Prelude and Fugue in C sharp major BWV 848 (The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part I)

Prelude played by Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka

Fugue played by Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka

Prelude and Fugue in C sharp major , BWV 848, form a pair of works in the 1st part of the Well-Tempered Clavier , a collection of preludes and fugues for keyboard instruments by Johann Sebastian Bach .

Prelude

The common ground between the prelude and the following fugue in C sharp major is mainly the cheerful, pastoral character. An early version of the prelude is preserved in the Mempell-Preller manuscript (in C major). The edition of 1862/63 by the piano virtuoso and music teacher Franz Kroll (1820–1877) contains a transcription in D flat major . Whether the choice of the key C sharp major indicates a “lightened” C major or a “darkened” D major cannot be clearly answered - the prelude is neither easier to play in C major nor in D major. The two eleven bar organ points from bar 63 and 87, both on G sharp, are striking .

Another early version, this time in C sharp major, is preserved in the Clavier booklet for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach , which was then significantly expanded in the final version with 104 bars.

Gap

The theme of the three-part fugue catches the eye with its unusually large range of a decime and its inherent two-part voice , with the second, lower voice being used in the upbeat C sharp ² at the end of the first bar.

With the descending triad ice ² -cis ² -GIS ¹ the beginning of the Prelude is resumed, then a thematic unit that yields. The Comes appears in tonal response on its first use in measure 3 . But in the further course of the fugue, all the intervals are kept unchanged, so that the characteristic melody line does not experience any change. The counterpoint , which is combined with the first appearance of the come in measure 3, develops into a regular counter-subject and accompanies the theme through the entire piece. Between bars 35 and 44, the three-part voice is relaxed to two-part. In bar 42, a reprise effect appears in that the beginning of the fugue is repeated almost as true to notes. Bar 53, two bars before the end, surprises with an effective fallacy .

With its echoes of a happy shepherd's song, this fugue gives the impression of a carefree, rural idyll .

literature

• Peter Benary: JS Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: Text - Analysis - Playback . MN 718, H. & B. Schneider, Aarau 2005.
• Alfred Dürr : Johann Sebastian Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier . 4th edition. Bärenreiter Introduction to Works, 2012, ISBN 978-3-7618-1229-7 .
• Cecil Gray: The Forty-eight Preludes and Fugues of JS Bach.  - Internet Archive . Oxford University Press, London / New York / Toronto 1938.

Web links

• The Well-Tempered Clavier I, Johann Sebastian Bach : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project
• Hermann Keller : BWV 848. (PDF)
• BWV 848. (Flash) David Korevaar

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cecil Gray: The forty-eight Preludes and Fugues of JS Bach . Oxford University Press, 1938, p. 21.
2. ↑ Peter Benary: JS Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: Text - Analysis - Playback . MN 718, H. & B. Schneider, Aarau 2005, p. 23
3. ↑ Cecil Gray: The forty-eight Preludes and Fugues of JS Bach . Oxford University Press, 1938, p. 22.