I recently came across this short
account by Charles Burney (1726-1814) the English music historian, of the
earliest known performances of music by Johann Sebastian Bach. The passage is taken from an essay on ‘Infant
Prodigies’ in the musical world which was issued in 1779. Burney refers to
events some thirty years previously. However, it is known that Johann Gottfried
Wilhelm Palschau (pictured) gave recitals in London in 1754 – some four years after the
composer’s death. Fortunately R. Kaiser has written about these concerts
in an article in the 1993 Bach Jahrbuch:- ‘Palschaus Bach-Spiel in London:
zur Bach-Pflege in England um 1750’. It is an avenue that I will follow up,
once I have brushed up my German. However,
I understand that although this paper shows that a number of periodicals
reported that Palschau did indeed play in London, no mention is made of the repertoire.
“Musical prodigies of this kind
are not infrequent: there have been several in my own memory on the
harpsichord. About thirty years ago I heard PALSCHAU, a German boy of nine or
ten years old, then in London, perform with great accuracy many of the most
difficult compositions that have been written for keyed instruments,
particularly some lessons and double fugues by SEBASTIAN BACH, the father of
the present eminent professor of that name, which, at that time, there were
very few masters in Europe able to execute, as they contained difficulties of a
particular kind; such as rapid divisions for each hand in a series of thirds,
and in sixths, ascending and descending, besides those of full harmony and
contrivance in nearly as many parts as fingers, such as abound in the lessons
and organ fugues of HANDEL”.
Account of an Infant Musician. By
Charles Burney Doctor of Music, FRS Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society
of London 1779 Volume 69, 183-206 [with minor edits]
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