Death and (Re)Birth of J. S. Bach: Reconsidering The Musical Work- and Author-Concepts

While the study and redefinition of the notion of authorship and its relationship to the idea of the literary work has played a central role in recent research on literature, semiotics, and related disciplines, its impact on contemporary musicology is still limited. Why? What implications would a reconsideration of the author- and work-concepts have on our understanding of the creative musical processes? Why would such a re-examination of these regulative concepts be necessary? Could it emerge from a post-structuralist revision of the notion of musical textuality? In this document, I take the … Bach … project, a collection of new music based on Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No.1 for solo violin, BWV 1002, as a point of departure to sketch some critical answers to these fundamental questions, raise new ones, and explore their musicological implications.