Recordings:
- WTC I – C major (performed by Andras Schiff)
- WTC I – C minor (performed by Glenn Gould)
- WTC I – F major (performed by Andras Schiff)
Scores:
- WTC I – Prelude and Fugue in C major
- WTC I – Prelude and Fugue in C minor
- WTC I – Prelude and Fugue in F major
Analysis: an old but quality site (requires Adobe Shockwave)
In his Advice to Young Musicians, Robert Schumann wrote “let the Well-Tempered Clavier be your daily bread.” This is equally true for music historians and
theorists! While they were written as teaching aids for Bach’s students (including his own sons, four of whom became respected composers in their own right), these 48 pieces are a testament to Bach’s compositional
breadth creativity. Each prelude and fugue has its own unique character, while as a collection they cover the full range of different styles, forms, goals, and techniques possible in a fugue. There is little else to say,
except “dive in!”.
During Bach’s era the tuning of keyboard instruments was moving from various methods of just intonation towards what is now called equal temperament. Just intonation produces exact (and thus, “just”) integer ratios between the notes of a scale, but can only apply to a single key. Equal temperament is a compromise where the octave is divided equally across all 12 notes, sacrificing the precise ratios of just intonation so that every key is tuned the same. Although scholars argue about which tuning system Bach meant by “well tempered”, equal temperament is what allows the Well-Tempered Clavier‘s to be performed in all its 24 keys today.
Follow the fugue
First download this analyzed copy of the C minor prelude and fugue from WTC I. Using it as an example, take a look at the F
major fugue from WTC I and fill in the following:
- Bracket and label all subject entries
- Label answers as real or tonal
- Bracket and label all instances of the countersubject if the fugue has one
- Label the beginning of every episode (be careful where you locate the end of a statement of the subject)
- Look for stretto, pedal points, and the tierce de picardie and label them if they exist
Also, do page 29 of Explorations vol. 1. (identifying real/tonal answers).
Stretto: Bach – C major analyzed.
More neat stuff
There’s an interesting similarity between the end of the Allemande from Johann Jacob Froberger’s Suite VI and the coda of the C major fugue from WTC I. This allemande was a lament on the death of the son of Ferdinand IV, Froberger’s patron, and its final ascending scale may suggest the child’s soul rising to heaven. Whether there is a connection to Bach’s fugue is beyond me to say!
Glenn Gould was a famous (and eccentric!) Canadian pianist who specialized in Bach. If you hear hints of humming in his recordings, don’t worry, it’s not you who’s going crazy! Gould was known for humming and singing along as he played, and this noise would often end up in his older recordings. Unlike most performers, Gould preferred the recorded medium and did extensive projects in radio broadcasting, including the documentary/electroacoustic composition The Idea of North.
Although all of Bach’s works had practical purposes for the church, a patron, or for pedagogy, he included signs of his ingenuity in many. The Art of Fugue, Bach’s final and unfinished work, ends with a massive quadruple fugue which is cut off abruptly with a note left by his son C.P.E. Bach: “At the point where the composer introduces the name BACH (H is B natural in German) in the countersubject to this fugue, the composer died“. The Musical Offering is a collection of pieces dedicated to Frederick the Great (for whom Bach performed and improvised a 3 voice fugue on the spot!), which is riddled with musical puzzles composed of a canonic subject and clues to realize it in full. They form an important facet of Douglas Hofstadter’s book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. If you ever come across this delightful discussion of the intersection between mathematics, philosophy, and art, I highly recommend giving it a read.