Anna Magdalena

Forensics casts doubt on music of Bach:

The new analysis of his work – by Australian forensic anthropologist Martin Jarvis of Charles Darwin University in Darwin – involved comparing documents written by Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena, with musical notation written by Bach and others who copied his work.

“My forensic work reveals that our current understanding of Anna Magdalena's role in the life and musical output of Johann Sebastian Bach cannot be correct," Jarvis told Cosmos Online.

"I believe there is evidence that shows that Anna Magdalena was at the very least a composition student of Bach, and more probably his assistant composer,” he said.

I touched on this more than two years ago, but the article that I linked to then is no longer there.  At that time this was mere suspicion; no one had actually done any forensic work yet.

I've always thought it odd that J.S. would call one of his notebooks "little notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach."  Why would he name is notebook after his wife?  Wouldn't it make more sense for such a notebook to belong to Anna herself?

Here's a related post at my other blog, which some of you may remember if you've been reading this blog long enough.