The date of the foundation of the first German Bach Society, 11 December, 1850, marks, by common consent, the birth of modern musical research. It preceded by less than a year the issue of the first volume of the first complete edition of Bach's works. This event had been foreshadowed by the editorial efforts of two generations of Bach scholars, and it had originated in England. It was there, not in Bach's native country, that A. F. C. Kollmann, K. F. Horn and Samuel Wesley planned and issued critical editions of certain keyboard works of Bach at the turn of the eighteenth century. Only thirty years later the Bach revival became an international cause with Felix Mendelssohn's memorable performance of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin on 11 March, 1829.