[Bach, Johann Sebastian]--

Reichardt, Johann Friedrich. Musikalisches Kunstmagazin...Erster Band. I - IIII. Stück, Berlin: the author, 1782, containing the first edition of the F-minor Fugue, BWV 881/2  from Book 2 of  J.S. Bach's "Das Wohltemperierte Klavier"; 4 volumes in one, 4to, type-set music, original blue printed wrappers, nineteenth-century boards, volume 3 trimmed, some worming and staining; together with loose copies of the 5th and 6th parts from the 'Zweiter Band' of 1791, [RISM Écrits II, p.691]; Forkel, Johann Nicolaus. Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke, Leipzig: Hoffmeister und Kühnel, 1802, 4to, engraved portrait (after Haussmann), folding leaf of engraved music on a guard at end, modern boards



 

The first edition of Forkel's seminal study of Bach, the first important study of the composer.

The music journal Musikalisches Kunstmagazin, edited by Reichardt between 1782 and 1791, remains an epochal publication, directed in the first instance - unusually - at the connoisseur, rather than the amateur. Copies of it are uncommon at auction. One notable piece of music published by Reichardt in the third part of volume one (pp.198-201) is the first edition of the F-minor Fugue, BWV 881, from the second book of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, predating the fugue's publication in Simrock's first edition of the '48' by twenty years.