 1952 and 1954 and then at the university, where he studied under Eller, Serauky and Besseler, and he obtained his diploma in 1957. That same year he joined the Bach Archive in Leipzig as a research assistant, becoming its acting director from 1974. In 1975 he was appointed co-editor, together with Christoph Wolff, of the Bach-Jahrbuch.
His writings focus on Bach's biography and on the production and provenance of the manuscripts that transmit his music. They are noted for their meticulous detail and for their use of previously unpublished archival discoveries, as in his 1984 study of the transmission of Bach's works in the eighteenth century. Often, however, the seriousness of his argument is softened by a subtle, distinctly Saxon humour, visible in his 1985 study of the Coffee Cantata.
His legacy is associated with raising the methodological standard of Bach research. As director of the Bach Archive, co-editor of the Bach-Jahrbuch and, with Wolff, co-author of the Bach-Compendium published between 1985 and 1989, he influenced a generation of specialists who have taken his exacting standards as a point of reference.
Notable works and achievements
- Studien zur Bach-Überlieferung im 18. Jahrhundert (1984)
- Ey! Wie schmeckt der Coffee süsse! Johann Sebastian Bachs Kaffee-Kantate in ihrer Zeit (1985)
- Bach-Compendium (with Christoph Wolff, 1985–1989)
- Johann Sebastian Bach: Leben und Werk in Dokumenten (1975)
- Bach-Dokumente (1963–1972, with W. Neumann on volumes i–ii)
- Bach stilgerecht aufführen: Wunschbild und Wirklichkeit (1991)
Teachers and pupils
Studied with
Anecdotes and curiosities
Cantatas explained over the airwaves
The introductions that later became his book on Bach's cantatas began as weekly radio programmes on Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, starting in the early 1990s. Over roughly five years they covered 226 cantatas. Schulze went beyond musical analysis, addressing the social setting of each work, how reliable its sources were, and how it connected to other compositions.
From Leipzig student to Bach scholar
Born in Leipzig, Schulze spent the years from 1952 to 1957 studying musicology and German studies at two institutions in the city. His doctorate, earned at Rostock, examined how Bach's music was transmitted during the eighteenth century. Years later, the Hanns Eisler Prize in 1973 honoured the documents on Bach's legacy between 1750 and 1800 that he had edited.
Source: Wikipedia (EN) · CC BY-SA 4.0