Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach 1725 (Piano with fingerings)

J S Bach Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach 1725 (Piano with fingerings)

“A mendicant woman from the Haynstrasse, aged 59 years, Anna Magdalena, née Wilckin, widow of Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach, cantor at the St. Thomas School” – thus reads the entry dated 29 February 1760 in the Leipzig "Ratsleichenbuch” (City Register of Deaths) for a woman whose name has become known throughout the world thanks to the two music books put together for her by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Bach himself opened the book with two of the large Partitas subsequently published in the first part of the "Clavierübung”; the rest of the contents was determined by Anna Magdalena. On the whole, these are short pieces of “galanterie”: minuets, polonaises, marches, compositions by the elder children and attempts by the younger ones, little pieces, which she copied out of the family guest book and which had been written there more or less as tokens of friendship by the many visitors in the Bach home.

The fingerings we have added to the music of the Klavierbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach represent a selection among many conceivable options.  They have been chosen with a particular eye to the inspiration that this marvelous volume from Bach’s family circle can still impart to piano lessons today.  In this sense, they also accommodate small hands searching for an ideal connection between physical dexterity, sensible voice-leading, and musical design.

- Urtext of the New Bach Edition

- Urtext edition without fingering BA5164

Selected piano pieces from Bärenreiter’s Urtext catalogue are published with fingerings.  (The well-known Bärenreiter Urtext editions without fingerings remain in print as before).

These new volumes combine the definitive Urtext from the New Complete Editions with tried and tested fingerings from well-known pianists and teachers.  They also contain notes on interpretation.

The Editor
Renate Kretschmar-Fischer is one of the outstanding and most successful piano teachers of our times.  She has worked with Arthur Schnabel, Monique Haas, Georges Enescu, Nadia Boulanger and Igor Stravinsky.  She belongs to the honorary board of trustees of the World Federation of Chopin Societies and has been a jury member at many national and international competitions.