Comparison of J.S. Bachs Fugues - Essay Example

First Last Teacher's 24 February 2006 Comparison of J.S. Bach's Fugues Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German Baroque organist and composer of the 17th century, and lived at the same time as other famous composers including Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Frideric Handel. During his lifetime, Bach was a prolific composer of chamber music, organ, orchestral, vocal and choral works, but is perhaps most remembered for his Brandenburg Concertos, The Art of Fugue and the Well-Tempered Clavier.

This paper will examine two different fugues - Contrapunctus 4, from "The Art of Fugue", and the Little Organ Fugue in G minor in the context of Bach's life, methods and historical background.Bach was an orphan at the age of ten, and spent his formative years in the care of his older brother, Johann Christoph Bach, who was the Ohrdruf organist. This was Bach's training ground. Bach's professional career commenced in 1700 as a chorister in Luneburg, followed by positions as an organist in Arnstadt, Muhlhausen, and Weimar up until 1717.

It was his appointment in the ducal court at Weimar in 1708 where he started to compose fugues using contrapunctual 1techniques. In 1707 he composed the Little Organ Fugue in G minor (BWV 578), also known as the "Little Fugue" or "Little G minor". This music was originally written for the organ. As a typical fugue, the music commences with a brief musical theme, so called its subject, represented by a lone musical voice. This first voice continues and another enters to play the subject. Other voices enter one by one until there are several independent musical voices at play, developing the piece of music.

The Little Fugue starts the subject in a minor key, but ends in with a (G) major chord, which was characteristic of Baroque fugues of the time that were written in the minor keys. Bach composed "The Art of Fugue", or "Die Kunst de Fugue" (BWV 1080) in 1748-1749 in Leipzig, where he was the Kantor 2of St Thomas's. Although it remained unfinished, this work is considered by some to be his most famous. His sons published the body of work posthumously in 1750."(The Art of Fugue) contains some 20 fugues and canons, called contrapuncti, all based on the same theme, in which the various devices of imitative counterpoint, such as inversion, stretto, augmentation, diminution, canon, double fugue, triple fugue, etc.

are exploited in the most elaborate and ingenious manner" (Apel, 60).While there is still uncertainty as to Bach's intended order of musical work for The Art of Fugue, it is generally accepted to be organized in the following manner: four simple fugues, canon at the octave, three stretto fugues, canon at the tenth, four double/triple fugues, canon at the twelfth, four mirror fugues and canon in augmentation. This structure suggests a progression from the basic to more complicated musical arrangement.

Unlike the Little Fugue, Bach did not specify what instruments should be used for The Art of Fugue or any of its specific contrapuncti. It could be used for chamber, keyboard or orchestral music. Contrapunctus IV, as the numbering suggests, is the forth installment of the simple fugues. It uses an inversion of the main theme in a monothematic presentation of a four-voice fugue. The main theme is in effect "turned upside down". This means the quartet of simple fugues finishes in tonal opposition to how it started.

Bach's Little Fugue does not make use of this inversion technique. The Baroque period ended in 1750 with Bach's death from a stroke, and the classical era of music commenced with the emergence of composers like Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. While Bach's music may not have been applauded during his lifetime, or been fashionable during the classical period, Bach's legacy is his mastery in the contrapunctual music form. Works CitedApel, Willi. Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1970.Boyd, Malcolm.

Oxford Composer Companions: J.S. Bach. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1999.Stevenson, R. Music Before The Classic Era: An Introductory Guide. London: Macmillan & Company Limited. 1962.