Description
This is the second half of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903: the fugue. The fantasia before it is known for improvisatory, recitative-like passages and bold chromatic harmony, among the freest music in Bach's keyboard output. The fugue that follows takes up that chromatic world and works out a subject containing chromatic motion within the strict framework of counterpoint.
It is a three-voice fugue in D minor and 3/4. The subject is long and includes a line rising by semitones; it passes through the voices in turn and moves through different keys as it develops. Towards the end the texture thickens, with the bass doubled in octaves, building to a dramatic climax. The range runs from B1 to C6, and with 2,580 notes in about four minutes fifty it is a large-scale movement.
It is an advanced piece that asks you to separate three voices with two hands and to sustain tension over a long span. The first step is never losing track of which voice has the subject: check its entries in the score view and follow the voices through the hand colours to grasp the structure. Isolate difficult passages with the A-B loop, slow the playback speed until you can hear the inner voice, then work back towards full tempo.
Contrapuntal works influenced by Bach, where each composer's individuality shines through a strict formal structure.
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Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
About the Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach was the towering figure of German Baroque music, serving for decades as Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Renowned for his mastery of counterpoint, he laid the foundations of keyboard music with works such as The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Inventions. This site includes minuets and polonaises from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, the Inventions and Sinfonias, and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier. The Notebook pieces are catalogued with BWV Anh. (appendix) numbers, but many are by other composers - Petzold's minuets among them - or by no one known, and most of their song pages give the current view of who wrote them.
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