NT: Researcher questions whether Bach wrote own work

AAP General News (Australia)
04-18-2006
NT: Researcher questions whether Bach wrote own work

DARWIN, April 18 AAP - A Darwin-based expert on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach
has sparked international controversy by raising doubts about whether the German composer
wrote all of his own music.

Charles Darwin University researcher Martin Jarvis has studied some of Bach's manuscripts
using forensic techniques, and believes the cello suites were composed by his former student
and second wife Anna Magdalena.

His research has been presented at academic conferences around the world, and will
be the centrepiece of a two-day symposium at Charles Darwin University later this week.

"My research has created a bit of a stir in the Bach world," Professor Jarvis said.

"I have been able to identify the handwriting of Bach's second wife Anna Magdalena
in places where it should not be."

It has been a 30-year journey for the Darwin Symphony Orchestra conductor, since his
interest was first sparked as a Bach student at the Royal Academy of Music in London in
1971.

He said the cello suites seemed different to other pieces of music by the legendary
German composer.

In 2001, Prof Jarvis turned detective, contacting the forensic laboratory in Darwin
- "fortunately the director is a great fan of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra", he said.

He made contact with the Victorian forensic laboratory, and some consultants, and also
trained as a forensic document examiner to continue his investigations and "tease these
handwriting issues apart".

"As I began to do that I began to realise that certain things that have been stated
as fact, seemed to not be true," he said.

"I feel like the fellow who wanted to challenge the question of whether Shakespeare
wrote Hamlet."

Prof Jarvis said musical analysis indicated it was unlikely Bach wrote the suites because
of the way the music was constructed, and his handwriting analysis found Mrs Bach's writing
in unlikely places.

"Being a woman at that point, there was no likelihood that she would have been recognised
as a composer," he said.

He said his research techniques could be applied to other composers.

"I have been curious about Mozart's sister Nannerl, and whether or not she was involved
in any of the manuscripts of Mozart," Prof Jarvis said.

AAP km/jt/sd

KEYWORD: BACH

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