Missouri Classical Music News

A researcher from Darwin, Australia, says he believes that many works attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach were actually written by the composer's second wife.

J.S. Bach as painted by Dipinto di Elias Gottlieb Haussmann (circa 1747). His second wife was a copyist, but may also have composed many of his pieces.

Martin Jarvis, a professor at Charles Darwin University School of Music, has been studying Bach's work for more than 30 years.

Bach's second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach, is traditionally believed to have been a copyist for Bach and her handwriting is known from many of his original scores.

But Jarvis believes she may actually have written some of the best-loved pieces herself, including Six Cello Suites, some of the Goldberg Variations, and the first prelude of the Well-tempered Clavier Book I. . . .

Bach scholars did not immediately dismiss Jarvis's claims. Yo Tomita, a Bach scholar based at Queen's University in Belfast, said the findings were "highly important." Others were more skeptical and said the theory could never be proven.

The biggest news of the 100th anniversary celebration of the University of Missouri-Kansas City's conservatory came at the very end of the three-day extravaganza of concerts, receptions and tours.

On Saturday night outside the school's performing arts center, Dean Randy Pembrook announced that the conservatory had officially changed its name to reflect the new importance of dance.

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver capped the news with a celebratory toast, after which a 15-minute fireworks display was accompanied by providential splashes of lightning over the university track field.

But the real meat of Saturday's events came in the Grand Finale Concert that preceded the announcement, in which student performers from the newly named UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance showed off an array of prodigious talents.

It began at a postconcert dinner at the River Club during Michael Stern’s first weekend as the group’s music director. Stern was sitting with mega-pianist Leon Fleisher, soloist for that weekend, and his wife, Katherine Jacobson.

Spotting philanthropist Julia Irene Kauffman, Stern invited her to sit with them. A trained pianist, Kauffman had recently decided to resume piano lessons — with no less than UMKC Conservatory professor Robert Weirich, an old Fleisher buddy.

“We started to have a very interesting conversation about pianos and pianists,” Stern said. “And I said, ‘You know, Julia, the piano is not good enough.’” A world-class orchestra needed a piano to match.

Fleisher, who knows pianos, got into specifics. The Symphony’s current 1987 Steinway was just getting tired. For one thing, piano technician Greg Hulme told me, piano hammers wear out because each visiting artist wants it “voiced” differently, which means altering the felt with tools and chemicals.
. . .

Enter Kalichstein, a brilliant pianist already booked for the Symphony’s season who, as a courtesy to his friend Stern, helped select the piano.

After visiting the Steinway factory in Astoria, N.Y., during which he played seven or eight pianos, he found one that he loved.

“It just ‘sings,’” Kalichstein said. “And the sound lingers, and it’s warm and beautiful. Like all great instruments, it has great uniformity in all its ranges.”

After the piano was delivered to Schmitt Music, it went straight to the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Grant Hall, where it spent nearly three weeks being played by Weirich’s students day and night.