Bachs works were definitely new once again in the mid 19th century, and particularly for Leipzig concert audiences. In fact, Anselm Hartinger even wonders what was old in Bachs music back then... Given the way that it was presented, we can say that this music was at least partly an invention of the time of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Hauptmann, and was adapted to musical practice by its discoverers for their purposes, which were absolutely modern back then.
To bolster these provocative theses, the author bases himself on a wealth of previously mostly unexamined material from the years 1829 to 1852, the core period of the Bach revival performances. Hartinger chooses an investigative approach that supplies the first link between Bach-related reception research and local music-historical writing, which leads us to amazing insights. The Leipzig Bach-Archivs Reception Series is unquestionably treading on exciting new musicological terrain in this book.
