Bach's first biographer sends sonatas and requests the return of Bach concertos
Autograph letter signed ("JN Forkel").
4to (181 x 257 mm). 1 p. with integral autograph address panel (watermark: Mertens, within floral borders on all sides). Papered seal.
€ 6,500.00
To Herr Uhde in Göttingen, asking his forgiveness for taking so long to send the enclosed sonatas (no longer present), and asking him to accept them as a small token of his esteem. In a postscript Forkel requests Uhde to send back the Bach concertos if he no longer listens to them with hungry ears, noting that they will be at his disposal whenever he needs them: "Verzeihen Sie, daß ich es so lange vergessen habe, Ihnen beykommende Sonaten zu senden. Nehmen Sie sie gütigst als ein geringes Denkmal meiner Achtung und Ergebenheit an [...] Sollten Sie die Bachischen Concerte etwa nicht mehr mit gierigen Ohren hören, so erbitte ich mir sie zurück. Sie stehen zu jeder Zeit wiederum zu Befehl".
Regarded as the father of modern musicology, Johann Nikolaus Forkel was a pioneer in the study of the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach. His "Über Johann Sebastian Bach's Leben, Kunst and Kunstwerke" (1802) is the first major study of the composer. Forkel's mention of some concertos by Bach is probably, however, not a reference to music by Johann Sebastian Bach, but to works by his eldest son Carl Philipp Emanuel, namely the six printed keyboard concertos Wq.43.
A possible candidate for Forkel's correspondent is Johann Daniel Wilhelm Otto Uhde, the son of the lawyer and amateur composer Johann Otto Uhde (d. 1766), a volume of whose concertos, sonatas and cantatas is preserved today in the Houghton Library at Harvard University.
1) Sotheby’s, London, 16 May 1997, lot 98. 2) Latterly in the collection of Sir Ralph Kohn, German-born British medical scientist and baritone (1927-2016), and his wife, Lady Zahava Kohn (1935-2022).
Small tears to lower margin; some staining. Old repair to lower left corner (with some discoloration), where the opening of the seal resulted in a small tear in the paper (the missing corner is stuck upon the seal).
