in _Jahrgang_
xliii. More important than these, because by no means too obviously
ridiculous to deceive a careless listener, is the well-known 8-part motet,
_Lob, Ehr' und Weisheit_ (blessing and glory and wisdom). A closer
acquaintance shows that it is really very poor stuff; and it was finally
crowned with absurdity by the discovery that its composer was a
contemporary of Bach,--and that his name was Wagner.

The beautiful motet, _Ich lasse dich nicht_, has long been known to be by
one of Bach's uncles (Johann Christoph).

EDITIONS

Almost the only works of Bach published during his lifetime were the
instrumental collections, most of which he engraved himself. Of the church
cantatas only one, _Gott ist mein Koenig_ (written when he was nineteen,
but a very great work), was published in his lifetime.

Of modern editions that of the _Bach-Gesellschaft_ is, of course, the only
complete one. It is, inevitably, of very unequal merit. Its first editors
could not realize their own ignorance of Bach's language; their immediate
admiration of his larger choruses seemed to them proof of their competence
to retain or dismiss details of ornamentation, figured bass, variants
between score and parts, &c., without always stopping to see what light
these might shed on questions of _tempo_ and style--especially in the arias
and recitatives, which they regarded as archaic almost in direct proportion
to the depth of thought really displayed in them. In the 9th _Jahrgang_
Wilhelm Rust introduced scholarly methods, with the happiest results. The
_Wohltemperirtes Klavier (Jahrgang_ xiv.) was edited by Kroll, who also
made his text accessible in the _Edition Peters_ (which till then had only
Czerny's--an amazing result of corrupt tradition, still widely accepted).
Kroll's and Rust's volumes are far the best in the _B. G._ On Rust's death
the standard deteriorated; his immediate successor seems more interested in
reprinting in full an early version of a work of which Rust had given only
the variants, than in digesting his own materials (_Jahrgang_ xxix.); and
in his next volume (_Jahrgang_ xxx. p. 109) the bass and violin are a bar
apart for a whole line. The last ten volumes, however, are again
satisfactory, and in _Jahrgang_ xliv. the French and English suites are
re-edited. Part of the B minor mass was also worked over again; and Kroll's
text of the _Wohltemperirtes Klavier_ was supplemented by the evidence of
the British Museum autogra