The Galaxy Playlist

March 8, 2010

The Art.... of the Fugue....

Kicking off our annual Bach Birthday celebration... let's start with a little Bach....

Composer's name is listed where notable (i.e. Classical Performance, Jazz Performance).

For more information on any of the rock, pop and Jazz music featured on this program, I frequently utilize AllMusic , an excellent free database holding a huge plethora of information about music and the artists that make it.

Composer	Performer	Title	Genre	Label	Notes
Johann Sebastian Bach	Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord	The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080	Classical, Baroque era, keyboard music	Vanguard Classics, 1953	One of the key masterworks of Bach's. He takes a simple 4 bar theme and turns it into 14 fugues and 4 canons that serve as a workshop of the contrapuntal possibilities in a single musical subject. Bach takes the theme and writes: simple, single-themed 4 voice fugues on the main theme single-themed 4 voice fugues on the inversion of the theme (turned upside down) uses counter-fugues, where a variation of the main subject is used both in regular and inverted form. uses both the theme and counter-theme in diminution, where the length of notes are halved, with rising and descending clusters of semiquavers in one voice are answered by similar groups of demisemiquavers, against sustained notes in the accompanying voice. The 7th piece (referred to as Contrapunctus) uses both augmented (doubling all note lengths) and diminished versions of the main subject and its inversion. Uses double and triple fugues, where 2 or 3 subjects are explored simultaneously Mirror fugues, where the complete score is inverted. One is a double fugue, and one is a triple fugue. Canons, where the main theme is accompanied by varying numbers of imitations of the theme. "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is a canon, as is "Frère Jacques". One of the canons is augmented and inverted, another has the two imitating voices separated by an octave. Finally, the work is capped off by the Fuga a 3 Soggetti, a 4 voice triple fugue that may have been intended to be a quadruple fugue, but was left unfinished at Bach's death. The third subject, like a number of Bach's other works, was based on the B-A-C-H motif (B flat - A - C - B natural, which becomes H in German letter notation) The order of the fugues and canons has been debated for years, since there are differences between the manuscript and printed editions. As Bach was still in the process of completing the work, there will never be a full answer to the question. Also, there has been debate as to whether this was intended for harpsichord, other keyboard, or other instruments. But Leonhardt himself makes multiple convincing arguments that the work was intended for harpsichord (keeping in mind that by this point the piano-forte had been invented, and in fact Bach wrote parts of The Musical Offering with a piano-forte in mind).
Peter Hurford, pipe organ	Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542, "Great"	Classical, Baroque era, pipe organ music	London, 1979	This is referred to as "Great" in order to differentiate between this and the earlier "Little" fugue, also in G minor. However, the name is quite fitting, given the massive descending figure played close to the end of the Fantasia part. The piece was also transcribed for piano by Franz Lizst.
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565	There is some debate as to whether this was actually written by Bach. This discussion points to a number of stylistic points that are unusual, at times singular, in the Bach catalog. The question remains unresolved, and may never be satisfactorally answered. (My preferred Bach biographer, Christoph Wolff, thinks this could be because it was an early work).

Composer

Performer

Title

Genre

Label

Notes

Johann Sebastian Bach

Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord

The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080

Classical, Baroque era, keyboard music

Vanguard Classics, 1953

One of the key masterworks of Bach's. He takes a simple 4 bar theme and turns it into 14 fugues and 4 canons that serve as a workshop of the contrapuntal possibilities in a single musical subject. Bach takes the theme and writes:

simple, single-themed 4 voice fugues on the main theme
single-themed 4 voice fugues on the inversion of the theme (turned upside down)
uses counter-fugues, where a variation of the main subject is used both in regular and inverted form.
uses both the theme and counter-theme in diminution, where the length of notes are halved, with rising and descending clusters of semiquavers in one voice are answered by similar groups of demisemiquavers, against sustained notes in the accompanying voice.
The 7th piece (referred to as Contrapunctus) uses both augmented (doubling all note lengths) and diminished versions of the main subject and its inversion.
Uses double and triple fugues, where 2 or 3 subjects are explored simultaneously
Mirror fugues, where the complete score is inverted. One is a double fugue, and one is a triple fugue.
Canons, where the main theme is accompanied by varying numbers of imitations of the theme. "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is a canon, as is "Frère Jacques". One of the canons is augmented and inverted, another has the two imitating voices separated by an octave.
Finally, the work is capped off by the Fuga a 3 Soggetti, a 4 voice triple fugue that may have been intended to be a quadruple fugue, but was left unfinished at Bach's death. The third subject, like a number of Bach's other works, was based on the B-A-C-H motif (B flat - A - C - B natural, which becomes H in German letter notation)

The order of the fugues and canons has been debated for years, since there are differences between the manuscript and printed editions. As Bach was still in the process of completing the work, there will never be a full answer to the question. Also, there has been debate as to whether this was intended for harpsichord, other keyboard, or other instruments. But Leonhardt himself makes multiple convincing arguments that the work was intended for harpsichord (keeping in mind that by this point the piano-forte had been invented, and in fact Bach wrote parts of The Musical Offering with a piano-forte in mind).

Peter Hurford, pipe organ

Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542, "Great"

Classical, Baroque era, pipe organ music

London, 1979

This is referred to as "Great" in order to differentiate between this and the earlier "Little" fugue, also in G minor. However, the name is quite fitting, given the massive descending figure played close to the end of the Fantasia part. The piece was also transcribed for piano by Franz Lizst.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565

There is some debate as to whether this was actually written by Bach. This discussion points to a number of stylistic points that are unusual, at times singular, in the Bach catalog. The question remains unresolved, and may never be satisfactorally answered. (My preferred Bach biographer, Christoph Wolff, thinks this could be because it was an early work).

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Last Update: March 8, 2010

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