The Wayne Leupold Edition of 'Bach's Clavierübung III'

Abstract

Johann Sebastian Bach, Clavier-Übung III, ed. George B. Stauffer (The Complete Organ Works, Series I: Volume 8). Colfax, NC: Wayne Leupold Editions, 2010, $58; (<a href="https://www.wayneleupold.com">www.wayneleupold.com</a>). Wayne Leupold Editions has embarked on what may be the publisher's most ambitious project to date: a new edition of the organ works of J. S. Bach. The complete series will contain no fewer than fifteen volumes of music (Bärenreiter's New Bach Edition managed with eleven) and three volumes of background information, in addition to introductions and commentaries in each music volume. The Wayne Leupold Bach edition clearly aspires to the highest level of present-day Bach scholarship; to make this possible, Leupold has enlisted the help of some of America's (if not the world's) most prominent Bach scholars: Christoph Wolff as consulting editor, George Stauffer as general editor, and Quentin Faulkner as performance issues editor. At the same time, the edition is to serve the very practical needs of the American organist. To meet this goal, every volume is extensively reviewed and "tested" by a large group of American organists and their students (p. vii of the present volume is filled with the names of all the reviewers). From one such survey Leupold learned, for example, "that having convenient page turns is one of the most desirable qualities of a Bach edition."