Das Wohltemperierte Clavier II, Fuga IX

Description

Known for being written in the old style, stile antico, recalling the vocal polyphony handed down from the Renaissance, this E major fugue is the ninth piece of Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier.

It is a four-voice fugue in E major, notated in most editions in 2/2 (alla breve). A short, concise subject in long note values appears in turn in each voice, and the voices overlap as the music moves through calm, settled sound. It speaks less through brilliant motion than through the beauty of harmony that arises as the lines combine.

Rated advanced, it lasts about 2 minutes 54 seconds with 1,500 notes in this data. Because long notes must be held while other voices move, it asks for legato through finger substitution and the concentration to keep each of the four lines unbroken. Slow the playback to check the entries of the subject, and use an A-B loop on places where the voices are densely layered, and the flow of each voice becomes easier to follow. With no showy technique, holding each note for its exact length is what the quality of the music comes down to.

Bach's collection of preludes and fugues for keyboard, covering all 24 keys and regarded as the summit of contrapuntal writing.