Hi,

On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:12:26 +0200, Thomas Dent <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5303252.stm

>They even have a picture - and look! he signed his name with squiggles!

Which he did habitually ...

>The pieces seem to be in German organ tablature.

They *are* written in (so-called New) German organ tablature (NGOT).

> I wonder when Bach switched over to score.

There is one full-blown piece preserved in JSB's hand in NGOT:  The Fantasia
c-minor BWV 1121 (composed or at least copied 1707/1710) in the "Andreas
Bach Buch".

Another work by Bach in NGOT is to be found in the same source: the Choral
prelude BWV 724, but that is non-autograph!


Robert Hill (*) has suggested that some other works, which are preserved in
these two mss. in staff notation, might have been in/transcribed from
previous tablatures (some of which might have been autographs, some not):

BWV 535a
BWV 563 
BWV 570
BWV 582 (early version)
BWV 588

BWV 832 Suite in A major
BWV 912 a Toccata in D major
BWV 917 Fantasia in G major




JSB used NGOT at least occasionally much later, when running out of space.
Well-known examples in the Orgelbüchlein, or in "Ich habe genung" (BWV 82)


Kind regards

Ibo


* 
cf. Robert Stephen Hill: The 'Möller Manuscript' and the 'Andreas Bach
Book': Two keyboard anthologies from the circle of the young Johann
Sebastian Bach. 2 vols. Ann Arbor, UMI 1997.
– [section:] "MB/ABB Copies derived from Tablature Vorlagen", 151–165 
– chapter VI: "The transmission of the J.S.Bach works in MM and
  ABB", 289-377