Description
A heavily chromatic subject, moving often by semitone, makes this four-voice F minor fugue one of the most darkly shaded pieces in Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier. It is No. 12, closing the first half of a book that takes each of the twenty-four keys in turn; the autograph title page is dated 1722.
It is a four-voice fugue in F minor and 4/4. The subject moves often by semitone, and as it is stacked in turn in the four voices the sound grows thicker. With chromatic lines overlapping, the harmony is complex and accidentals are frequent. It has 1,325 notes in 207 seconds, with a range from E-flat 2 to C6 that fits on a 61-key keyboard.
It is rated advanced. Besides reading a chromatic subject, it asks you to keep each line audible even when all four voices sound together. It is also long, and needs the stamina to keep the balance right to the end. Lower the playback speed to check the subject entries and accidentals in the score view, and sort out the four voices with the hand colours. Divide the crowded passages with an A-B loop and assemble them gradually, listening again to the sound as you go.
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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