Prelude and Fugue in G major BWV 884 (The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part II)

Prelude and Fugue in G major , BWV 884, form a pair of works in the 2nd part of the Well-Tempered Clavier , a collection of preludes and fugues for keyboard instruments by Johann Sebastian Bach .

Prelude

This two-part prelude, with 48 bars, appears unproblematic at first glance, but contains some subtle inconsistencies or contradictions. The second part is also structured with a cadence after E minor after 12 bars. The sequences in bars 9-11, 33-35 and 37-39 do not fit into a regular form. The last bars of both parts are transposed identical, including the fallacy in bars 14 and 46.

With the rarely interrupted third and sixth parallels , the players have to decide when the eighth notes or the lines contained in the sixteenth notes should be given priority.

Gap

The theme is one of the longest in the Well-Tempered Clavier. His uninterrupted sixteenth initially play around the tonic -Dreiklang, then in Sekundabstand offset seventh chords and end at scales that the dominant D major modulate . Clemens Kühn writes the following criticism in his theory of forms of music : “The length of the theme (stands) in a strange contradiction to the brevity of the fugue ... As a fugue theme, this chordal, rhythmically profile-free beginning is an impertinence ... the type of movement is more reminiscent of a prelude , Toccata or concert ... think ... This joint will however not at all, Fugue 'be. "the term of Groove here underlying' is apparently based on an abstract model that Bach does not always correspond. The 48 fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier offer a richness and diversity that should not cause offense at pieces that do not correspond to preconceived ideas.

The three-part fugue is handed down in an early version BWV 902 as Fughetta , which only contained 60 bars. Bach not only extended the final version to 72 bars, but also refined the movement with numerous details: melodic lines to the top note b ² from the third theme start, insertion of an organ point from bar 56. Bars 62-64 contains a virtuoso ascending 32nd note run, which is intercepted with a descending run in the penultimate measure and protects the piece from sinking into depth and darkness.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Benary: JS Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: Text - Analysis - Playback. MN 718, H. & B. Schneider AG. Aarau, 2005. p. 117
2. ↑ Clemens Kühn: Form theory of music . 1987, p. 183

literature

• Peter Benary: JS Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: Text - Analysis - Playback . MN 718, H. & B. Schneider AG. Aarau, 2005.
• Alfred Dürr : Johann Sebastian Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier . Bärenreiter factory introductions. ISBN 9783761812297 . 4th edition 2012
• Cecil Gray: The forty-eight Preludes and Fugues of JS Bach . Oxford University Press, 1938.
• Clemens Kühn: Theory of Forms in Music . Munich and Kassel 1987, 7th edition 2004.

Web links

• The Well-Tempered Clavier II, Johann Sebastian Bach : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project
• Hermann Keller: BWV 884