Georg Bohm's Keyboard Music: Questions of Authorship and Connections with the Music of J. S. Bach

Georg Bohm (1661-1733) has always been recognized as a key figure in the development of the young J. S. Bach and, more likely than not, he was his most important teacher. Bohm's stature is amply reflected in the quality and versatility of his preserved keyboard music. However, the exact outline of this corpus is still uncertain. In this article, the stylistic parameters of BOhm's music are re-examined, a few problematic attributions addressed, and some new pieces from the anonymous realm discussed as possible candidates for his authorship. These concern two different genres: the harpsichord suite and the organ chorale. The former genre survives primarily in two keyboard books by Bach's elder brother, Johann Christoph, namely the Moller Manuscript and the Andreas Bach Book. In spite of the fact that Bach was in all likelihood responsible for the transmission of these suites, a few of them pose questions of authenticity. Related to the Bohm content of these two manuscripts is the anonymously transmitted repertoire found in an Amsterdam print of ca. 1710; at least one anonymous suite found here as a unicum appears attributable to Bohm. In the realm of the organ chorale the main composition discussed is "Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn," BWV Anh. 77, a large chorale partita previously associated with J. S. Bach. I argue that, after closer scrutiny, this impressive work reveals itself as a highly typical example of Bohm's art, a piece that, moreover, Bach clearly knew. Bach was doubtless also familiar with Bohm's habit of routinely borrowing fugue subjects from other composers as the basis for his own fugues. This idiosyncracy of course forms an important feature of Bach's early keyboard music, but with regard to Bohm, one previously ignored.