Johann Sebastian Bach in Friendly Remembrance: Album Inscriptions as Reception History

Abstract: During the nineteenth century, paying a call to an autograph collector usually entailed signing their album "in friendly remembrance" of the encounter. Musical visitors might also leave a small gift: a few measures of a favorite aria, a brief improvisation such as a cadenza or prelude, or even a complete piano piece or song. Some chose to signal their erudition, and that of the dedicatee, by writing out a contrapuntal curiosity such as a canon or fugue—part of a long tradition of learned album entries. Among such remembrances are quotations of works by Johann Sebastian Bach. These overlooked inscriptions, mostly penned between the 1830s and 1900s, document Bach's Romantic-era reception in an unusually intimate way. Among the inscribers are several well-known Bach enthusiasts, such as musicologist and collector Aloys Fuchs, violinist Joseph Joachim, pianist Ignaz Moscheles, and singer-conductor Julius Stockhausen. Others are less familiar, such as the pianists Anna Mehlig and Carl Tausig, the violinist Engelbert Röntgen, the pedagogue Eduard Eggeling, the amateur organist Friedrich Schlemmer, and the painter Susette Hauptmann. All chose to commemorate a social interaction by identifying themselves closely with Bach, whose music thereby functioned both as a personal calling card and as a potent form of cultural currency.