Bach Gesellschaft

The German Bach-Gesellschaft (Bach Society) was a society formed in 1850 for the express purpose of publishing the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach without editorial additions. The collected works are known as the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausgabe. On completion of the project, the Society dissolved itself.

The nineteenth-century society needs to be distinguished from its successor, the Neue Bachgesellschaft (New Bach Society), founded in 1900.

The founders of the society were Moritz Hauptmann, cantor of the St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, (and thus a successor of Bach); Otto Jahn, author of a noted biography of Mozart; Carl Ferdinand Becker, teacher at the Leipzig Conservatory; and the composer Robert Schumann.

The Bach-Gesellschaft began publishing Bach's works in 1851 with a volume that started with BWV 1, the cantata Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1. It completed publication in 1900 with its forty-sixth volume. However, the edition of The Art of Fugue by Wolfgang Graeser, published in 1926, is sometimes counted as "Volume 47" and was issued as a supplement to the Bach-Gesellschaft publication by Breitkopf & Härtel, publishers of the original series. Additionally, Vol. 45, part 1 includes a revised edition ("Neue berichtige Ausgabe") of the English Suites and French Suites that had previously been published in Vol. 13.

Among the editors was Alfred Dörffel. Brahms was one of the subscribers to the project and also served on the editorial board. A list of subscribers was printed in each volume.

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