Das Wohltemperierte Clavier I, Fuga XI
Description
A skipping subject in 3/8 gives this F major fugue the lightness of a dance - a reminder that a fugue need not be weighty. It is the three-voice No. 11 of Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, whose twenty-four preludes and fugues, one pair for every major and minor key, carry the date 1722 on the autograph.
It is a three-voice fugue in F major and 3/8. Within the small triple metre a skipping subject passes among the three voices, moving with the lightness of a dance. It is compact, 668 notes in 71 seconds, with a range from C2 to C6 that fits on a 61-key keyboard. With one flat, the reading load is fairly light.
It is rated intermediate and is one of the more approachable fugues in Book I. In 3/8 it matters to feel each bar as one broad beat; counting the small beats too strictly loses the dance. Lower the playback speed to check the subject entries in the score view, and sort out the three voices with the hand colours. Repeat the places where entries overlap with an A-B loop and bring the speed back while keeping it light, and it makes a manageable first fugue.
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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