Die verwitwete Frau Capellmeisterin Bach: Studie über die Verteilung des Nachlasses von Johann Sebastian Bach Eberhard Spree

In his book, Eberhard Spree challenges our received knowledge about the life of Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach (1701–60). Since Philipp Spitta’s monumental biography Johann Sebastian Bach of 1880, Anna Magdalena is said to have lived and died in poverty during the ten years after her husband’s death. Spree proves otherwise.

The author is a double bassist in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. His musicological pursuit began in 2010 when his friend the geologist and photographer Jens Kugler told Spree about multiple entries for Bach in rediscovered manuscripts of the Freiberg Mining Archive in Saxony. The manuscripts are registers for a silver mine called the ‘Ursula Erbstollen’, about 50 miles south-east of Leipzig. These documents record the sale of ‘Kux’ (parts or shares of the mine) sold to investors (‘Gewerke’) who, to retain ownership of their shares, had to pay a subscription to cover the mine’s running costs. Upon careful study, Spree found that Bach was a subscribing shareholder in the silver mine at various periods, notably between 1741 and 1744, and again from 1746 until the time of his death. Prior to publishing his book, Spree shared his research in Bach publications such as Understanding Bach (‘Johann Sebastian Bach and the Ursula Erbstollen’, 8 (2013), 145–53), laying out his findings in full in his 2017 doctoral thesis. Die verwitwete Frau Capellmeisterin Bach is the book version of this thesis.