The other day I listened to Sviatoslav Richter's 1969 performance of the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 in a live concert recording. This magnum opus by J. S. Bach used to be called the "Old Testament" of the piano literature where the piano sonatas of Beethoven were the "New Testament." In recent years, with our diminished attention spans, it seems that a lot of pianists are making their names with the Goldberg Variations instead, Lang Lang being the most recent, preceded by Igor Levit.
But the "48" as they are often called (two books of twenty four preludes and fugues each in all the major and minor keys--yes, Bach managed the feat twice) are really an even more remarkable accomplishment than the Goldbergs, fine as they are. As I was listening to Richter, I was thinking to myself how remarkably varied--and unlikely--many of the fugue subjects are.
I have some acquaintance with fugue as I did a graduate seminar with that title at McGill and enjoyed it hugely. The professor introduced the course by saying that we were simply not going to bother with any fugues apart from those written by J. S. Bach, because, why? I really can't recall any other example where one composer so thoroughly dominates a form or genre to the extent that Bach does the fugue. Sure, there were fugues before and after Bach, but none of them extend or develop the form past where Bach left it. (UPDATE: I did think of an example: Chopin and the mazurka.)
So I wonder if I might take a trip through at least the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier and have a look at what Bach has done. Along with the fugues, each prelude is in itself a little lesson in composition. So, readers, let me know, would you enjoy this kind of project?
I have written a lot about Bach, of course, including some posts on the Well-Tempered Clavier, but these have just discussed a particular prelude and fugue or just the fugue. I have not attempted a survey of the whole set. Unless I get comments saying, "ugh, please don't" I think I will give it a whirl.
Here is the first prelude and fugue, in C major played by Sviatoslav Richter. Tomorrow I will say a few things about them.
10 comments:
Looking forward to your new project with anticipation!
"none of them extend or develop the form past where Bach left it." I assume you are aware of D. Shostakovich's set? Not sure how you decide what is 'extend or develop', but they certainly refresh the form and bring it into the modern era.
Thanks, David!
Patrick, yes, I am very aware of the Shostakovich set and I even have the score. I am a big fan of those pieces. And perhaps the theory professor was not aware of them. But maybe he was. I admit that as soon as I wrote that sentence I contemplated the Shostakovich set. But decided to leave it because while the Shostakovich fugues are quite interesting, I think they are more of an offshoot to the Bach ones, not a development. They are often contrapuntally simpler.
I might think about doing some posts on the Shostakovich pieces...
Are you familiar with Reicha's fugues Bryan?
I look forward to this series. I have to confess almost total ignorance of the Well-Tempered Clavier, bar hearing the odd recording from it.
I think we get into a catch 22 situation with the fugue. If someone develops a new way to do fugue people jump up and say that's not truly fugue but fugato. If the old form is used then there is nothing new about it. Then there's the canon. Is the fugue just a harmonically advanced and freer way of doing canon? I would say that composers such as Beethoven used fugues in an original manner as did Mozart. One could make a similar point about the French keyboardists such as Louis Couperin in the mid 17th C starting to put the passacaglia form in a more tonally dynamic context.
Maury, that's pretty much due to how Bach got canonized. We can learn plenty from Reicha's 36 about just how flexible fugue can be. For that matter, being possibly the only Hindemith fan here, Ludus Tonalis is a fine fugal cycle that I'd rank in the zone of the Shostakovich cycle.
There are some cycles from the Soviet era that are worth checking out by Zaderatsky and Shchedrin, the former was a cycle composed on telegraph cards while Zaderatsky was in the Gulag.
As George Oldroyd put it long ago, there are a lot of benefits to studying fugues before and after J. S. Bach.
Are we following a German approach or a Neapolitan approach? There are a lot of different approaches but the late Baroque northern German standard seems to have been fixed by 19th century pedagogy at the cost of keeping other approaches in mind.
I'd say that the Reicha 36 are worth discussing. I might discuss a couple of them over at my blog since the full score is available at IMSLP and some solid recordings are available. The 5/8 fugue in A where the subject gets an answer in E flat is pretty cute!
Wow, lots of interesting commentary! I admit that there are lots of fugues that I know nothing about, still, I think it is worth while to take a fresh look at the Well-Tempered. For one thing, the preludes are also very interesting in their remarkable variety.
Am happy to follow you through the Bach. Although I did start my score-following project with Chopin's op 10 etudes yesterday. One a day was an unrealistic expectation, I'm pretty sure.
Ages ago I listened to Antoine Reicha's opera or whatever he called it Lenore-- I think I was trying to sort out the reason why there were so many different 18th, early 19th c works called Lenore, Leonore and so forth. Not particularly impressed, as I dimly recall, but will listen to his op 36 fugues when I get a chance.
Reicha is hit and miss. I would say the best introduction to his work in its more mainstream form is his cycle of woodwind quintets. In the more avant garde vein the 36 fugues have some cool stuff but even there they show they're experimental. He didn't publish much music during his life. Even though I like Reicha half the time I hear him he has some uninspired and plodding moments, too. Not many people can be J.S. Bach or Haydn who in my estimation wrote never-less-than-good music their entire careers.
Yep.
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