Das Wohltemperierte Clavier I, Fuga II
Description
A short subject with a crisp, clipped rhythm drives this C minor fugue, No. 2 of Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, paired with the well-known prelude of unbroken running figures. Book I, whose autograph title page is dated 1722, begins in C major and rises by semitone, pairing major and minor on each tonic until all twenty-four keys have been heard.
It is a three-voice fugue in C minor and 4/4. The subject is short, with a crisp rhythm; after it has appeared in each of the three voices, the music unfolds with episodes built from fragments of the subject. It does not end in the minor but closes on a major chord over the tonic. It has 751 notes in 101 seconds, with a range from C2 to C6 that fits on a 61-key keyboard.
It is rated intermediate. The challenges are to keep the crisp rhythm of the subject the same in every voice, and to sort out the episodes where the voices trade figures. Lower the playback speed to check the subject entries in the score view, and settle who takes the middle voice with the hand colours. Hearing it right after the prelude shows the contrast between unbroken flow and counterpoint.
Bach's collection of preludes and fugues for keyboard, covering all 24 keys and regarded as the summit of contrapuntal writing.
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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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