Update on Staplin's Discovery of Bach Manuscript

While in Germany on a tour of Bach organs during July , 1999, Carl Staplin visited the famed collection of Bach archives in Leipzig. Next to Berlin, this is the largest collection of Bach manuscripts in the world. Staplin knew there was a "twin " manuscript in Leipzig to the one he discovered in a St. Louis basement back in 1965. These are the only two manuscripts in the world for that particular composition, BWV 747, which is an organ piece entitled "Christus der uns selig macht." (Until fairly recently this composition was considered of questionable authenticity, but based on recent information it is now considered authentic, and will soon appear in a new volume of the Neue Bach Ausgabe, the official collection of all of Bach's works.) With the help of the Leipzig Librarian, Dr. Hans-Joachim Shultze, and Professor Christoph Wolff of Harvard University, Staplin was able to obtain a xerox copy of the Leipzig manuscript. He also left in Leipzig a xerox copy of the manuscript he discovered in St. Louis, since the Bach archive collection did not have it. So now Staplin has xeroxes of the only manuscript copies of this composition, and he can complete his research. The manuscript he discovered in the St. Louis basement back in 1965 is the older of the two manuscripts. This manuscript is now in the possession of Washington University, and may be seen on their web page for the Gaylord Music Library. The manuscript in Leipzig bears the signature of a student who studied with Bach in his later years.