Prelude and Fugue in G minor BWV 861 (The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part I)

Prelude played by Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka

Fugue played by Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka

Prelude and Fugue in G minor , BWV 861, form a pair of works in Part 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier , a collection of preludes and fugues for keyboard instruments by Johann Sebastian Bach .

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Prelude

The prelude, notated in time, comprises 19 measures.

The prelude is written in three parts, whereby the soprano, which begins with a long trill, can be imagined as a violin part. A rhythmic compression is achieved by the fact that the 32nd notes increase in the second part of the piece from bar 12. A similar effect can be found in the two-part Invention in B flat major BWV 785. Two Neapolitan chords on C, in bars 13 and 17, add a delightful harmonic color value.

Gap

The theme comprises two motifs, separated by an eighth pause. The original idea is that the second motif fills exactly the tonal space that the first leaves out. From bar 3, the reversal of the second motif results in counterpoint . Either parts of the theme or of the counterpoint are retained throughout the piece. Even if a new theme is introduced in soprano and alto from the second half of bar 24 in a continuous 16th note movement, the original second motif sounds as an accompaniment in the bass. The middle of the joint in bar 17 is marked by the first narrowing . In the second narrowing in measure 28, the third thematic entry is incomplete. In bar 33 a final increase is achieved with various means: parallel descent of soprano and bass, expansion of the original four-part to five-part for harmonic compression. In addition, this is - apart from the beginning - the only measure without 16th notes, which makes a ritardando superfluous in this penultimate measure.

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 861. (PDF)
• BWV 861. (Flash) Philip Goeth

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Benary: JS Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: Text - Analysis - Playback . MN 718, H. & B. Schneider, Aarau 2005, p. 58
2. ↑ Peter Benary: JS Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: Text - Analysis - Playback . MN 718, H. & B. Schneider, Aarau 2005, p. 59