Prelude and Fugue in B major BWV 892 (The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part II)

Prelude and Fugue in B major , BWV 892, 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

The scale is used at the beginning of this piece as a motif, which appears in the second bar in the inversion and only then sounds again in the recapitulation in bar 37 simultaneously rising and falling. However, this is by no means the dominant theme of the prelude; Rather, it has the character of a playful-free fantasy with an improvising, toccata-like character. Another motif consists of ascending ornaments that sound for the first time in the bass in bar 2. Towards the end of the first part, the musical sequence is lost in sixteenth-note passages that are not linked to the motif. Exactly in the middle of the prelude, in bar 23, a new motif appears unexpectedly, beginning with a grinder , together with an accompanying figure in the bass that is not counterpoint. The drop in the two-part lines in the last three bars is noticeable; it is reminiscent of the twists and turns of French clavecinists such as François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau .

Gap

The fugue is announced as four-part, but contains five thematic entries in the exposition ; the bass entry in bar 19 is superfluous. After a conclusion to the dominant F sharp major in bar 27, a new theme appears in the soprano, which accompanies the first theme through almost the entire rest of the fugue, so that one can speak of a double fugue here . The second development also contains five themed entries, four of which are accompanied by an obligatory counterpoint . In bar 60 it again closes with a cadence, this time to the subdominant in E major. The four 16th note figures in bars 68 to 71 occur surprisingly and have no further consequences for the course of the fugue. In contrast to the previous fugue in B flat minor, this example contains neither inversions nor constrictions . The four last thematic inserts from bar 60 to the final bar 104 are far apart in time, which gives the overall structure of the fugue, together with the first theme, which solemnly spans the octave space, spaciousness.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Benary: JS Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: Text - Analysis - Playback. MN 718, H. & B. Schneider AG. Aarau, 2005. p. 141
2. ↑ Cecil Gray: The forty-eight Preludes and Fugues of JS Bach. Oxford University Press, 1938. p. 143

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.

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 892