Source Repository of the Bach sons. Documentation and digitization of the primary sources (autograph scores and original performance parts) of the works of Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Friedrich and Johann Christian Bach and integration into database Bach digital

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Achim Bonte, since 8/2018; Dr. Stefan Kühne, since 4/2017; Barbara Schneider-Kempf; Professor Dr. Peter Wollny
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 325007971

The project covered by this new application comprises the digitization of autograph sources and original performance parts of the musical works composed by Johann Sebastian Bachs composer sons: Wilhelm Friedemann (1710-84), Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-88), Johann Christoph Friedrich (1732-95) and Johann Christian Bach (1735-82). These manuscripts are preserved in collections owned by the main German libraries regarding these composers: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz (including the musical archive of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin), Bach-Archiv Leipzig, and Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg. The digital copies will be integrated into a suitable and well-established platform, hitherto mainly used to present the works of J.S. Bach: the database Bach digital (http://www.bachdigital.de/), built up with support from the DFG between 2008 and 2016. For the first time, a significant repository of musical sources will be made available which contains a cross-section of German music history from the second third of the 18th century (i.e. before the start of the First Viennese School). Although the sons of Bach were strongly influenced by their father, they were also in direct - and in some cases even personal - contact with Mozart and Haydn, and played prominent roles in the development of musical styles up to Beethoven. Their works thus rank among the most important documents of the era bridging between the Baroque and Classical periods (often referred to with terms such as Sturm und Drang, sentimental, and pre-classical); to make these sources generally accessible will be a major contribution for a proper understanding of this era. This project would make available: free of charge to scholars, musicians and editors a major portion of the primary sources of the works of the Bach sons. In addition to the digitization of the musical sources, images of the watermarks found in the papers will also be made available in electronic form; these images will be indexed and catalogued for subsequent retrieval in national watermark databases (via WZIS - the Watermark Information System). The new project also includes the following technical modifications and further developments: The integration of authority records from the GND Integrated Authority File in order to optimize searchability and further increase the networked use of metadata, new classifications of the compositions by the sons of Bach and their sources, the development of new modules and tools in order to expand a database focused on J.S. Bach to include compositions by other composers in the Bach family and their sources, improving the networking and scientific reusability of images and metadata from Bach digital in line with current standards in the digital humanities.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Gabriele Beger
• Ehemalige Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Thomas Bürger, until 7/2018; Professor Dr. Klaus-Peter Fähnrich, until 4/2017 (†)