Prelude and Fugue in B flat minor BWV 891 (The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part II)

Prelude and Fugue in B flat minor , BWV 891, 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

Both the prelude and the fugue are among the most profound and contrapuntal examples in the second part of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The prelude is designed as a three-part invention and contains numerous features of a fugue, although some questions remain unanswered with regard to the formal structure. The theme initially appears twice in a short form and only appears in bar 8 in the soprano in its entire, eight-bar extension, which, however, is only repeated once, in the middle part, bars 62-70. The motif in the middle voice plays an important role in bar 7, which is repeated more often and is also heard in the inversion from bar 24. The serious minor character is interrupted from bar 27 by longer major sections in D flat major, A flat major and G flat major. The melodic final increase results from the expansive increase from the ¹ to the top note b ² , which is reached in bar 77 and sustained for three bars.

Gap

The four-part fugue contains 101 bars. The theme experiences a rhythmic condensation from half to quarter notes to eighth notes, which are then picked up again in bar 4 by quarter notes. Melodically, it is characterized by numerous ascending second steps , whereby the impression of laboriousness and strain is reinforced by two falling diminished fifths and three emphasized pauses. An obbligato counterpoint also contains numerous chromatically ascending second steps, but is only retained in the first part of the fugue. As a result, the topic is subjected to numerous narrowings and reversals , which, although of analytical interest, are of less importance for the interpretation. Only the concluding narrowing of the theme and its reversal from bar 96, in which all four voices participate, should be mentioned here. Even more remarkable is the fact that the theme, as Hugo Riemann , Ferruccio Busoni and Donald Francis Tovey all agreed, contains additional possibilities for contrapuntal processing, which Bach deliberately did not exhaust in wise self-restraint.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Benary: JS Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: Text - Analysis - Playback. MN 718, H. & B. Schneider AG. Aarau, 2005. p. 139

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 891