Bach and Teleman Transformative Process

Bach, Telemann, and the Process of Transformative Imitation in BWV 1056/2 (156/1)
Author(s): Steven Zohn and Ian Payne

Source: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 546-584
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/763932
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Bach, Telemann, and

the Process of Transformative
Imitation in BWV 1056/2
(156/1)*
STEVEN ZOHN with IAN PAYNE
546
The middle movement of Bach's F-minor harpsichord concerto BWV 1056, easily among the composer's best known
slow concerto movements, has in recent decades engendered much
scholarly discussion as to its origins. In his Tiibingen dissertation, Ulrich Siegele partially overturned the notion that the concerto was originally conceived in G minor for violin and strings, demonstrating that
only the outer movements can have derived from this lost work.' Joshua
Rifkin subsequently showed that the slow movement is not an arrangement of the introductory sinfonia to the 1729 cantata "Ich steh mit
einem FuB im Grabe" BWV 156, as had been proposed by Wilfried
Volume XVII - Number 4 - Fall 1999
The Journal of Musicology @ 1999 by the Regents of the University of California
* A shorter version of this
essay was read at the Sixty-fifth
Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Kansas
City, November 1999. Portions of it expand upon observations
made in Ian Payne, "New Light on Telemann and Bach: Double
Measures," TheMusical Times(CXXXIX (1998); 44-45; "Telemann's Musical Style c.1709o-c. 1730 andJ. S. Bach: The Evidence
of Borrowing," Bach: TheJournalof theRiemenschneider
BachInstituteXXX/1 (1999), 42-64, at 57-59; and Steven Zohn, "Bach's
Borrowings from Telemann," in Telemannund Bach. StudienDarstellungen-Uberlegungen.
Hans-JoachimSchulzezum 60. Geburtstag,
Magdeburger Telemann-Studien, vol. 18 (forthcoming). We
gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments made on early
drafts by Gregory Butler, Michael Marissen, andJoshua Rifkin.
1 Ulrich Siegele, "Kompositionsweise und Bearbeitungstechnik in der Instrumentalmusik Johann Sebastian Bachs" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tiibingen, 1957); published as Tfibinger Beitriige zur Musikwissenschaft, vol. 3 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart: HinsslerVerlag, 1975), 129-30.
ZOHN sc PAYNE
Fischer, but that both the concerto movement and the sinfonia are dependent upon an earlier movement in F major, scored like the sinfonia
for oboe and strings. This F-major movement, in his view, belonged
originally to a lost D-minor oboe concerto whose outer movements survive in arranged form as the sinfonias in the 1726 cantata "Geist und
Seele wird verwirret" BWV 35.2 Most recently, Werner Breig has clarified the multi-stage process by which Bach revised the ripieno string
parts and embellished the solo part in the slow movement of BWV
1056. He proposes that Bach replaced the slow movement of the Gminor violin concerto with that of the D-minor oboe concerto because
the relatively circumscribed, vocally-conceived line of the latter was better suited to a transformation from "cantilena to coloratura" through
the gradual accretion of ornaments.3
Thanks to such source-critical investigations and informed speculation, Bach's reuse, revision, and recontextualization of BWV 1056/2
(156/1) have come more sharply into focus. Still obscure, however, are
answers to the questions of where, when, and why he composed the
movement's original version. The present essay attempts answers from a
new perspective by revealing that BWV 1056/2 (156/1) is substantially
based upon a slow concerto movement by Georg Philipp Telemann.
Bach's model, the first movement of a G-major concerto for solo
oboe or flute and strings, is classified as TWV 51 :G2 in the TelemannThat the close connection between the movements went
Werkverzeichnis.
unnoticed for so long is attributable in part to misleading published descriptions of the work's fragmentary state, descriptions which have no
doubt discouraged the appearance of a modern edition.4 As we shall
2 Wilfried Fischer, Kritischer
Berichtto Johann Sebastian Bach, NeueAusgabesdmtlicher
Werke(henceforth NBA), series VII, vol. 7 (Kassel: Bairenreiter, 1971), 84-86 and 92;
LXIV
Joshua Rifkin, "Ein langsamer Konzertsatz Johann Sebastian Bachs," Bach-Jahrbuch
(1978), 140-47. See also Rifkin's liner notes to Pro Arte PAD 153 (1983) and Ulrich
Leisinger, KritischerBerichtto NBA I/6 (Kassel: Bairenreiter, 1996), 88. The advisability of
reconstructing BWV 35/1 and 5 as fast concerto movements for solo oboe is questioned
in Bruce Haynes, 'Johann Sebastian Bachs Oboenkonzerte," Bach-JahrbuchLXXVIII
(1992), 23-43, at 38-39. Rifkin's explanation of why Bach abandoned his transcription
of the D-minor oboe concerto BWV 1059 after only nine measures is challenged in
Werner Breig, "Bachs Cembalokonzert-Fragment in d-Moll (BWV 1059)," Bach-Jahrbuch
LXV (1979), 29-36, at 30.
3 Werner Breig, "Zur Werkgeschichte von Bachs Cembalokonzert BWV 1056," in
Bachs Orchesterwerke,
Bericht fiber das 1. Dortmunder Bach-Symposium 1996, Dortmunder Bach-Forschungen, vol. 1, ed. Martin Geck and Werner Breig (Witten: Klangfarben, 1997), 265-82. In a forthcoming study, Gregory Butler further discredits the notion
of a lost G-minor violin concerto by arguing that the outer movements of BWV 1056 cannot originally have belonged to the same work, and that the third movement was initially
conceived for solo oboe, not violin. We are indebted to Professor Butler for informing us
of his research.
4 The concerto is described as lacking a bass part in Martin Ruhnke, ed., Georg
Verzeichnisseiner Werke:Telemann-Werkverzeichnis:
Philipp Telemann:Thematisch-Systematisches
547
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see, the missing portions of Telemann's concerto do not significantly

hinder an assessment of the music, and scarcely affect the first movement at all.5
The revelation of Bach's modelling is significant on several counts.
Besides adding to the relatively small number of Bach's known borrowings of music by other composers, it considerably broadens our knowledge of his contact with and admiration for Telemann's music. It also
demonstrates that the stylistic influences on Bach's concertos were not
limited to the Italian works of Vivaldi, Albinoni, and Torelli, but included
-at least in one instance-a concerto by a German contemporary.6 But
perhaps most important, the identification of Bach's model allows us
deeper insight into a relatively unfamiliar side of his working method:
the use of transformative imitation to turn preexistent music by another
composer into a distinctive expression of his own compositional voice.
Our study commences with a consideration of the musical and chronological relationship between Bach's and Telemann's movements, then
explores the contemporary aesthetic context for Bach's borrowing and
the reasons he may have turned to Telemann's music for inspiration.
548
I
Although a precise chronology for the two movements is likely to remain elusive, the notion that the lost original version of BWV 1056/2
(156/1) was written in response to TWV 51:G2,
and not the other way around, is strongly supported by musical and
Instrumentalwerke
(= GeorgPhilipp Telemann:MusikalischeWerke,Supplement), vol. 3 (Kassel:
bei Georg
Birenreiter, 1999), 28 (TWV 51:G2); Siegfried Kross, Das Instrumentalkonzert
Philipp Telemann(Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1969), 127 (Fl.G[1]); and Ingo Gronefeld,
Die F16tenkonzerte
bis i850: Ein thematischesVerzeichnis,3 vols. (Tutzing: Hans Schneider,
1994), 3:226 (item 152).
5 For a critical edition and reconstruction of the concerto, see Ian Payne, ed., Georg
Philipp Telemann:Concertoin G majorfor Oboe(Flute), Stringsand Basso Continuo,Severinus
Urtext Telemann Edition, vol. 95 (Hereford: Severinus Press, 1998).
6 While Vivaldi's influence on Bach's ritornello forms has been treated
extensively in
the Bach literature, only recently has the influence of Torelli and Albinoni been recognized. See in particular Jean-Claude Zehnder, "Giuseppe Torelli und Johann Sebastian
Bach: Zu Bachs Weimarer Konzertform,"Bach-Jahrbuch
LXXVII (1991), 33-95; Gregory G.
Butler, "J.S. Bach's reception of Tomaso Albinoni's Mature Concertos," in Bach Studies2,
ed. Daniel R. Melamed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 20-46; and
Robert Hill, 'Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata in G major BWV 916/I: A Reception of
Giuseppe Torelli's Ritornello Concerto Form," in Das Friihwerk
Johann SebastianBachs,Kolloquium veranstaltet vom Institut ffir Musikwissenschaftder Universitfit Rostock 11.-13. September 1990, ed. Karl Heller and Hans-Joachim Schulze (Cologne: Studio, 1995), 162-75.
Discussions of the stylistic parallels between Bach's and Telemann's concertos include Wolfgang Hirschmann, "Eklektischer Imitationsbegriff und konzertantes Gestalten bei Telemann und Bach," in Bachs Orchesterwerke,
305-19; and Payne, "Telemann's Musical Style,"
51-59-
ZOHN
&c PAYNE
documentary evidence. First, it is significant, and perhaps not entirely

unexpected, that Bach's elaboration and exploration of the musical
material common to both movements is on the whole more sophisticated than Telemann's. This is not necessarily to denigrate Telemann's
movement, but rather to suggest that Bach was able to benefit from a
critical reading of it, in much the same way as Handel often realizedthrough various processes of imitation-the full potential of the material he himself borrowed from Telemann.7 Had Telemann's movement
been modeled upon Bach's, we would reasonably expect it to reveal
some evidence of a critical reading, which it does not. Further suggesting a Telemann-Bach direction of influence is Bach's well-documented
contact with his friend's concertos at Weimar. Around 17o09 he produced a set of parts to Telemann's G-major double violin concerto TWV
52:G2, possibly presenting them to the violinistJohann Georg Pisendel
in that year, and in 1713-14 or thereabouts he arranged Telemann's Gminor violin concerto TWV 51:G1 for harpsichord (BWV 985). Also circulating in Weimar during the 171os, and therefore likely to have been
known to Bach, were the D-major double violin concerto TWV 52:D4
(transmitted in a Rostock set of parts apparently originating at the
Weimar court ca. 1713-14) and three concertos arranged for solo keyboard by Johann Gottfried Walther, organist at the Church of St. Peter
and St. Paul and a cousin of Bach's: the C-minor double concerto for
oboe and violin TWV 52:cl (= TWV Anh. 33:2), the B-minor violin (?)
concerto TWV 51:h3 (= TWV Anh. 33:1), and the B-flat violin concerto
TWV 51:B2 (= TWV Anh. 43:B1 and Anh. 33:6).8 Bach's close relationship to Telemann during the early Weimar years, when the latter was
7 The literature on Handel's borrowings from Telemann includes Max Seiffert, "G.
Ph. Telemann's 'Musique de table' als Quelle ffir Handel," in Bulletin de la sociiti "Union
Musicologique"IV (1924), 1-28; revised in GeorgPhilipp Telemann(1681-1767): Musiquede
table.Ausfiihrungenzu Band LXI und LXII derDenkmilerdeutscherTonkunst,ErsteFolge, Beihefte zu den Denkmilern deutscher Tonkunst, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Breitkopf &
Hirtel, 1927;
repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1960); Bernd Baselt, "Sch6pferische
Beziehungen zwischen G.Ph. Telemann und G. F. Hindel-G.Ph. Telemanns 'Harmonischer Gottesdienst' als Quelle ffir HWindel,"in Die Bedeutung GeorgPhilipp Telemannsfir
die Entwicklungder europiiischenMusikkulturim i8. Jahrhundert,Bericht fiber die Internationale Wissenschaftliche Konferenz anfilich der Georg-Philipp-Telemann-Ehrung der
DDR, Magdeburg 12. bis 18. Marz 1981, 3 vols. (Magdeburg: Zentrum ffir TelemannPflege und -Forschung, 1983), 2:4-14; Ellwood Derr, "Handel's Procedures for Composing with Materials from Telemann's 'Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst' in 'Solomon,' " and
John H. Roberts, "Handel's Borrowings from Telemann: An Inventory," in GittingerHdndel Beitrdge,vol. 1, ed. Hans Joachim Marx (Kassel: Birenreiter, 1984), 116-46 and 14771, respectively; and Chanan Willner, "Handel's Borrowings from Telemann: An Analytical View," in Trendsin SchenkerianResearch,ed. Allen Cadwallader (New York: Schirmer,
1990), 145-68.
8 On Bach's
copy of TWV 52:G2, see Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Telemann-PisendelBach: Zu einem unbekannten Bach-Autograph," in Die BedeutungGeorgPhilipp Telemanns,
2:73-77. Concerning the dating of Bach's and Walther's keyboard arrangements, and of
549
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Konzertmeister and Kapellmeister at the nearby Eisenach court, is attested to by C.P.E. Bach in a 1775 letter to Johann Nikolaus Forkel: "In
his younger days he saw a good deal of Telemann, who also stood godfather to me. [crossed out:] He esteemed him, particularly in his instrumental things, very highly."9Another opportunity for Bach to examine
Telemann's early concertos may have come in March 1714, when Telemann apparently traveled between Frankfurt and Weimar to stand godfather to Emanuel.'o
550
TWV 52:D4, see Schulze, 'J. S. Bach's Concerto-Arrangements for Organ: Studies or Commissioned Works?,"OrganYearbook
im i8.
III (1972), 4-13; and Studienzur Bach-Uberlieferung
Jahrhundert(Leipzig: Peters, 1984), 146-73. It should be noted, however, that the decidedly inferior quality of TWV 52:D4 casts considerable doubt on its authenticity as a work
of Telemann. For details, see Ian Payne, "Doubtfully Bred: Another Telemann Misattribution," The Musical TimesCXL (1999), 37-42. Although only the transcriptions of TWV
52:c1 and 51:h3 survive in Walther's autograph, the transcription of TWV 51:B2 appears
to have stemmed from his pen as well. See Russell Stinson, KeyboardTranscriptions
from the
Bach Circle,Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, vol. 69 (Madison, WI: A-R
Editions, 1992), x. The style of these last three concertos is consistent with a terminusante
quemof 1713-14, and indeed Wolfgang Hirschmann assigns them to 1708-14 in Studien
zum Konzertschaffen
von GeorgPhilipp Telemann,2 vols. (Kassel:Barenreiter, 1986), 1:111-14
and 187-91; and "Telemanns Frankfurter Konzertschaffen: Quellen- und stilkritische Bemerkungen zur Datierungsproblematik" (forthcoming). We are grateful to Dr.
Hirschmann for sharing with us this and another forthcoming article cited below in note
(Kassel: Biren43. As Kirsten BeiBwenger reports in Johann SebastianBachs Notenbibliothek
reiter, 1992), 69 and 378-79, Bach may have arranged another Telemann concerto for
keyboard, for an Erfurt auction catalog from 1810 includes the following entry: "Telemann, Concerto appropriato all'organo di J. S. Bach, f-dur, geschr." It is possible, however, that the transcription was Walther's, since the wording "appropriato all'organo" is
precisely that used by Walther in the thirteen concerto transcriptions of D-Bds, Mus. ms.
22541/4, minus the following attribution "daJ.G.W."
9 Hans-Joachim Schulze, ed., Bach-Dokumente,
vol. 3: Dokumentezum NachwirkenJohann SebastianBachs (Leipzig and Kassel: Barenreiter, 1972), No. 803; translation from
The New Bach Reader:A Life ofJohann SebastianBach in Lettersand Documents,ed. Hans T.
David and Arthur Mendel, rev. and enlarged by Christoph Wolff (New York:W. W. Norton, 1998), No. 395. See also Stephen L. Clark, TheLettersof C.RE. Bach (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 74; and the facsimile of the letter in Max Schneider, ed., Bach-Urkunden:
Familie:NachrichteniiberJohann SebastianBach von Carl
Ursprungder musikalisch-Bachischen
PhilippEmanuelBach,Ver6ffentlichungen der Neuen Bachgesellschaft, vol. 17/3 (Leipzig:
Breitkopf & Hirtel, [1917]), [28-31]. Although Emanuel's reason for deleting the second sentence remains obscure, one might speculate that on second thought he found
this information irrelevant for Forkel's purposes, rather than an inaccurate characterization of his father's musical tastes.
11
Though, as Hans-Joachim Schulze cautions, there is insufficient documentary evidence to confirm Telemann's visit. See his "'FlieBende Leichtigkeit' und 'arbeitsame
Vollstimmigkeit': Georg Philipp Telemann und die Musikerfamilie Bach," in Telemann
und seineFreunde:Kontakte,Einfliife, Auswirkungen,Bericht fiber die Internationale Wissenschaftliche Konferenz anlBl3ich der 8. Telemann-Festtage der DDR, Magdeburg 15. und
16. Marz 1984, 2 vols. (Magdeburg: Zentrum fiir Telemann-Pflege und -Forschung,
1986), 1:34-40, at 34. For the text of Telemann's listing in the Leipzig Town Church
records, see Werner Neumann and Hans-Joachim Schulze, eds., Bach-Dokumente,
vol. 2:
und gedruckteDokumentezur Lebensgeschichte
Johann SebastianBachs 1685Fremdschriftliche
1750 (Leipzig and Kassel:Birenreiter, 1969), No. 67; TheNew Bach Reader,No. 55-
ZOHN
& PAYNE
Our discussion of the two movements proceeds from Rifkin's conclusion that the musical text of BWV 156/1 differs only in minor details
from the lost original version of Bach's movement.11 Example 1 gives
the complete sinfonia and opening movement of TWV 51:G2.12 Not
without significance is the fact that at twenty-four measures in common
time, Telemann's Andante is only four measures longer than Bach's
Adagio. For while such modest dimensions are common for Telemann's
slow concerto movements composed at Eisenach (1708-12) and Frankfurt (1712-21),
they are most unusual for Bach at any period. In fact,
with the exception of the middle "movement" of the Third Brandenburg Concerto BWV 1048, Bach's Adagio probably takes less time to
perform, on average, than any of his other slow concerto movements.13
Surely the most striking musical parallel between Telemann's and
Bach's movements occurs in the first two-and-a-half measures, where
the two soloists play virtually the same melody. Bach's version, however,
includes several substantive differences that could be regarded as improvements to an already distinctive melodic line: the elimination of
Telemann's static melodic motion across the barline in measures 1-2
by reproducing the upward sweep of measure 12 in 14, and by leaping
up an octave in measure 21 to provide a registral link to 2 on the third
beat of the same measure. Equally striking is the fact that the two passages share a descending bass line, offbeat chordal string accompaniment, and initial harmonic progression (I-V6-IV -V7-I). Although
I Bach's
original, if it was indeed the second movement of a D-minor concerto,
would presumably have included the ending of BWV 1056/2, which closes with a half cadence on the dominant of the relative minor. Both BWV 156/1 and Telemann's movement close on the home dominant in anticipation of the following movement in the tonic.
In this and following examples drawn from Telemann's concerto, editorial additions appear in small type, brackets, or as dashed curves; obvious errors have been tacitly
corrected. For a full critical report of the concerto, see the edition cited in note 5. The
text of the Bach movement follows that of NBA 1/6.
'3 Closest in length to BWV 1056/2
(156/1) are the "Andante" movements of the
Second and Fourth Brandenburg Concertos BWV 1047 and 1049. We exclude from consideration the middle movement of BWV 1065, arranged from Vivaldi's Op. 3, No. to.
It would be unwise to make much of a practical distinction between Bach's "Adagio"
("Largo" in BWV 1056) and Telemann's "Andante," for these indications could have
been understood during the early eighteenth century as conveying the same general
tempo and affect. For Johann Joachim Quantz, this tempo and affect was expressed as
"Adagio cantabile" (as opposed to "Adagio assai"), a broad category that included "Poco
Andante," "Cantabile," "Arioso,""Soave,""Dolce," "Affettuoso," and the like. See Johann
Joachim Quantz, Versucheiner Anweisung die Fl1te traversierezu Spielen (Berlin, Johann
Friedrich Vo13,1752; repr. Kassel: Birenreiter, 1992), 262; trans. as Edward R. Reilly,JohannJoachim Quantz: On Playing the Flute, 2nd ed. (New York: Schirmer, 1985), 284. As
Robert Marshall has shown ("Tempo and Dynamics: The Original Terminology," in The
Music ofJohann SebastianBach: The Sources,The Style, The Significance[New York: Schirmer,
1989], 255-69, at 266), Bach seems to have regarded "Largo"as somewhat faster than
"Adagio," and somewhat slower than "Andante." For the sake of convenience, we shall
henceforth refer to BWV 1056/2 (156/1) as an Adagio.
1
551
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OF MUSICOLOGY
EXAMPLEla. Bach, sinfonia to "Ich steh mit einem FuB im Grabe"

BWV 156.
Adagio AdagioSINFONIA
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EXAMPLEla. (continued)
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EXAMPLE lb. Telemann, Concerto in G major TWV 51:G2, movement 1.

Andanteri
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or
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afuSOP.
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EXAMPLElb. (continued)
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here Bach injects Telemann's bass line with an element of rhythmic

variety, in BWV 1056/2 he reintroduces the steady eighth-note octave
leaps (off rather than on the beat) in the harpsichord's left hand. With
these parallels in mind, Telemann's "arco"string parts might be taken
as further evidence that Bach added pizzicato indications to the string
parts in BWV 1056/2 only to avoid obscuring the rapidly decaying tone
of the harpsichord.'4
Even though the two movements appear to diverge beginning in
the second half of measure 3, there remain significant points of contact
between them. In a procedure commonly encountered in his sonatas,
especially those in solo scoring, Telemann adopts a modular organization for the remainder of his movement, introducing a variety of contrasting figures that return at different pitch levels and are occasionally
extended or altered.'5 Thus a chromatically inflected sighing figure
(measures 3-4) gives way to a passage that initially reverses the rhythm
of the sighing figure and elegantly outlines V7/V on the way to the dominant cadence in measure 7; slurred pairs of sixteenth notes treated sequentially are followed by a return of the sighing figure, now extended
in order to effect a cadence in the mediant (measure 12); and a restatement of the slurred sixteenths leads to a variation of the sighing figure
(measures 17-18) and the earlier dominant-seventh figure, which now
leads back to the tonic (measure 21). Virtually lost in the manipulation
of these modules is the distinctive opening phrase, of which little trace
is to be found later in the movement (but see measure 13). Throughout, the bass line descends relentlessly, breaking its melodic-rhythmic
pattern only at cadences.
Bach, by contrast, rarely loses sight of the opening phrase's rhythmic profile, departing from it only for the rather galant sixteenth-note
triplets in measures 13-14 (a gesture perhaps more typical of Telemann than of Bach), and providing a literal repeat of the phrase near
the movement's end. But he does seem to retain an element of Telemann's modular conception in the abrupt tonal shifts between some
14 However,Leisinger(Kritischer
Berichtto NBA1/6, 95), followingChristophWolff,
suggeststhe possibilitythat the lost performingmaterialsto BWV156 indicateda pizzicato string accompanimentin the sinfonia, perhapsas a musical depiction of funeral
bells (cf. BWV 198/4). That Telemann might have countenanced a pizzicato accompani-
ment to his movementis suggestedby a similarchordalaccompaniment,marked"pizzicato," in the slow third movement of his E-minor concerto for flute and recorder TWV
52:el.
15 On the modular
organizationof Telemann'ssolo sonatamovements,see Jeanne
R. Swack,"The Solo Sonatasof Georg Philipp Telemann:A Studyof the Sources and
MusicalStyle"(Ph.D.dissertation,YaleUniversity,1988), 103-22 and 155-60. Regarding
similarstructuresin the triosand quartets,see StevenD. Zohn,'"TheEnsembleSonatasof
Georg Philipp Telemann:Studiesin Style, Genre, and Chronology"(Ph.D. dissertation,
CornellUniversity,1995), 223-25, 337-38, 358-62, 405, and 421.
ZOHN
& PAYNE
phrases, especially that occurring at measure 7, where the sudden movement from C major to G minor is underscored by the cross-relation between E-natural (3 in C major) and E-flat (6 in G minor); similarly
abrupt, if less dramatic, is Telemann's shift from B minor to G major at
his measure 12.16 We might also note the identical length of Bach's and
Telemann's second phrases, both of which cadence in the dominant on
the downbeat of measure 7. Moreover, Bach's series of arpeggiated seventh chords leading up to this cadence not only recalls his own measure 23, but is also redolent of the filled-in arpeggiation of V7/V in the
analogous passage from Telemann's movement. Unlike Telemann,
Bach frequently interrupts the descending motion of his bass line, retaining only the rhythm established at the outset. Yet on the few occasions when he breaks the bass's rhythmic pattern, it is, as in Telemann's
movement, to introduce steady eighth notes at each of four intermediate cadences. Notice as well that at Bach's modulation to the supertonic
he adopts Telemann's solo cadential rhythm (compare Bach's measure
10 to Telemann's measures 6, 12, and 21). Even the final cadences are
very similar. True, the two composers handle the soloist's cadential role
somewhat differently: Telemann provides a V-vi deceptive cadence,
Bach a melodic extension leading from tonic to dominant. But both
employ contrary melodic motion between the outer voices (an ascent
in Bach,
on tonic and dominant pitches in the solo part-f'-c"-f"
g'-d"-g" in Telemann-over a descending perfect fourth in the bass)
and assign the final cadential motion to the ripieno strings.
Bach may not have been the only composer to borrow from TWV
51:G2/1. Telemann appears to have reused his opening theme for the
first movement of the G-major flute solo TWV 41:G9, published in the
Esserciziimusici. As Example 2 shows, the opening of this movement
bears more than a passing resemblance to that of the Andante: the solo
melody begins almost identically over a descending bass line, includes a
large upward leap in the middle of the second measure, comes to a
tonic cadence on the downbeat of the third measure, and introduces a
similar contrasting figure (though closely related to the mordent-like
motive at the beginning of measure 2) in the third and fourth measures on the way to cadencing in the dominant. But the comparison
cannot be pushed much further, as the melody is harmonized differently, the bass line does not maintain its descending profile, and the
second phrase is shorter than in the putative model. As for the rest of
the movement, it runs its course in a total of only fourteen measures by
restating the opening theme in the dominant, then further "developing"
the motive from measure 2. If one accepts the beginning of this little
movement as a borrowing-and it is not nearly as clear-cut an example
i6
We owe this point to Gregory Butler.
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EXAMPLE2. Telemann, Solo in G major TWV 41:G9, movement 1,

mm. 1-6.
Cantabile
Flautotraverso
[Fondamento]
6
16
43
558
as one could wish for-then it conforms to what may have been Telemann's usual self-borrowing procedure: the quotation of an initial
melodic phrase that becomes the basis for an otherwise entirely new
movement.17 The sonata is likely to have been written some years after
the concerto, though probably considerably before the Esserciziimusici
was published in 1740.18
17 Good examples of this procedure occur in the following movement pairs: TWV
42:di/2 and 43: di/3, TWV 33:5/1 and 43:G2/2, and TWV 33:8/1 and 43:a3/1. Though
much work remains to be done on the topic of Telemann as self-borrower, Martin
Ruhnke has with some success attempted to trace thematic correspondences in the instrumental ensemble music. Many of those he cites, however, can be interpreted as simple
repetitions of stock melodic and rhythmic motives. He does not note the similarity between TWV 41:Gg and 51:G2. See the list of "Akhnlichkeitenoder Ubereinstimmungen
mit Anfangsthemen anderer Werke Telemanns" in GeorgPhilipp Telemann:ThematischInstrumentalwerke(= Georg
SystematischesVerzeichnisseiner Werke:Telemann-Werkverzeichnis:
Philipp Telemann:MusikalischeWerke,Supplement), vol. 2 (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1992), 245;
"Anmerkungen zum Telemann-Werkverzeichnis Teil III," in Nun bringtein polnischLied die
gantze Weltzum springen':Telemannund Anderein derMusiklandschaftSachsensund Polens, 12.
Arolser Barock-Festspiele 1997, Tagungsbericht, Arolser Beitraigezur Musikforschung, vol.
6, ed. Friedhelm Brusniak (Sinzig: Studio, 1998), 9-28; and the annotations to entries
vol. 3. See also Payne, "Telemann's Musical Style,"
throughout Telemann-Werkverzeichnis,
especially 6o-63.
18 For evidence that the collection's solos and trios were composed and circulated
in manuscript copies as early as the mid 1720S, see Steven Zohn, "Music Paper at the
Dresden Court and the Chronology of Telemann's Instrumental Music," in Puzzles in
Essays from the International Conference on the
Paper: Conceptsin Historical Watermarks,
History, Function, and Study of Watermarks, Roanoke, Virginia, ed. Daniel W. Mosser,
Michael Saffle, and Ernest W. Sullivan II (New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2000),
123-66, at 126-27; and Swack, "The Solo Sonatas of Georg Philipp Telemann," 145-47-
ZOHN
& PAYNE
II
Having established a close musical connection between BWV 1056/2 (156/1) and TWV 51:G2/1, we are now in a position to revisit the question of when and where Bach encountered Telemann's concerto. In 1983 Rifkin proposed that Bach's Adagio, in its
putative original form as the middle movement of a lost D-minor oboe
concerto, dates from the Weimar period.19 Much of his argument depends on the identification of stylistic parallels between the concerto's
outer movements and relatively early works such as the D-minor violin
concerto BWV 1052a, the Third Brandenburg Concerto BWV 1048
(though the binary form of the third movement is shared not only by
BWV 35/v, as Rifkin observes, but also by the fourth movement of TWV
51:G2), and Alessandro Marcello's D-minor oboe concerto, Bach's keyboard transcription of which (BWV 974) appears to have originated at
Weimar.2o Suggestive as they are, these parallels would require more detailed investigation before firm conclusions could be drawn from them.
As for the middle movement itself, Rifkin links its arioso style and shunning of ritornello form to other early slow concerto movements by
Bach, such as the second movement of the First Brandenburg Concerto
BWV 1046, composed at Weimar or K6then.21 While this line of argument is rendered less compelling by the substantial debt Bach's Adagio
owes to Telemann, it is nevertheless conceivable that Bach's interest in
Telemann's Andante was due in part to his own preoccupation at Weimar with the arioso movement type. In this connection, Rifkin's linking
of BWV 1056/2 (156/1) with 1046/2 is particularly apt, for these two
slow movements not only share a relative brevity, "vocal"melodic style,
Liner notes to Pro Arte PAD 153The status of the Third Brandenburg Concerto as a Weimar composition has in
recent years been called into question. See, for example, Hans-Joachim Schulze, 'Johann
Sebastian Bachs Konzerte-Fragen der Uberlieferung und Chronologie," in Bach-Studien,
vol. 6: Beitraigezum Konzertschaffen
Johann SebastianBachs, ed. Peter Ahnsehl, Karl Heller,
and Hans-Joachim Schulze (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hdirtel, 1981), 9-26, at 18-19; and
Gregory Butler, '"Towarda More Precise Chronology for Bach's Concerto for Three Violins and Strings BWV 1o64a: The Case for Formal Analysis," in Bachs Orchesterwerke,
23547, at 240-41 and 245. Schulze's suggested date of 1713-14 for BWV 974 must be regarded with caution, since the earliest datable source for Marcello's concerto is a Roger
print of ca. 1717. However, the fact that Bach's transcription contains figurations similar to those in an undated Schwerin manuscript of the concerto may indicate that his
model was not the Roger print. See Schulze, Studien zur Bach-Uberlieferung,169; and
Eleanor Selfridge-Field, TheMusic of Benedettoand AlessandroMarcello:A ThematicCatalogue
with Commentaryon the Composers,Repertoire,and Sources(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990),
379 (D935).
21 For a
thorough source-critical examination of the First Brandenburg Concerto,
one that leaves open the question of exactly when during the period 1713-21 the work
was composed, see Michael Marissen, "On Linking Bach's F-major Sinfonia and His Hunt
BachInstituteXXIII/2 ( 1992), 31-46.
Cantata," Bach: TheJournalof theRiemenschneider
19
20
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and quasi-ostinato accompaniment, but, unlike the Telemann movement, conclude with a modified tonic return of the opening material.
These features could indicate that Bach conceived the two concerto
movements as instrumental equivalents of a certain type of aria found
in his Weimar cantatas. Indeed, the recapitulatory function of the
concluding measures might be interpreted as a reference to "free" or
"modified" da capo structure, or even as the concluding ritornello in a
through-composed aria structure.22 Along the same lines, we might
note that the majority of Bach's Weimar continuo arias-the textural
quasi-ostinato acnear-equivalent of BWV 1056/2 (156/1)-feature
Yet
the
between
concerto
movement and
parallels
companiments.23
aria can be extended only so far, for BWV 1056/2 (156/1), at least,
does not allude to a tutti-solo opposition by means of thematic contrasts, harmonic plan, or scoring. So if the concluding double return is
read as a free da capo, we must imagine the form to exclude any kind
of ritornello. And if the double return instead signifies a concluding
ritornello, we would logically have to view the movement's opening
measures as an initial ritornello. How, then, could we tell when the solo
"voice"enters?
But perhaps we have drawn the comparison between Bach's Adagio
and his cantata arias from an improper angle. That is, the double return might be less a reference to the aria per se than to a kind of sonata
movement based loosely upon an aria type. Several of Bach's slow
sonata movements in two and three parts-BWV 1016/3, 1021/3, and
1o34/3-strongly recall BWV 1056/2 (156/1) in both style and structure: all are ariosos that include a modified double return near the end
of the movement, and BWV 1034/3 has a quasi-ostinato accompaniment as well.24 BWV 1021/3 is further related to BWV 1056/2 (156/1)
by its unusually modest dimensions. While the return of the opening
22
For a survey of Bach's Weimar aria types, see Stephen A. Crist, "AriaForms in the
Vocal Works of J. S. Bach" (Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1988); and Alfred
Dfirr, Studien iiberdiefriihen KantatenJohann SebastianBachs (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hirtel, 1977), 118-65. Miriam K. Whaples, "Bach's Recapitulation Forms,"Journalof Musicology XIV/4 (1996), 475-513, proposes the term "recapitulation aria" for the majority of
Bach's arias usually described, following Dfirr, as being in "free da capo" form. Daniel E.
Freeman, 'J. S. Bach's 'Concerto' Arias: A Study in the Amalgamation of EighteenthCentury Genres," Studi Musicali XXVII/1 (1998), 123-62, at 137, sees such structures as
embodying "a series of formal procedures used repeatedly by Bach in imitation of Vivaldian concerto forms."
23 Crist,"AriaForms," 54.
24 BWV 1015/3
might also be included here by virtue of its modest dimensions,
near-literal repeat of the opening phrase at the end of the movement, and quasi-ostinato
accompaniment. But it features strict canonic writing in the upper voices and treats the
opening phrase almost like a ritornello, with a statement in the dominant occurring at
measure 11.
ZOHN
& PAYNE
theme is handled differently in each movement-rescored with new

counterpoint in BWV 1016/3, melodically varied in BWV 1021/3, and
more thoroughly recomposed and extended in BWV 1034/3-the
overall ternary implications of the structures are clear. Each of these
sonatas is known to us through manuscripts of early Leipzig origin, but
there is no evidence to exclude the possibility of all having been composed at K6then.25 That this kind of movement structure was far from
unknown in German sonatas from the
1710osand early 1720os is suggested by several slow movements among Telemann's solos and trios of
this period. Examples of brief ariosos with a modified double return
near the end are found in TWV 41:hi/i (published in 1715), TWV
42:D4/1 and el/3 (both published 1731-33, but composed a decade
or more earlier),26 and TWV 42:G1/1 (published in 1718).27 The stylistic gulf between Bach's and Telemann's sonata movements in aria
mode and the real thing, as transferred to an instrumental idiom, is
nicely illustrated by BWV 1o19a/3 ("Cantabile ma un poco Adagio").
This unusual movement, an arrangement of a lost Kothen cantata aria,
preserves not only the complete da capo structure of the original, but
also the contrast between "tutti"(violin and harpsichord continuo) and
"solo" (obbligato harpsichord).
Whatever these stylistic parallels tell us about Bach's generic conceptions of aria, concerto, and sonata, they only modestly narrow the
chronological boundaries for the earliest version of BWV 1056/2
(156/1): the movement could conceivably have been composed at any
time during the late Weimar, K6then, or first Leipzig years. It seems
that if the pre-1729 origins of Bach's Adagio are to be further illuminated, we must turn to the sources and style of his model, for it is a fair
assumption that Telemann's concerto was relatively new when Bach
encountered it.
The only source for TWV 51 :G2 is a set of early-eighteenth-century
manuscript parts, in two unidentified hands, now in the possession
of the Universititsbibliothek Rostock but originally belonging to the
Wfirttemberg-Stuttgart court between 1716 and 1731.28 The assertion
For a convenient chronological overview of Bach's music for instrumental ensem25
ble, see Christoph Wolff, "Bach's Leipzig Chamber Music," in Bach:Essayson His Life and
Music (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), 223-38.
26 On the
dating of the early manuscript sources for the Six Sonatesen trio dans le
goust italien (Paris: Francois Boivin, 1731-33), see Zohn, "Music Paper at the Dresden
Court," 125-26.
27 Johann Joachim Quantz also
appears to have composed several movements of
this type at Dresden during the period 1719-27. See Mary A. Oleskiewicz, "Quantz and
the Flute at Dresden: His Instruments, His Repertory, and their Significance for the Versuch and the Bach Circle" (Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1998), 180-86.
28
The parts (D-ROu, Mus. Saec. XVII.18.45.'6) were available to us only through
a photocopy. Hence we are unable to provide any information on the paper types
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in the Telemann-Werkverzeichnis
that the manuscript is incomplete owing
to the loss of the continuo part ("ohne Cembalo") is incorrect: both
pages of the unfigured "Basso pro Cembalo" part do indeed survive, although they are so badly deteriorated that the text is lacking for the
second half of the second movement and the last third of the fourth
movement, as well as for brief passages elsewhere in the concerto. Despite the unfortunate combination of acidic ink and thin paper, the
"Hautbois vel Traversiere," "Violino 1," "Violino 2," and 'Viola" parts
survive complete (though small portions of text are obscured by
"showthrough"). At some point after this full set was produced, a second unidentified scribe, known to have been active at the WiirttembergStuttgart court ca. 1717-22, made an accurate copy of the solo part in
French violin clef and added a title page.29 That these are supplements
to the set, and not remnants of a second manuscript, is confirmed by
the common practice at the court of recopying flute parts into French
violin clef, apparently to accommodate the flute-playing Crown Prince
Friedrich Ludwig.30To judge from the title ("Concerto/1 Traversiere/2
Violino/1 Viola/et/Cembalo/Haffiburg"), this second scribe did not
know who had composed the concerto, only that the work (or at least
the five original parts) had some connection to Hamburg. In the upper
contained therein (but see note 39 below). Concerning the music collection of the
Wfirttemberg-Stuttgart court, apparently assembled by Crown Prince Friedrich Ludwig
(1698-1731) in the years following his return to Stuttgart in 1716 from travels to Italy,
Holland, and France, see Samantha Kim Owens, '"The Wiirttemberg HoJkapellec.168o1721" (Ph.D. dissertation, Victoria University of Wellington, 1995), Chapter 7. On the
Telemann sources in particular, see Klaus-Peter Koch, "Die Rostocker Telemann-Quellen.
Zu einigen Aspekten ihrer Entstehung," in GeorgPhilipp Telemann: Werkiiberlieferung,
Editions- und Interpretationsfragen,
Bericht fiber die Internationale Wissenschaftliche Konferenz anlaBlich der 9. Telemann-Festtage der DDR, Magdeburg 12. bis 14.
Mirz 1987,
ed. Wolf Hobohm and Carsten Lange, 3 vols. in 1 (Cologne: Studio, 1991), 2:3-10; and
Steven Zohn, "New Sources for Telemann's Instrumental Music," in Telemann-Beitrdge:
Abhandlungenund Berichte,vol. 4: WolfHobohmzum 60. Geburtstagam 8. Januar 1998, Magdeburger Telemann-Studien, vol. 17, ed. Carsten Lange and Brit Reipsch (forthcoming).
29 On the
dating of this copyist's activities, see Koch, "Die Rostocker TelemannQuellen," 4-6. Two Rostock manuscripts of trios by Telemann are in the same hand:
TWV 42:e7 (Mus. Saec. XVII.18.45.2'; unattributed and containing only a figured "Cembalo" part) and TWV 42:A9 (Mus. Saec. XVII.18.45.23; containing only the flute and figured "Cembalo"parts).
30 Gerhard Poppe, "Eine bisher unbekannte Quelle zum Oboenkonzert G-moll
XXXIX (1993), 225-35, at 230, suggests that the prince's apHWV 287," Hdndel-Jahrbuch
parent preference for French violin clef could be the result of his contact with the French
musician Des Essarts, who may have instructed him in composition. But this hypothesis
does not quite square with archival documents examined by Owens ('"TheWiirttemberg
Hofkapelle,"233-34), which establish that Des Essartswas not employed by the court until
June 1724. Further examples of supplementary parts in the clef are found in the manuscripts listed below in notes 33 and 35.
ZOHN
& PAYNE
right-hand corner of the title page, he assigned the parts number "1o"
in the court's cataloguing system of music manuscripts. The only attribution to Telemann anywhere on the manuscript is supplied by a third
anonymous hand, who added "Telemafi" above "Hafinburg."31So although the style and quality of the concerto speak strongly for Telemann's authorship, a small measure of doubt must remain as to its
authenticity.
Attempting to clarify the chronology of the manuscript, Klaus-Peter
Koch took the word "Hamburg"to indicate that the concerto was copied
no earlier than 1721, the year of Telemann's move from Frankfurt to
Hamburg.32 On the face of it, this interpretation seems plausible
enough, although it begs the question of why the copyist knew the concerto's place of origin but not its composer. An alternative interpretation, one that addresses this question, is suggested by another manuscript in the Rostock collection with a similarly confused attribution.
This set of parts to a D-major trio for two flutes and continuo bears
the following title: "Sonata a 3/2 flut=Traversieres/con/Cembalo/
Hambourg."33 The upper right-hand corner of the title page is marked
"N.0 9," and a second hand-possibly the same one responsible for
"Telemafi" on the concerto manuscript-has added the words "Von
Keiser" above "Hambourg." This is undoubtedly a reference to Reinhard Keiser, who arrived at the Wiirttemberg-Stuttgart court from Hamburg in April 1719, and remained there until August 1721.34 If the attribution is correct, then "Hambourg" might have been intended to
indicate that the trio or manuscript came with Keiser from Hamburg,
and would have distinguished the work from three other trios that
31 The same copyist added the words "Telemafigenafit" above the attribution "Sig.r
Melante" (Telemann's Italianate anagram) on manuscripts of TWV 43:G1 1, 52:D4, and
Anh. 51:Gi (Mus. Saec. XVII.18.45.8-'o).
32 Koch, "Die Rostocker
Telemann-Quellen," 7. Following Koch, the TelemannWerkverzeichnis
assigns the concerto to "1721/ 22 oder friiher."
33 Mus. Saec. XVII.18.19.7. The parts themselves are in a different hand. The
copyist of the title page is also responsible for titles on several manuscripts containing
trios by Reinhard Keiser, Johann Jakob KreB, and Telemann (Mus. Saec. XVII.18.19.2a,
XVII.18.19.2b, XVII.18.20.'2, and XVII.18.20.'3). In each case, he supplied titles on additional flute or viola d'amore parts copied out by a court scribe who often signed title
pages with the initials "C.H.H.,"and who owned or copied manuscripts bearing the dates
1717, 1718, 172o, and 1722. See Poppe, "Eine bisher unbekannte Quelle," 230-32; and
Koch, "Die Rostocker Telemann-Quellen," 4. Owens ("The Wiirttemberg Hofkapelle,"
272) argues convincingly that "C.H.H." is Caspar Heinrich Hetsch, leader of the oboe
band of the GardeFusilierRegimentand from 1722 until 1751 also a member of the Wfirttemberg Hofkapelle. A court document from 1722 (quoted in Owens, 348-49) mentions
that Hetsch had already taken part in Hofkapelle performances prior to his official court
appointment, which could explain his earlier activities as a copyist.
34 Koch, "Die Rostocker Telemann-Quellen," 7.
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Keiser wrote at court in 1720.35 Without wishing to suggest the unlikely

scenario of Keiser bringing an unattributed Telemann concerto from
Hamburg to Stuttgart, we might note that the two manuscripts were
apparently filed next to each other as numbers 9 and to in the court's
music collection. While the consecutive numbering may be due to the
origin-perceived or actual-of the manuscripts in Hamburg, it seems
more likely that we are dealing here with a case of educated guesswork
on the part of the author of the concerto title page. Faced with an unattributed work, he might easily have included the word "Hamburg" by
analogy to the trio, which, having probably just entered the court's music collection, he had reason to associate with the concerto.36 Such a sequence of events is more likely than it might at first appear, for a similar case of educated guesswork at the court almost certainly underlies
the misattribution of Telemann's trio TWV 42:g915 to the Darmstadt
Konzertmeister Johann Jakob KreB.37If this interpretation of the concerto's title page fails to establish a more precise date for the work, it
nonetheless leaves open the possibility that it was copied before 1721.
Before considering the style of the concerto as an indicator of its
chronology, it is worth asking which instrument-flute or oboe-Telemann intended to play the solo part. The concerto's classification in
the Telemann-Werkverzeichnis
as a work for flute and strings would seem
to rest primarily on the manuscript's title page, which, as we have seen,
The three manu35 Mus. Saec. XVII.18.19.2a, XVII.18.1992b, and XVII.18.19.6.

scripts, each bearing the date "1720," were filed as items 32-34 in the court's music collection. Admittedly, this explanation does not account for the initial omission of Keiser's
name on the title page. At least one other work in the collection, the '"Trio... de Manheimb" (Mus. Saec. XVIII.47.12), appears to bear the name of a city rather than a composer.
36 As Owens points out ("The Wfirttemberg HoJkapelle,
275), the court's cataloguing
systems were not organized according to genre, so the numbers may reflect the order in
which the manuscripts were copied or acquired. Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine the
trio and concerto having been placed next to each other in a pile of recent acquisitions
requiring title pages.
37 The manuscript in question (Mus. Saec. XVII.18.20.'3) includes a full set of parts
in the hand of a copyist who probably worked in Darmstadt or Frankfurt, as his hand appears in two Darmstadt scores containing vocal works composed by Telemann in 1716 for
the celebration of the birth of the Habsburg Prince Leopold: the serenata Teutschland
griint und bliiht im Friede(TWV 12:1c; D-DS, Mus. ms. 1039) and the cantata Auf Christenheit, begehein Freudenfest(TWV 12:1; Mus. ms. 1050). A supplementary flute part in
French violin clef, copied by Hetsch, bears a title in the hand familiar from the Keiser
trio: "Trio/1 Flut: Travers transpor:/1 Viola da Gamba Concert:/e/Cembalo." The attribution "Kressa Darmestatt" has been added by a second scribe, who seems to have taken
his cue from the title of a KreB trio dedicated to Friedrich Ludwig (Mus. Saec.
XVII.1820.12o.; apparently missing a violin part and a flute part in treble clef):
a
"Trio 3/1
Flut: Traversiere transp:/1 Violino/Col/Cembalo o Vn Lut./Auth: Krefla Darmestatt/
apertient a S: A. Sme/Monsegr. le Prince Hered:." In XVII.18.20.12 the combination of
copying hands is identical to that in the supplementary flute part of XVII.18.2o0.3.
ZOHN
& PAYNE
is of later origin than the full set of parts.38The earlier solo part, however, gives the instrumentation as "oboe or flute," a formulation also
found on the same copyist's solo part to Telemann's D-minor oboe concerto TWV 51 :dl.39 Even more telling is the range of the solo parts to
both concertos: d' to b", typical of early-eighteenth-century oboe parts
but unusually restricted in the upper register for flute parts; certainly
very few flute parts by Telemann, Bach, and their contemporaries do
not call for at least c"' or d"'. Then, too, the relatively low tessitura of
the solo parts would in some places cause a flute to be covered up by
the string accompaniment. For these reasons, as well as the apparent
convention at the Wiirttemberg-Stuttgart court of designating solo
parts to wind concertos as suitable for either oboe or flute (again, probably to satisfy Friedrich Ludwig's desire for new repertory to perform
on the latter instrument), one must conclude that TWV 51 :G2 was conceived in the first place for oboe.4o Thus it appears that Bach emulated
not only the musical substance of Telemann's movement, but also its
scoring. It is even possible, as Bruce Haynes has speculated, that Bach's
movement was originally in G major as well, although none of the surviving sources show any evidence of this.41
If the philological evidence adduced above suggests that TWV
51:G2 came into the possession of the Wiirttemberg-StuttgartHofkapelle
between 1716 and the early 1720os, the concerto's musical style places it
38 Kross (Das Instrumentalkonzert,
127) describes the instrumentation as flute and
strings, with the option of performance with oboe.
39 Mus. Saec. XVII.18.51.34, an unattributed set of parts that appears to be a companion manuscript to XVII.18.45.16. The slightly varying form of the treble clefs in the
two manuscripts, however, may indicate that they were copied at different times. For a
discussion of XVII.18.51 .34, whose text is also partially obscured by the combination
of acidic ink and thin paper (bearing an unidentifiable watermark), see Zohn, "New
Sources for Telemann's Instrumental Music." Both of the other manuscript sources for
TWV 51:di (D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/80 and D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-47) unambiguously transmit the concerto as a work for oboe.
4o To be sure, TWV 51:G2 and 51:di were not the only "oboe or flute" concertos
performed at the court. The recently discovered Rostock source for Handel's G-minor
oboe concerto HWV 287 (see Poppe, "Eine bisher unbekannte Quelle") also has a solo
part for oboe or flute ("Hautb. e Flute Travers:"), an instrumentation reversed on the
title page. According to Owens ("The Wiirttemberg Hojkapelle,256-57), other concerto
sources of Wfirttemberg-Stuttgart provenance with solo parts for oboe or flute include
works by "Giosna" (Mus. Saec. XVIII.33.'; oboe or flute), Johann David Heinichen
(XVII.14.20; oboe or flute), Giuseppe Valentini (XVIII.61.2; flute or oboe), and "Zellerino" (XVII.62."; flute or oboe). As to the suitability of TWV 51:G2 for oboe, it could
be objected that the slurred sixteenth-note leaps in the first movement are more idiomatic to the Baroque flute than the Baroque oboe. Yet very similar figures are found in
the first movement ("Andante e spiccato") of Marcello's D-minor concerto, a work that
might easily have been known to Telemann through Bach or some other source. The
slurs in TWV 51:G2 could, of course, be scribal additions, and omitting them in performance would do little to alter the movement's effect.
41 Haynes, "Oboenkonzerte,"
37 and 41-42.
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somewhat earlier. Indeed, all of the stylistic features identified by Wolfgang Hirschmann as characteristic of Telemann's early concertos (composed at Eisenach or Frankfurt, ca. 1708-16) apply to TWV 51:G2 to
varying degrees: 1) modest dimensions; 2) opening slow movements
organized by some means other than ritornello form; 3) fast-movement
ritornellos dominated by Fortspinnung and displaying motivic homogeneity; 4) weak articulation of the tutti-solo opposition resulting from
sonata-like motivic interplay between the soloist and ripieno strings (especially the first violin); 5) the generating of rhythmic contrast principally between solo and tutti parts, not within individual parts; and 6)
a preference for common time rather than 2/4.42 Absent from these
early works, as indeed from virtually all of Telemann's concertos written
before the early 172os, are specifically galant stylistic features such as
Lombardic and alla zoppa rhythms, a relatively slow rate of harmonic
change, and drum basses.
Of considerable help in placing TWV 51 :G2 within the context of
Telemann's early works are his other oboe concertos, none of which appears to have been composed after the early 1720os. Particularly relevant here are TWV 51:ct, c2, di, el, and a2.43 Hirschmann rightly
views the first three of these works as a group by virtue of their similar
musical language, the most stylistically advanced being 51 :d 1. That this
group originated no later than Telemann's first years in Frankfurt is
indicated by the Darmstadt manuscript source for the D-minor concerto, which bears the possessor mark 'JSEndler/1713."44 TWV 51:e 1
and a2 cannot have been composed many years later, although the
more sophisticated handling of form within individual movements of
the E-minor concerto suggests that this work dates from the middle or
late 1710s.45 All five concertos, like TWV 51:G2, contain fast move42
Hirschmann, "Telemanns Frankfurter Konzertschaffen."
43 For analyses of these works, and of the oboe concertos TWV 51:D5, Esi, fi, and
f 2, see Hirschmann, Studienzum Konzertschaffen,

96-102 and 135-47. Following up on an
observation made by Peter Huth, Hirschmann ("Telemann's Frankfurter Konzertschaffen") makes a strong case that TWV 51:a2 was originally conceived as an oboe concerto.
Concerning the fragmentary D-minor concerto for oboe and strings TWV 51:d2, see
Hirschmann's forthcoming study, "Ein Konzertfragment von Georg Philipp Telemann:
M6glichkeiten und Grenzen der Rekonstruktion."
44 Johann Samuel Endler's whereabouts in 1713 are unknown, but the presence of
Freiberg paper in the manuscript would seem to place him in Saxony, and perhaps in
Leipzig, where he matriculated at the university in the summer of 1716. As Endler remained in Leipzig until his engagement at the Darmstadt court in early 1723, it is conceivable that TWV 51 :d 1 was still circulating in Leipzig when Bach arrived there later that
year. For a summary of Endler's early life see Joanna Cobb Biermann, 'Johann Samuel
Endlers Orchestersuiten und suitendthnliche Werke," in Bachs Orchesterwerke,
341-53, at
341-42.
45 The non-autograph parts to TWV 51:a2 (D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/89) have been
dated to 1716 by Brian Stewart and Oswald Bill (unpublished study of the paper types
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& PAYNE
ments in which the relationship between soloist and tutti is characterized by a blending of concerto and sonata procedures.
Easily the most formally sophisticated movement in the G-major
concerto is the second, with a ritornello form in which the initial distinction between solo and tutti material gradually breaks down in a
manner recalling the Sonateauf Concertenart.(Statements of the soloist's
music by the tutti, and vice versa, are of course also characteristic of
Bach's fast concerto movements.) The ritornello-like opening phrase,
played by the solo oboe with continuo and cadencing in the tonic, gives
way to a contrasting idea played in thirds by the violins over a drone
bass (Example 3).46 Already during the extended, motto-like restatement of the opening phrase, functioning as the first solo episode, the
ripieno strings gradually adopt the oboe's material by stating it in
canon with the soloist or in false stretto among themselves. Following
the second ritornello, played by both tutti and soloist and combining
all of the material so far presented, the strings virtually abandon the
drone idea and the oboe takes it up in both of its remaining episodes.
In several places, such as the excerpt from the third solo episode given
in Example 4, the oboe and first violin engage in imitation and voiceexchange more characteristic of the sonata than the concerto. A similar
instance of voice-exchange occurs in the brief, binary-form fourth
movement, where the texture often resembles a trio sonata with added
inner voices (Example 5).47 This kind of motivic interplay between
soloist and first violin is also characteristic of TWV 51:c1/2 and 4,
and Esi/i, and the second movement's motto-like opening
c2/2,
without an introductory ritornello finds parallels in the concluding
movements of TWV 51:di and fi. The G-major concerto's slow third
movement, in the relative minor, derives its pathos from the soloist's
angular melody, full of sighing figures, and the restless harmonic motion arising from the use of secondary dominants, the Neapolitan sixth,
and modal mixture (Example 6). Especially interesting is the texture
of the accompaniment, alternating between a bassetto bass supplied by
and copying hands in the Telemann manuscripts at the Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, Darmstadt). A sketch for the third movement of TWV 51:ei found on
the autograph score to the cantata "Da ich mich hier eingefunden" TWV 1:1748 (D-F,
Ms. Ff. Mus. 809/78), performed in Hamburg in 1722, indicates that this concerto was
composed no later than 1721-22. The non-autograph score of the completed concerto
(D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/4) can be dated to ca. 1725.
46 The stark contrast between the initial solo and ripieno material in this movement
has also been noted by Kross, Das Instrumentalkonzert,
71.
47 As Kross observes (Das Instrumentalkonzert,
86-87), the structure of this finale is
perhaps the simplest among Telemann's binary-form concerto movements, a fact that
would seem to argue for the work's early origin. Contrary to Kross's diagram of the movement, however, the second half of the form is repeated.
567
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3. Telemann, TWV 51:G2, movement 2, mm. 1-12.
Vivace
vL
~~oit
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"
..
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A
[t-1
568
"tF
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ai
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71
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& PAYNE
EXAMPLE4. Telemann, TWV 51:G2, movement 2, mm. 60-65.

t 60
o,A
"f
It"
i$
A!lr '
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~ i
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EXAMPLE 5.
5. Telemann,
TWVV
movement4, mm.
MM.
Telemann,TWV
551:G2,
1:"G2,
26-29. j
26-29.
II movement
I
4
26
[Alegro]
26
([Allegro]
28A
0.01
--------A-,D=/-r
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-46
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EXAMPLE 6. Telemann, TWV 51:G2, movement 3, mm. 1-9.

Adagio
[Irl
-O '
0-11
570
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- ..
OR
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the first violin (for reasons of compass briefly transferred to the continuo in measures 7-8) and block chords played by the entire ripieno.
In two passages the soloist's sighing figures are accompanied only by
a descending chromatic line in the first violin (measures 5-6 and 1617). Both the overall tonal instability and use of chromaticism bring to
mind passages in TWV 51:c 1, c2, and di, and similar pathetic cantilenas occur as the first movements to TWV 51:di, gi, and a2, where the
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solo melodies are accompanied by rhythmic ostinati. Given these points

of style, the transmission of TWV 51:G2 with di at the WfirttembergStuttgart court assumes greater import, for the two concertos may well
have been composed around the same time.
In sum, musical and source-critical evidence allows us to posit
the following sequence of events: 1) Telemann composed TWV 51 :G2
around 1712-16 as one in a series of at least eleven works for solo oboe
and strings that can be connected to his years at Eisenach and Frankfurt; 2) the work entered the repertory of the Wfirttemberg-Stuttgart
Hofkapelle between 1716 and the early 172os, by which time it must
also have come into the possession of Bach; and 3) finding the first
movement worthy of emulation, Bach not only borrowed the beginning
of Telemann's theme, making relatively minor alterations to it, but
also adopted details of the movement's scoring, ripieno string accompaniment, harmony, phrase and cadential structure, and overall dimensions. Exactly how much before 1729 the original version of BWV
1056/2 (156/1) came into being must for the moment remain an
open question. But the likelihood that Bach modeled his Adagio on a
relatively recent work by Telemann and the movement's stylistic and
structural similarity to some of his cantata arias and slow sonata movements both point to the mid-to-late Weimar or early K6then years.
III
We come finally to the questions of why Bach borrowed from Telemann, and how his appropriation affects our understanding of his working habits. Those conversant with Handel's extensive borrowings from preexistent works by other composers will no
doubt find much that is familiar in the relationship of BWV 1056/2
(156/1) to its model, for Bach's compositional procedure is nothing
if not Handelian in varying and extending Telemann's opening idea,
then more subtly appropriating various other elements later in the
movement. Yet the traditional explanations for Handel's frequent use
of preexistent material by himself and others-that he did so out of
habit borne of his musical upbringing; out of necessity because of
illness, lack of melodic invention, or time constraints; or out of an altruistic desire to rescue promising, yet unformed ideas from obscurity
through a kind'of musical alchemy-will clearly not suffice in the case
of Bach, and in fact many of these explanations have been wholly or
partially discredited for Handel as well.48 Whatever discomfort Bach's
48 A
good critical survey of the various explanations of Handel's borrowing is found
in John T. Winemiller, "Handel's Borrowing and Swift's Bee: Handel's 'Curious' Practice
and the Theory of Transformative Imitation" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago,
1994), 55-74-
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self-borrowings have caused his admirers, his uses of preexistent music

by others have, for various reasons, raised comparatively few eyebrows.49 On the one hand, their small number does not seriously cast
doubt on his facility of invention. On the other, the majority of these
borrowings and arrangements-excluding chorale tunes-are acknowledged in his own hand or in those of copyists (effectively preempting
the charge of plagiarism), belong to either the first or last decades of
his career (inviting us to view them as special cases), or are readily construable as acts of expediency, undertakings of stylistic research, or fulfillments of external commissions.
Thus stylisticresearch, external commission, or a combination of the
two has been taken-implicitly or explicitly-to account for a number of
keyboard works written up to about 1714: the fugues on subjects of Albinoni (BWV 946, 950, and 951/951a), Corelli (BWV 579), and Legrenzi
(BWV 574/574a/574b); the arrangements of sonatas from Reinken's
Hortus Musicus (BWV 954, 965, and 966) and by an unidentified composer (BWV 967); and the arrangements of concertos by Vivaldi, Telemann, Johann Ernst, and others (BWV592-97 and 972-87).50
572
49 The only general study of Bach's borrowings in toto is Norman Carrell, Bach the
Borrower(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967), now seriously out of date. A more recent and selective discussion of Bach's borrowings and arrangements is found in Werner
Breig, "Composition as Arrangement and Adaptation," in The CambridgeCompanionto
Bach, ed. John Butt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 154-70. On Bach's
parody arrangements, see especially Ludwig Finscher, "Zum Parodieproblem bei Bach,"
in Bach-Interpretationen,
ed. Martin Geck (G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1969),
94-1055o However, with regard to the fugues on subjects of Albinoni, Michael Talbot ("A
Further Borrowing from Albinoni: The C Major Fugue BWV 946," in Das Friihwerk
Johann
SebastianBachs, 143-61, at 156) has proposed that Bach's appropriations were made "in
the spirit of an objettrouvi,"without any intention of mastering a particular style or surpassing a specific model. Other recent treatments of the fugues and sonata arrangements
include Siegele, "Kompositionsweise und Bearbeitungstechnik," 11-22; Christoph Wolff,
"Bach and Johann Adam Reinken: A Context for the Early Works,"in Bach:Essayson His
Life and Music, 56-71; Robert Hill, "Die Herkunft von Bachs 'Thema Legrenzianum,'"
LXXII (1986), 105-07; BeiBwenger, Notenbibliothek,
46-56; David SchulenBach-Jahrbuch
berg, The KeyboardMusic ofJ. S. Bach (New York: Schirmer, 1992), 50-57 and 67-72;
Breig, "Composition as Arrangement and Adaptation," 155-6o; and Karl Heller, Kritischer
Berichtto NBA V/11 (Kassel: Birenreiter, 1997), 143-70. For the now generally accepted
explanation of the concerto arrangements as commissioned works, see the publications by
Hans-Joachim Schulze cited above in note 8. More recent studies of these arrangements
include Christoph Wolff, "Vivaldi'sCompositional Art, Bach, and the Process of 'Musical
Thinking'," in Bach:Essayson His Life and Music, 72-83; Schulenberg, KeyboardMusic, 90109; Klaus Hofmann, "Zum Bearbeitungsverfahren in Bachs Weimarer Concerti nach
Vivaldis 'Estro Armonio' op. 3," in Das FriihwerkJohann SebastianBachs, 176- 201; and
Heller, KritischerBericht,17-142. Heller ("Die Klavierfuge BWV 955: Zur Frage ihres Autors und ihrer verschiedenen Fassungen," in Das Friihwerk
Johann SebastianBachs, 130-41)
has made a convincing case for regarding BWV 955/955a as a wholly original work by
Bach, rather than an arrangement of music by Johann Christoph Erselius. It remains
unclear what role, if any, Bach had in the creation of the organ trio BWV 586, possibly
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Similarly, arrangements of Bassani's AcroamamissaleMasses (includthe

"Credo in unum Deum" BWV 1081), the "Suscepit Israel" from
ing
Caldara's Magnificat in C major (BWV 1082), Pergolesi's Stabat mater
(the parody arrangement Tilge, H6chster,meineSiinden BWV 1083), and
the Sanctus from Kerll's Missa Superba(BWV 241) seem both to have
filled a need for new repertoire and afforded Bach the opportunity to
study different styles of sacred vocal music in his later years.51Relatively
few appropriations of others composers' music involving significant
recomposition or addition can be confidently placed between these
chronological poles.52 The suite for violin and obbligato harpsichord
BWV 1025, an arrangement of a lute suite by Silvius Leopold Weiss,
seems to have originated around the time of the lutenist's visit to the
Bach household in 1739.53 Somewhat earlier, probably around 1730,
Bach fashioned the well known concerto in A minor for four harpsichords and strings BWV 1065 from Vivaldi's Op. 3, No. lo (RV 580).54
Apparently belonging to the middle Leipzig years as well is the sonata
for flute and obbligato harpsichord BWV 1031, the first movement of
which relies almost slavishly upon a trio by Johann Joachim Quantz.55
The number of eyebrows raised in reaction to this particular borrowing
transcribed from or based on a lost work by Telemann. The NBA has published the work
as an "fUbertragung nach einer unbekannten Vorlage (?)." See Karl Heller, Kritischer
Berichtto NBA IV/8 (Kassel: Birenreiter, 1980), 89-93.
51 On these and other Bach arrangements of sacred vocal works, see
especially Hans
T. David, "A Lesser Secret of J. S. Bach Uncovered," Journal of the AmericanMusicological
SocietyXIV/ 2 ( 1961), 199-2 23; Christoph Wolff, Der StileAntico in derMusikJohann Sebastian Bachs:Studienzu Bachs Spdtwerk(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1968), 21-23 and 62-63;
Francesco Degrada, "Lo Stabat Mater di Pergolesi e la parodia di Bach," in Bach und die
ItalienischeMusik--Bach e la musica Italiana, ed. Wolfgang Osthoff and Reinhard Wiesend
(Venice: Centro tedesco di studi veneziani, 1987), 141-69; Peter Wollny, "Bachs Sanctus
LXXVII (1991), 173-76; Kirsten
BWV 241 und Kerlls 'Missa Superba,' " Bach-Jahrbuch
BeiBwenger, "Bachs Eingriffe in Werke fremde Komponisten: Beobachtungen an den
Notenhandschriften aus seiner Bibliothek unter besonderer Berficksichtigung der lateinischen Kirchenmusik, Bach-Jahrbuch
LXXVII (1991), 127-58; and BeiBwenger, Notenbibliothek,Chapter 6. On the possibility that the first movement of the motet Jauchzetdem
Herrn, alle WeltBWV Anh. 16o was at some point arranged by Bach from a Telemann
motet of the same title (TWV 8:10o), see Klaus Hofmann, "Zur Echtheit der Motette
'Jauchzet dem Herrn, alle Welt' BWVAnh. 16o," in Bachiana et alia musicologica:Festschrift
AlfredDiirr zum 65. Geburtstagam 3. Mdiirz 983, ed. Wolfgang Rehm (Kassel: Bfirenreiter,
1983), 126-40.
52 As
BeiBwenger (Notenbibliothek,
65) points out with regard to the K6then period,
the paucity of sources greatly complicates the identification of composers and works in
which Bach took a special interest.
53 Christoph Wolff, "Das Trio A-Dur BWV 1025: Eine Lautensonate von Silvius
Leopold Weiss bearbeitet und erweitert von Johann Sebastian Bach," Bach-Jahrbuch
LXXIII (1993), 47-67.
54 Schulze, Studienzur Bach-Uberlieferung,
68.
55 See Jeanne Swack, "Quantz and the Sonata in E6 major for Flute and Cembalo,
BWV 1031," Early Music XIII/1 (1995), 31-53; Siegbert Rampe, "Bach, Quantz und
das Musicalische Opfer,"ConcertoLXXXIV (1993), 15-23; and Dominik Sackmann and
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might be far greater were it not for the questionable status of BWV
1031 as an authentic work by Bach. But if one accepts Bach's authorship, then the stylistic research explanation holds a particular attraction, since the model is in a progressive style and belongs to the somewhat unusual subgenre of the Sonateauf Concertenart.
So BWV 1056/2 (156/1), if it does in fact date from the late
Weimar or early K6then years, helps plug the chronological gap between Bach's early borrowings and arrangements and those of his final
two decades. Beyond this, its unusual modeling process invites us to reexamine the issue of Bach's indebtedness to the music of other composers, for it now appears that this indebtedness was not invariably "less
a matter of imitation of a model than an awareness of the possibilities,
an expansion of his own manner of writing and a stimulation of his musical ideas."56In the case of BWV 1056/2 (156/1), the stimulation of
Bach's invention appears to have resulted directly from close imitation
of the Telemann model.
As it happens, there is a rich aesthetic context for the type of modeling we have observed in Bach's Adagio, for his use of Telemann's
music resonates deeply with the concept of transformative imitation as
propounded by many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century musicians,
poets, and painters.57 Although this concept has figured in several
recent studies of Handel's borrowings, it seems never to have been
brought to bear on Bach's appropriations of music by others.58 The
Siegbert Rampe, "Bach, Berlin, Quantz und die Flotensonate Es-Dur BWV 1031," BachJahrbuchLXXXIII (1997), 51-85. Swack has also suggested that the fourth movement of
BWV 1033, another sonata of doubtful authenticity, is modeled in part on a sonata movement by Christoph F6rster. See her "On the Origins of the Sonate auf Concertenart,"
Journal of theAmericanMusicologicalSocietyXLVI/3 (1993), 367-414, at 399-401.
56
Christoph Wolff, 'Johann Sebastian Bach," in The New GroveBach Family (New
York:W. W. Norton, 1983), 16457 The term "transformative imitation" is itself borrowed from G. W. Pigman III,
'Versions of Imitation in the Renaissance," RenaissanceQuarterlyXXXIII (1980), 1-32.
58 However, the notion of Bach as a musical critic delighting in re-imagining the inventions of his own and others is frequently encountered in the scholarly literature. For
example, Christoph Wolff ("Bach andJohann Adam Reinken," 71) acknowledges that "at
a very early point, there emerge elements of the most characteristic and essential parameters of Bach's compositional art: the probing elaboration, modification, and transformation of a given musical resfacta originating from himself or another composer, with the
aim of improvement and further individualization." And Laurence Dreyfus (Bach and the
Patterns of Invention [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996], 58) notes that
"wherever one looks in Bach's oeuvre, one observes a tendency to assimilate musically received ideas, subject them to criticism, and recast them in unusually idiosyncratic ways."
Discussions of transformative imitation as it relates to Handel include Winemiller, "Handel's Borrowing and Swift's Bee," chapters 4-6; "Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing,"
Journal of MusicologyXV/4 (1997), 444-70; George J. Buelow, '"TheCase for Handel's
Borrowings: The Judgement of Three Centuries," in Handel TercentenaryCollection,ed.
Stanley Sadie and Anthony Hicks (London: Macmillan, 1987), 61-82; and John H.
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principle of model-based composition or rhetorical imitation, as is well

known, extends back to Classical Greece and Rome, where such writers
as Seneca, Quintillian, Cicero, Homer, and Longinus regarded it as a
fundamental basis of invention. Since then it has frequently been expressed through the metaphor of the bee, which, having selected appropriate raw material (nectar from flowers), proceeds to turn it into
something new and better (honey and wax). The idea that the thing
borrowed must be improved by the borrower is indeed a common
theme in, for example, the neoclassical literary criticism ofJohn Dryden,
Jonathan Swift, and Alexander Pope, and in eighteenth-century English
treatises on painting by Jonathan Richardson the elder and Joshua
Reynolds.59 Still closer in time and place to Bach and Telemann, writers
such as Kuhnau, Mattheson, Heinichen, Scheibe, and Quantz all indicate that the use of a preexistent work to stimulate one's compositional
invention (ideally resulting in improvement of the model) was a widespread-if not entirely uncontroversial-practice in early-eighteenthcentury Germany.
Among musical aestheticians it is Mattheson who is most vocal on
the subject of transformative imitation. In the July 1722 issue of Critica
musicaa brief mention of Handel's borrowings from one of Mattheson's
arias ("almost note for note") begets a lengthy footnote on the subject
of borrowing in general:
It can sometimes happen that someone by chance comes acrosscer-
tain ideas which he may have heard before, without even knowing
where they came from, and without applying them intentionally. But
some have in them a memory that is too good to be true and that is by
far more successful than that of others-a memory such as others
might wish; this must be very convenient for them. Besides this, there
are two advantages to having such a memory: 1) that such ideasespecially if there is good elaboration, which usually is paired with
empty invention-must inevitably also please their first inventor and
rightful owner, since no one is wont to censure his own work; 2) that
the latter suffers no particular disadvantage from this borrowing, but
indeed gains an extraordinary honor, if a famous man now and then
happens upon his track, and-as it were-borrows from him the very
Roberts, "Whydid Handel Borrow?,"in Handel Tercentenary

Collection,83-92. The notion
of imitation as a stimulus to invention has of course also figured prominently in studies of
other musical repertories. For a review of recent studies on imitation in Renaissance music, see Honey Meconi, "Does ImitatioExist?,"Journalof MusicologyXII/2 (1994), 152-78.
A broad survey of borrowing as a field of study is provided byJ. Peter Burkholder, "The
Uses of Existing Music: Music Borrowing as a Field," NotesL/3 (1994), 851-70.
59 For an overview of classical and neoclassical conceptions of transformative imitation, see Winemiller, "Handel's Borrowing and Swift's Bee," 75-107; and "Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing," 447-49.
575
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basis of his ideas. If only three people know, that is already honor
enough! ... Those people, however, who turn the invention into a
plagium, and who, as such, wish to excuse themselves with a pleasant
elaboration, are on the wrong path and reason falsely....All
elaboration-beautiful as it may be-is only interest; but the invention
itself compares to the capital.6o
576
Mattheson comes across as a reluctant advocate of borrowing, seeming to

prefer that composers elaborate their own ideas, the musical "capital."
But those who wish to pay interest on another's capital may apparently
do so if they substantially transform the borrowed idea, rather than engage in the superficial elaboration associated with plagiarism. And one
test of a successful elaboration is whether it pleases the idea's "rightful
owner," who may consider it a high form of flattery if the borrowing is
done by a famous composer. Nearly two decades later, in Der vollkommene
Mattheson explains that all imitation falls into one of three
Capellmeister,
categories: 1) Aristotelian mimesis of nature ("all sorts of natural things
and affections"); 2) "the effort one makes to imitate this or that master of
musician's work, which is quite a good thing so long as no actual musical
thievery takes place in the process";or 3) the successive imitation of "formulas, passages, or short phrases" (contrapuntal imitation).61 Further
6o Johann Mattheson, CriticaMusica 1 (Hamburg: Mattheson, 1722; repr. Amsterdam: Frits Knuf, 1964), 72, note m: "Es kann wohl bisweilen kommen/daB einer/von
ungefehr/auf gewisse Einfille st6sset/die er ehmahls geh6rt haben mag/ohne eben zu
wissen/wo? und ohne dieselbe mit Vorsatz zu appliciren.Doch haben einige darinn eine
fast verdichtige und weit glficklichere reminiscentiam,als andere wfinschen m6chten;
welches ihnen sehr bequem fallen muB. Ausser diesem sind noch 2. Vortheile dabey: 1)
DaB dergleichen Sachen/bevorab bey guter elaboration,(die sich gemeiniglich zu leeren
Erfindungen gesellet) unausbleiblich allen/auch so gar/deren ersten Erfindern und
rechten Eignern/gefallen mfissen: weil niemand sein eignes Machwerk zu tadeln plegt.
2) DaB diesen letzten daraus kein sonderlicher Nachtheil/wohl aber eine ungemeine
Ehre zuwichst/wenn ein berithmter Mann ihm dann und wann auf die Spuhr gerith/
und gleichsam seiner Gedanken wahren Grund von ihm borget. Soltens auch nur drey
wissen/so ist es schon Ehre genug! ... Diejenigen Leute aber/so ein plagium daraus
machen/und es/qua tale, mit der glficklichen Ausarbeitung entschuldigen wollen/sind
auf dem unrechten Wege/und raisonniren falsch.... Alle elaboratio,sie sey so sch6n wie
sie wolle/ist nur mit Zinsen; die inventio aber mit dem Capital selbst zu vergleichen."
Translated in Winemiller, "Handel's Borrowing and Swift's Bee," 266-67 (with modifications).
61 Johann Mattheson, Der volkommeneCapellmeister(Hamburg: Christian Herold,
1739; repr. Kassel: Birenreiter, 1954), 331, ? 4: "Diese Nachahmung nun hat in der Music
dreierley zu bedeuten. Denn erstlich finden wir Gelegenheit, dergleichen Uibung [sic]
mit allerhand natfirlichen Dingen und Gemfiths-Neigungen anzustellen, worin schier
das gr6sseste Hfilfsmittel der Erfindung bestehet, wie an seinem Orte gesaget worden ist.
Fiurs andre wird diejenige Bemiihung verstanden, so man sich gibt, dieses oder jenen
Meisters und Ton-Kiinstlers Arbeit nachzumachen: welches eine gantz gute Sache ist, so
lange kein f6rmlicher Musicalischer Raub dabey mit unterliufft. Drittens bemercket man
durch die Nachahmung denjenigen angenehmen Wettstreit, welchen verschiedene Stimmen fiber gewisse F6rmelgen, Ginge oder kurtze Sitze mit aller Freiheit unter einander
ZOHN
& PAYNE
softening his stance on borrowing in the chapter on invention, he states

that returning a worthy object of imitation with interest is a necessary
condition for borrowing, which is an acceptable and nearly universal
practice:
The locus exemplorumcould mean here the imitation of other composers, but only if fine models are chosen and the inventions are simply
imitated-not copied or stolen. When all is said and done, if most is
fetched out of the source for invention in just the sense we take it here,
then that should not be censured--but only if it is done with restraint.
Borrowing is permissible; but one must return the thing borrowed with
interest, i.e., one must so construct and develop imitations that they are
prettier and better than the pieces from which they are derived.
Whoever does not need to do this and has enough resources of
his own, need not begrudge such; yet I believe that there are very few
of this sort: as even the greatest capitalists are given to borrowing
money, if they see special advantage or benefit in it.62
Mattheson's cautions here and elsewhere about "stolen" inventions

and "musical thievery" imply, of course, that he perceived much borrowing in early-eighteenth-century Germany as outright plagiarism by
virtue of its too literal and crude appropriation of others' music.63And
he seems to have been joined in this perception by Heinichen, Quantz,
and Kuhnau. In the latter's satirical novel Der musicalischeQuack-Salber
ffihren" (footnotes omitted). Translated by Ernest C. Harriss as Johann Mattheson'sDer
volkommeneCapellmeister
(Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981), 63762 Mattheson, Der volkommeneCapellmeister,
131-32, ?81-82: "Der locus exemplorum
konnte wol in diesem Fall auf eine Nachahmung andrer Componisten gedeutet werden,
wenn nur seine Muster dazu erwehlet, und die Erfindungen bloB imitiret, nicht aber
nachgeschrieben und entwendet wfirden. Wenn endlich alles um und um k6mmt, wird
aus dieser Exempel-Qvelle, so wie wir sie hier nehmen, wol das meiste hergeholet: es ist
auch solches nicht zu tadeln, wenn nur mit Bescheidenheit dabey verfahren wird.
Entlehnen ist eine erlaubte Sache; man muB aber das Entlehnte mit Zinsen erstatten, d.i.
man muB die Nachahmungen so einrichten und ausarbeiten, daB sie ein sch6neres und
besseres Ansehen gewinnen, als die Satze, aus welchen sie entlehnet sind. War es nicht
n6thig hat und von selbst Reichthum gnug besitzet, dem stehet solches sehr wol zu
g6nnen; doch glaude ich, daB deren sehr wenig sind: maassen auch die grossesten Capitalisten wol Gelder aufzunehmen pflegen, wenn sie ihre besondere Vortheile oder Beqvemlichkeit dabey ersehen." Translated in Harriss, Johann Mattheson'sDer vollkommene
Capellmeiste
, 298.
63 In his treatise on melody, Mattheson mentions those "that happily snap up a foreign invention from the mass of things that fall under their hands, of which often not two
notes are their own. But they know how to arrange, elaborate, and embellish this theft so
skillfully that it is a pleasure." Johann Mattheson, KernmelodischerWissenschaft(Hamburg,
1737; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1976), 128, ?3: "Hiergegen gibt es andre, die erschnappen gerne eine fremde Erfindung aus derjenigen Menge Sachen, die ihnen unter
die Hdnde gerathen, davon doch oft nicht zwo Noten ihre eigene sind; sie wissen diese
Entwendung aber dermassen geschickt einzurichten, auszuarbeiten und zu schmficken,
daB es eine Lust ist."
577
THE JOURNAL
OF MUSICOLOGY
(1700), the fictional composer is a plagiarist who takes "all his invention from the music he had copied,"
which the most beautiful invention
best songs."64 Heinichen, writing in
trouble taken by composers to avoid
zealotry of those doing the charging:
without understanding "the art by

can often be extracted from the
1728, reports on the considerable
the charge of plagiarism, and the
Indeed, even nowadays one has to avoid the misfortune to include in

so many large theatrical works a single aria or even a melodic pattern
of a few notes seeming to have the slightest similarity with a former
work. For even if these [similarities] are only approximations and occur contrary to the composer's intention, or the inventions are barely
similar in tertio, quarto, comparable to women who resemble each
other in sexufeminino;there will be those who will in stupidity and passion take the opportunity to rebuke the composer for plagiarism (because he who could not write instead of such a little formula twenty
others extemporaneously must be considered a poor composer).65
In a subsequent footnote discussing the efficacy of the rhetorical loci topici
as a stimulant to a composer's "natural imagination," Heinichen mentions
578
"musical raw beginners," evidently in Italy, who mechanically appropriate ideas from others
of integrity, he adds,
thus eliminating the
it in their own works
without adequately "restirring the brew." Composers

avoid listening to "great" music before composing,
possibility of inadvertently including a reference to
and arousing the "suspicion of ignorant censors."66
64 Johann Kuhnau, Der musicalischeQuack-Salber

(Dresden, 1700); quoted and translated in Roberts, "Whydid Handel Borrow?,"85-86.
65 Johann David Heinichen, Der Generalbassin der Composition(Dresden: Heinichen,
1728; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1969), 29: "Jaman hat sich noch heut zu Tage vor
dem Unglfick zu hfiten/daB man in so viel und grossen Theatralischen Wercken nicht
eine einzige Aria, oder nur eine Clausul von wenig Noten noch einmahl vorbringe/
welche etwan einer ehemahligen Inventionauch nur in den geringsten piinctgen ahnlich
scheinet. Dann wann solches gleich nur ohngefehr und wieder die Intention des Componisten also gerathen/oder die Inventiones kaum in tertio, quarto, wie alle Weibsbilder
einander in sexufcemininogleichen: so wollen doch unverstindige/und passionirte gleich
daher Gelegenheit nehmen/den Componistenvor einen plagiarium zu schelten (da es
doch ein schlechter Componisteseyn mfiste/welcher statt eines solchen formulgen nicht ex
tempore20o. andere hinzuschreiben wfiste)." Translated in George J. Buelow, Thorough-Bass
AccompanimentAccordingtoJohann David Heinichen, rev. ed. (Lincoln, Neb.: University of
Nebraska Press, 1986), 330.
66 Heinichen, Der Generalbassin der Composition,32-34, note m: "... gleichwie bey
gewissen Nationibusmanche Musicalische Frischlinge zu sagen pflegen: bi sognafarsi idea,
damit lauffen sie in andere Musiquen, und schreiben hernach den Kern der besten
Gedancken anderer Compositorum,mit einer kaum etwas verdnderten Brfihe, wieder in
die Geleihre Arbeit hinein. Ordentlicher weise aber vermeyden behutsame Compositores
genheit, kurz vorhers grosse Musiquenzu h6ren, wenn sie selbst dergleichen zu setzen im
Wercke begriffen sind, aus Furcht, daB nicht, wie zu geschehen pfleget, wider unsern
Willen etwas hangen bleibe, welches den Componisten durch InnocenteNiederschreibung
ZOHN
& PAYNE
More than two decades later, Quantz also speaks of novice Italian opera
composers who, having won popular acclaim despite their insufficient
training, avail themselves of music by others when cobbling together
their latest operas: '"They bring along their inventions not in their
heads but in their luggage."67 But it was not simply a matter of certain
Italians "decking themselves out in another's plumes," for Quantz more
generally cautions the beginner to avoid the works of "self-taught composers who have not learned composition through either oral or written instruction.... The majority consist of a hodgepodge of borrowed
and patched-up ideas."'68 Evidently wishing to disassociate himself from
such autodidactic plagiarizers, Quantz points out in his autobiography
that as a novice composer he managed to study "the scores of acknowledged masters, attempting to imitate trios and concertos and their
method of composition, without actually writing them down."69
If the line between "patched-up" thievery and original invention in
these passages often seems faintly drawn, it is surely by design, since
Mattheson's "prettier and better" is as impossible to objectify as musical
"interest" is to calculate; we can hardly expect to be told exactly how
much and what manner of transformation is sufficient to convert a
plagiarism into an original work of art. But as George Buelow has
seiner vermeynten eigenen Gedanken bey unverst~indigen Censoribusin Verdacht bringen
k6nne." See the translation in Buelow, Thorough-Bass
Accompaniment,331.
67 Johann
zu spielen(Berlin:
Joachim Quantz, VersucheineranweisungdieFl6tetraversiere
Johann Friedrich VoB, 1752; repr. Kassel: Birenreiter, 1983), 13-14, ?14: "Deswegen ahmet einer dem andern nach, schreibt seine Arbeit aus, oder giebt wohl gar fremde Arbeit
ffir seine eigene aus, wie die Erfahrung lehret; zumal wenn dergleichen Naturalisten sich
gen6thiget finden, ihr Glfick in fremden Landen zu suchen; und die Erfindungen nicht
im Kopfe, sondern im Koffer mit sich ffihren. Haben sie auch allenfalls noch die
Fihigkeit, etwas aus ihrem Kopfe zu erfinden, ohne sich mit fremden Federn zu
schmficken; so wenden sie doch selten die geh6rige Zeit an, die ein so weitlauftiges Werk,
als eine Oper ist, erfodert.... Es pfleget also denenjenigen, die sich auf das Ausschreiben legen, oft fehl zu schlagen: so daB man bald merken kann, ob die Gedanken aus
einem einzigen Kopfe ihren Ursprung haben; oder ob sie nur auf eine mechanische Art
zusammen gesetzet worden sind." Translated in Reilly, On Playing theFlute, 20-21.
68 Quantz, Versuch,98, ?21: "[Ein Anflinger] hiute sich vornehmlich ffir den Stficken
der selbst gewachsenen Componisten, welche die Setzkunst weder durch miindliche,
noch durch schriftliche Anweisung erlernet haben: denn darinne kan weder ein Zusammenhang der Melodie, noch richtige Harmonie anzutreffen seyn. Die meisten laufen auf
einen Mischmasch von entlehnten und zusammen geflickten Gedanken hinaus." Translated in Reilly, On Playing theFlute, 117.
69 JohannJoachim Quantz, "HerrnJohann Joachim Quantzens Lebenslauf, von ihm
selbst entworfen," in Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Historisch-kritische
Beytrdgezur Aufnahme
derMusik,vol. 1, "Stfick5" (Berlin: Schfitz, 1755), 21o; repr. in Willi Kahl, Selbstbiographien
deutscherMusikerdes XVIII.Jahrhunderts(Cologne: Staufen-Verlag, 1948), 171: "Indessen
studirte ich, in Erwartung einer bequemern Gelegenheit, die Partituren grfindlicher
Meister fleiBig durch, und suchte ihrer Setzart, in Trios und Concerten nachzuahmen,
doch ohne auszuschreiben." Translated in Paul Nettl, ForgottenMusicians (New York:
Philosophical Library, 1951), 290o.
579
THE JOURNAL
580
OF MUSICOLOGY
shown, Mattheson comes very close to telling us.70 A passage in Der

volkommeneCapellmeisterdescribes the collecting of "moduli"-assorted
brief melodic figures, turns, cadences, etc.-as a good way of building a
compositional vocabulary. Even if these snippets come from the works
of others (which is, Mattheson tells us, the best way of collecting them),
their combination into a new melody constitutes a "unique invention."
Yet Mattheson cautions that building such a vocabulary is best done
mentally, as constructing melodies from a collection of written-down
moduli will likely result in a "lame and botched arrangement, if one's
clumsy melody is patched together from such bits."71This sort of mindless ars combinatoriais presumably the kind of process that Heinichen
and Quantz inveighed against-and what "ignorant censors" of the
time regarded as plagiarism. Indeed, Mattheson's own example of a
four-measure phrase derived from three motives makes it plain that at
least a modest degree of transformative imitation was expected when
composing with moduli.
One logical inference to be drawn from the writings of Mattheson
and other German critics is that most musicians of Bach's time would
have considered the process of transformative imitation in BWV
1056/2
(156/1)
to pay back Telemann's invention with more than the
requisite interest. But would Bach's Adagio have pleased Telemann

himself, the "first inventor and rightful owner" (to use Mattheson's
phrase) of the borrowed ideas? An answer in the affirmative seems to
be provided by a brief passage in Scheibe's Ueberdie musikalischeComposition (1773). After acknowledging that Handel and Hasse often borrowed the inventions of Reinhard Keiser, Scheibe points out that they
nevertheless understood "the art of making these inventions their own,
so that they were transformed in their hands into new and original
ideas. Mattheson and Telemann assured me of this more than once,
and in light of other reliable reports I cannot doubt it."72 We have
every reason to believe Scheibe's assertion that Telemann knew and approved of Handel's borrowings, for the two composers were intimately
familiar with each other's music, Telemann having performed many of
Handel's operas at Hamburg, and Handel having borrowed liberally
70 George J. Buelow, "Mattheson's Concept of 'Moduli' as a Clue to Handel's Compositional Process," GiittingerHdndel-Beitrage,vol. 3, ed. Hans Joachim Marx (Kassel:
BWrenreiter,1987), 272-78.
7' Mattheson, Der volkommeneCapellmeister,122-23; translated in Buelow, "Mattheson's Concept of 'Moduli,' " 274-76.
ErsterTheil: Theorieder
72 Johann Adolph Scheibe, Ueberdie musikalischeComposition,
Melodieund Harmonie (Leipzig: Schwickert, 1773), liii; quoted and translated in John H.
Roberts, "Handel's Borrowings from Keiser," GoittingerHdndel-Beitrage,vol. 2, ed. Hans
Joachim Marx (Kassel: Bidrenreiter, 1986): 51-76, at 51. Another translation of the passage is given in Buelow, "The Case for Handel's Borrowings," 64.
ZOHN
& PAYNE
from Telemann's HarmonischerGottes-Dienst,

Musiquede table,and Sonates
sans basseover the course of more than two decades.73 And given that
Bach's process of imitation
in BWV 1056/2
(156/1)
unquestionably
produces "new and original ideas" and closely mirrors some of Handel's own borrowing procedures, one must imagine that Telemann
would have sanctioned it.
This report of Telemann's apparently sympathetic stance towards
transformative imitation is corroborated by a growing body of evidence
that he, too, practiced the craft at various stages of his career. In his
quartet for recorder, violin, viola, and continuo TWV 43:g4, probably
written at Eisenach, Telemann borrowed both principal motives in the
"Allamande"from Partia IV of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber's Harmonia arificiosa-ariosa,first published in 1696.74 Three movements from
the E-minor orchestral suite TWV 55:e8, which turn out to be dances
from the lost 1724 opera Omphale (TWV 21:14), are dependent
upon
dances from the 1701 opera of the same name by Andre Cardinal
Destouches.75 And the theme of the variation movement concluding
the A-minor quartet for flute, violin, viola da gamba or cello, and continuo TWV 43:a2, published in the Nouveaux quatuors en Six Suites
(Paris, 1738), is based upon the A-minor Gavotte et doublesin JeanPhilippe Rameau's Nouvelles suites de pieces de clavecin (Paris, 1728).76
In
each of these borrowings Telemann, like Handel and Bach, critiques

and recontextualizes material from his model: though the two motives
73 Roberts ("Handel's Borrowings from Telemann," 148) points out that HarmonischerGottes-Dienst
apparently furnished more ideas for Handel than any other single external source. It is possible that Handel's reliance on Telemann's music extended back to
the beginnings of their careers, when the two young composers discussed melodic
matters through written correspondence and during visits in Leipzig and Halle. See Telemann's 1740 autobiography in Johann Mattheson, GrundlageeinerEhren-Pforte(Hamburg:
Mattheson, 1740; repr. Kassel: Birenreiter, 1969), 35974 Telemann's borrowing, discovered by Reinhard Goebel, was first reported in
Ruhnke, Telemann-Werkverzeichnis,
vol. 2, 175. On the dating of Biber's collection see Eric
Chafe, The ChurchMusic ofHeinrichBiber(Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987), 241.
75 Peter Huth, '"Telemanns Hamburger Opern nach franz6sischem Vorbild," in
Franz6sische Einfliisse auf deutsche Musiker im 18. Jahrhundert, o10. Arolser BarockFestspiele 1995, Tagungsbericht, Arolser Beitrige zur Musikforschung, vol. 4, ed. Friedhelm Brusniak and Annemarie Clostermann (Cologne: Studio, 1996), 115-45, at 3032. For a modern edition of Telemann's suite, see Ian Payne, ed., GeorgPhilipp Telemann:
Ouverturein E minorfor Two Violins, Viola, and Basso Continuo,Severinus Urtext Telemann
Edition, vol. 124 (Hereford: Severinus Press, 1999).
76 One
might consider this borrowing as something of an hommagea Rameau,whose
acquaintance Telemann may have made during his Paris visit of 1737-38. Rameau's
movement may itself be borrowed in part from Handel, as Kenneth Gilbert has noted the
strong resemblance of the first three variations to those of the "Aircon Variazioni" movement in the Suite in D minor HWV 428 (Suites de piscespour le clavecin [London, 1720]).
See Gilbert, ed., Jean-Philippe Rameau, Piecesde clavecin(Paris: Heugel, 1979; Le Pupitre
59), x. Rameau could also have known Handel's movement from the early D-minor suite
HWV 449, a work that is thought to date from the composer's Hamburg period.
581
THE JOURNAL
OF MUSICOLOGY
of Biber's allemande are adopted almost literally, they are subjected to

more rigorous contrapuntal treatment and now furnish most of the thematic material in a ritornello-form movement with a "solo" recorder;
Destouches' dances provide the structure, dimensions, and rhythmic
profile for Telemann's, but musical "interest" is paid through frequent
and extensive departures in melody and harmony; and while the
melody of Telemann's variation theme begins very much like Rameau's,
it is presented in octaves rather than in Rameau's sixths or tenths, is imbued with greater rhythmic interest and given a richer harmonization,
and more or less follows its own course after the first eight measures.
Returning to Bach, something of his own view toward imitation can
be gleaned from a contemporary account of his playing. In 1741 Johann Leberecht Pitschel reported that Bach the improviser was not
warmed up until his powers of invention had been roused by playing
the music of other composers.
582
Youknow,the famous man who has the greatestpraisein our town in

music, and the greatestadmirationof connoisseurs,does not get into
condition, as the expressiongoes, to delight others with the mingling
of his tones until he has playedsomethingfrom the printedor written
page, and has [thus] set his powersof imaginationin motion. ... The
able man whom I have mentioned usuallyhas to play somethingfrom
the page that is inferior to his own ideas. And yet his superior ideas
are the consequencesof those inferiorones.77
This passage could almost be a description of Handel's creative process.
Pitschel's last sentence seems to indicate that the improvisations were
generated through transformative imitation (Bach's ideas were the
"consequences" [Folgen] of the others), but we cannot be certain of
how the "superior"and "inferior"ideas actually related to each other. It
is in any event clear that, as far as Pitschel was concerned, Bach's creative powers were in no small measure dependent upon the external
stimulation of other composers' music. The report meshes nicely with
two often-cited recollections by C.P.E. Bach that testify to the intellectual stimulation his father derived from music by others. In the obituary written with the help of Johann Friedrich Agricola in 1750,
Emanuel noted that his father "needed only to have heard any theme
to be aware-it seemed in the same instant-of almost every intricacy
that artistry could produce in the treatment of it."78 Much later, in a
December 1774 letter to Forkel, Emanuel recalled that his father liked
to improvise a fourth contrapuntal voice when accompanying the trios
77 Bach-Dokumente,
vol. 2, No. 499; TheNew Bach Reader,No. 336.
78 Bach-Dokumente,
vol. 3, No. 666; TheNew Bach Reader,No. 306.
ZOHN
& PAYNE
of other composers, a practice which recalls the arranging process in

BWV 1025.79
Although the theory of transformative imitation may help explain
the aesthetic impulses behind Bach's borrowing of Telemann's music,
and in particular why he sought to reconceptualize the model so thoroughly after the opening measures, it cannot tell us why he chose to
borrow from this particular piece in the first place. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that Bach's interest in Telemann's Andante was
based upon the quality of its musical invention and its potential for
elaboration. Another explanation would emphasize the novelty of Telemann's concerto in the realms of style and scoring. Indeed, the musical
language of TWV 51:G2 is far more individualized than that of either
TWV 51:g1 or 52:G2, both distinctive works that, as Bach must have
recognized at Weimar, are nevertheless firmly rooted in the turn-of-thecentury concerto styles of Albinoni and Torelli. And to a German composer in the second decade of the eighteenth century, a solo wind concerto was probably still something of an exotic animal. It is worth
recalling in this respect that of all the Bach concerto transcriptions
whose sources are known, only one-the Marcello transcription BWV
974-is based on a solo wind concerto. Moreover, few of Walther's surviving transcriptions, presumably made around the time of Bach's, appear to take wind concertos as their models.80 In fact, TWV 51:G2 and
the Marcello concerto, perhaps along with others of Telemann's oboe
concertos and Albinoni's Op. 7 (1715), may well have been the first
solo wind concertos Bach encountered at Weimar or K6then.8l One
might also speculate that Bach's borrowing was to some degree motivated by feelings of admiration for and competition with his older
79 Bach-Dokumente,
vol. 3, No. 8oi01;The New Bach Reader,No. 394; Bach-Urkunden,
[24-27].
so Among the sixteen or so Walther concerto transcriptions discussed in note 8 and
edited by Klaus Beckmann in Johann GottfriedWalther(1684-1748): SdmtlicheOrgelwerke,
vol. 1: FreieOrgelwerke,
(Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hirtel, 1998), only
Konzerttranskriptionen
that of TWV 52:cl is clearly based on a work with a solo wind instrument. Despite the fact
that many, if not most, of Walther's transcriptions appear to have been lost, there is no
reason to doubt that the surviving examples are representative of the types of concertos
he encountered during the 171os. In his 1740 autobiography Walther claimed to have
made 78 keyboard transcriptions ("aufs clavier applicirteStficke") of works by other composers. See Johann Mattheson, GrundlageeinerEhren-Pforte(Hamburg: Mattheson, 1740;
repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1969), 389. Most of Walther's surviving concerto transcriptions are also published in Max Seiffert, ed., Johann Gottfried
Walther:GesammelteWerkefiir Orgel,Denkmiler deutscher Tonkunst, vols. 26-27 (Leipzig:
Breitkopf und Hfirtel, 1906; repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1958),
285-36481 Butler
('j. S. Bach's Reception of Tomaso Albinoni's Mature Concertos," 31) suggests that Bach's contact with Albinoni's Op. 7 is unlikely to have occurred before the fall
of 1717, and perhaps not until several years later.
583
THE
584
JOURNAL
OF
MUSICOLOGY
friend Telemann, who in the years before 1715 was probably a more experienced composer of concertos and other types of instrumental ensemble music. In appropriating elements of Telemann's Andante, then,
Bach may have sought simultaneously to pay a compliment to his friend
(interest and all) and to demonstrate his emerging mastery of the concerto as a genre.
But let us not be tempted by indications that BWV 1056/2 (156/1)
is a relatively early work to dismiss the act or nature of Bach's modeling
as a youthful indiscretion, unthinkable from the mature composer of
the late K6then or early Leipzig years. There is no reason to believe
that Bach would have outgrown this kind of transformative imitation
after a certain point in his career; Telemann and Handel clearly did
not, although some details of the latter's practice changed over time,82
and Mattheson stresses that imitating the works of others, properly
done, is far more than a pedagogical tool for inexperienced composers.
Nor are we in an ideal position to determine, given the small repertory
of Bach's known borrowings from other composers, whether the
process of imitation in BWV 1056/2 (156/1) is more reflective of his
technique in 1712, 1717, or even 1722. But questions of the work's
chronology aside, the discovery that one of Bach's most famous slow
movements owes its inspiration to Telemann not only enriches the musical and aesthetic context in which we may understand his achievement, but imposes a fresh layer of meaning onto Adorno's bon mot,
"they say Bach, mean Telemann."83
TempleUniversity
Open University
82
For example, Roberts ("Handel's Borrowings from Telemann," 151) notes that
the size of Handel's individual appropriations from Telemann gradually increased between the late 172os and late 1730s.
83 Theodor Adorno, "Bach Defended against His Devotees" [1951], in Prisms: Cultural Criticismand Society,trans. Samuel and Shierry Weber (London: Spearman, 1967;
repr. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981), 135-46, at 145.

Bach and Teleman Transformative Process

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Bach, Telemann, and the Process of Transformative Imitation in BWV 1056/2 (156/1)

Author(s): Steven Zohn and Ian Payne

Bach, Telemann, and

see, the missing portions of Telemann's concerto do not significantly

documentary evidence. First, it is significant, and perhaps not entirely

EXAMPLEla. Bach, sinfonia to "Ich steh mit einem FuB im Grabe"

EXAMPLE lb. Telemann, Concerto in G major TWV 51:G2, movement 1.

1w.+ ' + r .i +....

here Bach injects Telemann's bass line with an element of rhythmic

We owe this point to Gregory Butler.

EXAMPLE2. Telemann, Solo in G major TWV 41:G9, movement 1,

theme is handled differently in each movement-rescored with new

Keiser wrote at court in 1720.35 Without wishing to suggest the unlikely

The three manu35 Mus. Saec. XVII.18.19.2a, XVII.18.1992b, and XVII.18.19.6.

Hirschmann, "Telemanns Frankfurter Konzertschaffen."

f 2, see Hirschmann, Studienzum Konzertschaffen,

3. Telemann, TWV 51:G2, movement 2, mm. 1-12.

EXAMPLE4. Telemann, TWV 51:G2, movement 2, mm. 60-65.

EXAMPLE 6. Telemann, TWV 51:G2, movement 3, mm. 1-9.

solo melodies are accompanied by rhythmic ostinati. Given these points

self-borrowings have caused his admirers, his uses of preexistent music

Similarly, arrangements of Bassani's AcroamamissaleMasses (includthe

principle of model-based composition or rhetorical imitation, as is well

Roberts, "Whydid Handel Borrow?,"in Handel Tercentenary

Mattheson comes across as a reluctant advocate of borrowing, seeming to

softening his stance on borrowing in the chapter on invention, he states

Mattheson's cautions here and elsewhere about "stolen" inventions

without understanding "the art by

Indeed, even nowadays one has to avoid the misfortune to include in

without adequately "restirring the brew." Composers

64 Johann Kuhnau, Der musicalischeQuack-Salber

shown, Mattheson comes very close to telling us.70 A passage in Der

to pay back Telemann's invention with more than the

requisite interest. But would Bach's Adagio have pleased Telemann

from Telemann's HarmonischerGottes-Dienst,

each of these borrowings Telemann, like Handel and Bach, critiques

of Biber's allemande are adopted almost literally, they are subjected to

Youknow,the famous man who has the greatestpraisein our town in

of other composers, a practice which recalls the arranging process in

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