A new exhibition room within the permanent exhibition will be opening at our organisation’s museum on 21 March 2017: this exhibition area will feature books that were owned by Johann Sebastian Bach and
may have influenced his musical creations.
Since the beginning of the “Luther Decade” in 2008, the Bachhaus has been collecting contemporary editions of the books that, according to estate records, were in Bach’s library at the time of his death: a total of 51 titles in 82 volumes. These works bear testimony to Bach’s piety and extensive interest in religious matters, particularly in Luther – as works by Luther constitute more than one quarter of the library – but also in church history, confessional polemics, mysticism and the authors associated with Pietism, such as Philipp Jacob Spener and August Hermann Francke.
The now-finished reconstruction of this “Theological Library” of Johann Sebastian Bach will be inaugurated at the Bachhaus on Bach’s birthday in March of 2017. The exhibition was designed by Atelier Brückner (Stuttgart), which was also responsible for the redesign of the exhibition connecting the historical and modern buildings in 2017. For the new exhibition room, Atelier Brückner has developed four audio dramas with stories about the exhibited books and their authors, as well as musical references to Bach’s works. The new room will also include a presentation devoted to Prof. Dr Martin Petzoldt (1946-2015), the former chairman of the Neue Bachgesellschaft who invested a great deal of effort in developing this exhibition segment.
It will be the first major addition to the museum’s permanent exhibition since the reopening of the Bachhaus in 2007. The new exhibition room was made possible by a grant from the Luther Representative of the Free State of Thuringia for the anniversary of the Reformation in 2017.
“Bach’s Theological Library”: New permanent exhibition area at the Bachhaus Eisenach
Opening 21 March 2017.
Press tour: 20/03/2017, 3:00 p.m.