Was Baach the author?
Musicology is immured in its biggest disagreement since the claim that Mozart was actually just Haydn in a wig. New evidence, painstakingly unearthed from an obscure archive in Leipzig (wedged, appropriately enough, between a church register and a cheese inventory), strongly suggests that none other than Johann Sebastian Bach is the true author of that most enigmatic of nursery rhymes, Baa Baa Black Sheep.
For centuries, the tune has been dismissed as a simple Hungarian folk song, a ditty for children with nothing loftier to offer than a roll-call of wool distribution. Yet Bach’s contemporaries, it seems, took for granted that this was one of his minor works, a little piece written to amuse his many children. Indeed, a surviving letter from a Thomasschule pupil refers to “Herr Bach’s Schaf-Aria”, an unmistakable clue. What more could musicologists possibly want?
Consider the melodic contour: a stately descent, a balanced phrase structure, the kind of symmetry one finds in the Well-Tempered Clavier, albeit with fewer fugues and slightly more livestock. The rhythmic gait is pure Baroque, the steady crotchet pulse like the trudge of Leipzig parishioners dutifully filing into the Nikolaikirche. Even the subject matter is apt: wool, after all, was a staple of Saxon trade. What better metaphor for divine providence than a sheep willingly divesting itself for the good of the flock?
Some sceptics argue that the rhyme dates to 18th-century England, making Bach’s authorship impossible. These people are, of course, wrong. First, Bach was not above borrowing. Second, ships sailed, sheep travelled, and tunes migrated. Is it really so implausible that a Bachian aria about wool reached London and was mistaken for a native nursery rhyme? Stranger things have happened: we still credit Pachelbel for Canon in D despite the fact that no one willingly plays the other voices.
Other evidence is tantalising. A fragmentary notebook, attributed to Anna Magdalena Bach, contains a melody labelled “Schäflein-Lied”. Musicologists long dismissed it as a child’s scribble. Now, however, its opening bars match perfectly the incipit of Baa Baa Black Sheep. Coincidence? Only if you believe the Brandenburg Concertos were an accident of counterpoint.
Naturally, there are dissenting voices. A minority of scholars cling to the idea that the rhyme was written for English children in the reign of Edward III, inspired by medieval wool taxes. But this interpretation collapses under scrutiny: not only is the tune stylistically Baroque, but the idea of 14th-century toddlers singing in parallel fifths is frankly laughable.
So, did Bach write Baa Baa Black Sheep? The evidence says yes. As do the symmetry, the provenance, the scribbled notebook, the letter, the trade connections, the sheer Bachness of it all. To deny it is to deny that Bach was not merely the composer of fugues and passions, but of children’s music too. And perhaps that is the greatest revelation: behind Bach’s towering genius lies a lullaby, and some very obliging sheep.
