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Preludes & Fugues BWV 894-902
General Discussions |
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BWV 894, physics, extremism, and baseball |
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Bradley Lehman wrote (September 15, 2001):
Some semi-random thoughts of the afternoon, somewhat related to one another.
Bach's prelude and fugue in A minor, BWV 894, is full of contrasts. There are harmonic and rhythmic surprises, unpredictable phrase lengths, moments of drive, moments of repose, a controlled irrationality. In short it is an effective piece of music. Good performances (in my opinion) bring out the irrationality, the contrasts, the shocks, the relaxation: with flexible tempo and varied articulation, every moment being affected by every other moment earlier or later, the whole piece in an organic state of flux. I've been working this afternoon on playing it that way. Less interesting performances (I mentioned some recordings here a few weeks ago) are more one-dimensional: more consistent in expression, maybe with a lot of drive, but just in one direction.
We've been seeing a lot of extremism all week. Everywhere. I'm convinced that the enemy of civilization is extremism.
Extremism goads people into hate crimes, into disrespect for anything different from themselves, into a destructive "I'm right and everybody else is wrong" black-and-white mentality. Extremists have only one tool, a hammer, so all problems have only one solution: hit it. Those who listen to extremists can be very easily swept along with the hitting. And it is very easy to listen to extremists. That is why extremism is so dangerous to civilization. Civilization anywhere.
The laws of physics tell us a very useful thing. Force equals mass times acceleration. And momentum equals mass times velocity. If something either big or fast is coming at you, it's going to hit you with a lot of momentum. When it hits you, the extremely rapid negative acceleration creates huge force. Bad news. "It'll put your eye out," at the least.
You have choices. (1) You can make yourself more rigid to withstand the force better next time. (2) Or you can try to strike back with even greater force; this INCREASES the relative velocity and makes the total force even greater, even more destructive. (3) Or you can try to outrun it, decreasing the velocity by moving in the same direction...give in to the extremism so it has no force or momentum relative to you. (4) Or you can let yourself bounce off when it hits you, and hope you don't get pushed into something else.
Those are the four obvious solutions that occur to extremists, and also to people reacting to things from quick emotion without thougtful reflection. Combinations of the above strategies are possible. All of those lead to destruction, though, to some degree. You're either crushed by a huge force, or going in some direction you didn't plan to go. All four of those solutions stay within the single dimension of the moving object.
But (5) is best. There are an infinite number of directions perpendicular to the incoming force. Pick a good practical one, and move. Just step out of the way calmly, sideways. Get off the line. It can be even a very tiny motion to the side, making a huge difference. It takes hardly any energy at all to move sideways. Meanwhile, the object coming at you with great momentum has no leverage to change direction. Therefore it can't hit you with any appreciable force, if it even hits you at all. The velocity component of the incoming force relative to you is zero if you're moving on a perpendicular path...and as I said, there are an infinite number of these perpendicular paths! There is an entire plane of them.
It's all so simple. Would a one-dimensional extremist think of it? Not in a one-dimensional universe, no.
The extremists want us to hate, to be extreme like they are, to pick up the velocity in their direction, the only direction that matters to them since they are stuck on a single line, in a single dimension. Polarization is all they know: alignment along their one line, either for or against.
Two dimensions are better, allowing a sidestep either to the left or right. Three dimensions are even better than that: step up, down, left, right, diagonally, anywhere. Duck! Or jump! Or dive up and to the right! Something. (Intelligence agencies try to work in the fourth dimension, time, sidestepping things in time before they come up.) The most important step, though, is getting from one dimension to two, getting some options. Be able to get off that one-dimensional line and move in some perpendicular direction.
What happens when a target simply steps off the line, into a second or third dimension? All the attacking force becomes wasted energy, accomplishing nothing. All of it. That is true whether it's an offensive attack or a (so-called) "defensive" or retaliatory attack. Violence can be dissipated by one step sideways, letting the attacker waste all his energy. Violence works in only one dimension. Sometimes it works, yes, but only in one dimension.
Read that again.
I could say some things about extremism having no area or volume, since the only variable in a single dimension is distance, but I think I've taken that one far enough.
How about some baseball?
A fastball sort of works because it zips past the batter before he can react. A curveball sort of works because it moves to the side or up or down, out of the plane where the batter expects it to be, but even a curveball can be predicted. A change-up sort of works because it puts the ball in an unexpected place in the fourth dimension, time. All well and good.
But consider the knuckleball. It dips and floats and dodges and does all kinds of weird stuff, and is unpredictable to both the batter and the pitcher: a semi-controlled chaos. (And a knuckleball doesn't take as much out of the
pitcher's arm....) A knuckleball colors outside the lines. It moves to the side enough that the batter can't get a good confident piece of it.
Let's throw the extremists (terrorists and anti-terrorists and the along-for-the-ride public, all alike) a knuckleball. They're expecting a fastball or a curveball or a change-up. So let's throw a knuckler, a chaotic pitch that sort of looks like all three of the others but can't be predicted. A knuckler makes all the destructive forces futile, since no one can't predict the exact direction or time to deploy any force. That tiny bit of randomness makes a huge difference. It leaves things in the capable hands of God, or if you prefer, fate. The knuckleball has definite purpose and direction, yes, plenty of focus: but it also doesn't try to control everything.
Knuckleballs of varying speed: randomness in FOUR dimensions. Get those things across the plate and you've got yourself a winner. Controlled enough to get across the plate, random enough to confuse the batters and make them whiff the air powerlessly.
Random things and semi-random things aren't polarized. If they were, they would no longer be random. A fair amount of contained chaos is healthy. It offers a natural defense. The art is in finding that effective balance, the flexibility, the ability to use all the dimensions.
And now I'm going to install curtain rods, in the hope that my house is still here by the time the curtains arrive in the mail. And I am going to go practice some music for upcoming concerts, in the hope there will be people around to hear it. And I am going to go out for a drive with a family member, enjoying the beautiful weather and companionship. And I am going to mow the back yard, and continue cleaning up the house; until the extremists destroy the world, I might as well keep my little part of it looking nice.
And I am going to listen again and again to the way Wilbert Hazelzet plays the sarabande of the Bach flute partita BWV 1013. That balance of predictability and unpredictability is fantastic. And wonderful. And heart-wrenching. And beautiful. And desolate. And everything. That's what music is supposed to do. It organizes time and sound into appreciable forms, and can suggest important things about life, and can show us things inside ourselves and outside ourselves.
One-dimensionality is dange. Fortunately, Bach and physics (among other things) suggest ways out. Bach's music has that fine balance of structure and chaos. The lines are there but it also colors outside the lines. That is why it is good music: it is multi-dimensional even when there is only one note at a time, as in the flute partita. And it symbolizes hope for civilization.
Have a semi-random day. Listen to some Bach. Do good work at the things you need to do. Go fly a kite and watch it dip and spin on the wind, controlled by a flexible string. Phone somebody randomly and offer a kind word. Drink a glass of water. Make the day a poem. Live in three or four dimensions. |
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BWV 897 |
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Bradley Lehman wrote (November 12, 2003):
Eitan Loew wrote:
< Today I received the disk "Lesser-known Harpsichord Works" (The Bach Collection BACH 732). The first piece is Prelude in a minor Bass Passus from "Clavier- Büchlein" for W.F. Bach, 1720. I have 2 questions:
1) What does it mean "Bass Passus"?
2) Do the "Clavier- Büchlein" pieces belong to the BWV list?
Thanks, Eitan. >
OK. First off: Eitan, is this the disc you're referring to?
http://www.baroquecds.com/732Web.html
If so, I think I have a pretty good guess at the answer to your first question, having discarded everybody's red herrings and wild guesswork, and having started afresh from the question and clues you gave. It certainly helped to find the above web page in a Google search.
On the assumption that BWV 897 is the correct piece, I went to BWV 897 in my Dover reprint of the Bach-Gesellschaft, the "Miscellaneous Keyboard Works" volume. It has only the fugue there in that edition, not a prelude, but that's OK for now. And it's indeed in A minor. I played through it to find out what if anything is noteworthy about it, beyond being marked "BWV 897 (doubtful)". (I also noted that I had played through it sometime last year while playing through the whole book, and had written pencil notations "funny inversions", "weird", and "very weird inversion" at three places as the piece went along. I like writing marginal notes to myself after sight-reading something, to save me time later. Just a habit.)
In the play-through today I paid closer attention to the way this fugue is put together. It's basically just a string of very academic-looking little contrapuntal bits, like a catalog or exercise of the way the main ideas can be worked out. No real direction, just stuff stitched together. And what happens in bar 17? Why, it's a bunch of little two-voice canons (with a third voice playing the main subject)! And what is the melodic content of those canons, that new sort-of-countersubject that enters this fugue in canon? Why, it's just four descending notes, "steps."
Now, what happens as the piece keeps going? On the third page the composer (whoever it was) starts inverting everything: inverting the subjects (melodic inversion) and inverting the counterpoint (shuffling the voices around). Except for sounding like garbage, the work is academically correct. (Those are the places where I had written "weird" and "very weird inversion" into the margins of my copy last year.)
The whole thing, overall, is just a mediocre counterpoint exercise that correctly lays out the combinations of some mediocre themes: one of which is that group of four descending (and later ascending) notes, the "steps." To give it a little bit of unity and variety as a fugue, there is amateurish connective tissue here and there between those stricter contrapuntal blocks.
It doesn't say "bass passus" or anything of the sort in this score, but perhaps somebody somewhere in the past 2.8 centuries has plucked that out as a way to describe this piece, or at least the stepwise canonic bit that happens in it there.
Does that help?
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As to your second question, to know what bits of the WFB Clavier-Buechlein are now part of the BWV numbering, I'll simply repeat my earlier recommendation: just go to a library or find someone who owns the 1998 edition of BWV (the book, also known colloquially as the "Schmieder catalog"), and you'll quickly have your answer. That's the official source of the BWV numbers, so there it is. |
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Thomas Braatz wrote (November 12, 2003):
BWV 897
The Prelude of BWV 897(?) is by C. H Dretzel and the fugue is doubtful, but since the NBA V/12 has not yet appeared, we will not definitely/officially know until then whether this work has been entirely excluded from the BWV catalog. At that point in time, anything that the Schmieder book says about it may be entirely outdated or incorrect.
In any case, this work does not appear (and has never appeared!) in the W. F. Bach Notebook, as Eitan's recording wishes to have it. It is a spurious work which the musicians have decided to include on the CD because they perhaps had some room for it. |
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Johann van Veen wrote (November 12, 2003):
For those interested: this work appears on another recording as well: "Early Harpsichord Works - Authenticity Disputed" by Christian Rieger, harpsichord (Glissando 779 011-2). |
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Prelude & Fugue in A Minor, BWV 894 |
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Bradley Lehman wrote (March 15, 2004):
Anybody here have favorite recordings of the Prelude & Fugue in A Minor, BWV 894? That's the same piece that Bach reworked later as the outer movements of the Triple Concerto, 1044. Both the P&F and this concerto are spectacular dramatic pieces, and some of Bach's most extraverted music.
Apropos of this same piece of music, one of my favorites, I'm still puzzling that anyone here in this forum would label me an "extremist" as someone has done here the past few days. I'm quite clearly not one (except perhaps in his wishful thinking); I drafted an essay about that very topic in September 2001 here on this list, where I tied together some thoughts about BWV 894 with events of that week.
And that essay has been available on my own web site in a more permanent form, ever since then: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/why.htm
Extremism in musical performance? It's not a goal for my own performances. I abhor extremism. Rather, I believe it's important to find out the character(s) of each individual piece of music and bring that out as strongly as possible. Vividness is not extremism. Vividness is good preparation and clarity of thought, and flexibility, and sensitivity, and directness of expression, everything in proper balance (which means it is NOT all boiled down to any undifferentiated grey goo; just the opposite). It is the allowance of the music to go where it will, not to force it into too much consistency (which, itself, is yet another form of extremism, one that I especially do NOT enjoy listening to!). I believe that performances should have multi-dimensional levels of interest in them; any extremist approach to interpretation will reduce that and make the music less satisfying.
I also have two other essays about that, about all the careful background work that goes into preparation of performances:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/purc.htm
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/performance-preparation.htm |
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Johann van Veen wrote (March 15, 2004):
Bradley Lehman wrote:
< Apropos of this same piece of music, one of my favorites, I'm still puzzling that anyone here in this forum would label me an "extremist" as someone has done here the past few days. >
It's very simple: anyone is an extremist who doesn't like middle-of-the-road performances as preferred by some people here.
Blaming others of being 'extremist' is the standard method to avoid a debate one cannot win. |
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On BWV 894/1044 (was Brookshire article about the Art of Fugue) |
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Ewald Demeyere wrote (October 20, 2006):
I would like to add a few lines to what Julian wrote. I agree that the different versions of a piece by Bach are mostly independent and original in itself. But the comparison of the early prelude and fugue in A minor BWV 894 with the triple concerto is in my opinionnot very succesful. Bach was clearly not happy especially with it, especially with the construction of the first movement, despite the great amount of copies made by his pupils. The 'inventio' wasn't fully developped in the prelude, something which is beautifully done in the first movement of BWV 1044. I can't go into detail here but there are numerous improvements (among them the adding of contrapuntal voices, the highly superior passages in 32th in BWV 1044 compared to rather clumsy ones in BWV 894 - metrically speaking). I played both pieces so often in concert and was never really convinced by BWV 894 that I fairly quickly made a new, fictive version of the prelude and fugue basing myself on the improvements of BWV 1044. This 'reconstruction' can be heard on my latest CD 'Johann Sebastian Bach - The Young Virtuoso' (ACCENT). Also, I'm fully convinced, because of these improvements, that at least the harpsichord part of BWV 1044 is by JS Bach, contrary to what many scholars think!
And occasionally the piece is so radically reworked that there is no real basis for comparison. The outer movements of the A minor triple concerto developed from a keyboard prelude and fugue serves as a good example here.To say one is an 'improved' version of the original is, to my mind a nonsense. |
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Ewald Demeyere wrote (October 20, 2006):
I would like to add a few lines to what Julian wrote. I agree that the different versions of a piece by Bach are mostly independent and original in itself. But the comparison of the early prelude and fugue in A minor BWV 894 with the triple concerto is in my opinion not a very succesful one. Bach was clearly not happy with it, especially with the construction of the first movement, despite the great amount of copies made by his pupils. The 'inventio' wasn't fully developped in the prelude, something which is beautifully done in the first movement of BWV 1044. I can't go into detail here but there are numerous improvements in the harpsichord part (among them the adding of new, contrapuntal voices, the highly superior passages in 32th in BWV 1044 compared to rather clumsy ones in BWV 894 - metrically speaking). I played both pieces so often in concert and was never really convinced by BWV 894 that I fairly quickly made a new, fictive version of the prelude and fugue basing myself on the improvements of BWV 1044. This 'reconstruction' can be heard on my latest CD 'Johann Sebastian Bach - The Young Virtuoso' (ACCENT). Also, I'm fully convinced, because of these improvements, that at least the harpsichord part of BWV 1044 is by JS Bach, contrary to what many scholars think! So in this case, I do want to speak of improvements, and that, to me, is no nonsense!
And occasionally the piece is so radically reworked that there is no real basis for comparison. The outer movements of the A minor triple concerto developed from a keyboard prelude and fugue serves as a good example here.To say one is an 'improved' version of the original is, to my mind a nonsense. |
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Julian Mincham wrote (October 20, 2006):
Ewald Demeyere wrote:
< I would like to add a few lines to what Julian wrote. I agree that the different versions of a piece by Bach are mostly independent and original in itself. But the comparison of the early prelude and fugue in A minor BWV 894 with the triple concerto is in my opinion not very succesful. Bach was clearly not happy especially with it, especially with the construction of the first movement, despite the great amount of copies made by his pupils. The 'inventio' wasn't fully developped in the prelude, something which is beautifully done in the first movement of BWV 1044. I can't go into detail here but there are numerous improvements (among them the adding of contrapuntal voices, the highly superior passages in 32th in BWV >
I do agree with you that some aspects of the triple BWV 1044 are somewhat problematic. In fact I believe that Thurston Dart held the view that it may have been re-arranged somewhat by one of the sons (possibly CPE?) although I have never seen any evidence for this (I have his recording of the work on LP made, I think about 40 years ago, but it still stands up well) . It's still a fascinating work though
In fairness my original listing was intended to make the point (perhaps not with due clarity) that people often confuse the different types of reworking that Bach indulged in. In the majority of cases he keeps the original structure of the reused movement completely intact --he may add lines and change instrumentation and if he rewrites a violin part for harsichord (as in several of the concerti) he invents new idiomatic writing. But there are, I think fewer examples where he almost starts from scratch, seeming to use the original as little more than a sketch for the later version. I was offering the A minor triple as an example of this process rather than as an 'improved' work as here, I think, the concept has little meaning.
I'd be interested on your further views of this interesting work. And while on the subject, what do you think of the last movement of the A major concerto 1055 (possibly reworked from one for oboe d'amore)? I find parts of this to be most 'galante' in style having more in common with the work of JC than JS Bach. Either Bach was more adept at the more modern rococo styles than we (or Frederick the Great) might think--or else someone may have tinkered with it.
Again I'd be interested in your views. |
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Julian Mincham wrote (October 20, 2006):
Hi Ewald just to avoid confusion I responded to your first email on this subject before reading the second which was more informative. However I think most of the points still stand. |
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Bradley Lehman wrote (October 20, 2006):
Ewald Demeyere wrote:
< I would like to add a few lines to what Julian wrote. I agree that the different versions of a piece by Bach are mostly independent and original in itself. But the comparison of the early prelude and fugue in A minor BWV 894 with the triple concerto is in my opinion not a very succesful one. Bach was clearly not happy with it, especially with the construction of the first movement, despite the great amount of copies made by his pupils. The 'inventio' wasn't fully developped in the prelude, something which is beautifully done in the first movement of BWV 1044. I can't go into detail here but there are numerous improvements in the harpsichord part (among them the adding of new, contrapuntal voices, the highly superior passages in 32th in BWV 1044 compared to rather clumsy ones in BWV 894 - metrically speaking). >
Are you referring to the elision of half a bar in one of these two versions, where the cadence arrives more suddenly coming out of the passagework?
I'm copying this message also to Dr Elizabeth Farr for possible reaction, since she wrote a brilliant paper some years ago analyzing the use of rhetorical devices compositionally in BWV 894. (The 'inventio' etc etc.)
< I played both pieces so often in concert and was never really convinced by BWV 894 that I fairly quickly made a new, fictive version of the prelude and fugue basing myself on the improvements of BWV 1044. This 'reconstruction' can be heard on my latest CD 'Johann Sebastian Bach - The Young Virtuoso' (ACCENT). Also, I'm fully convinced, because of these improvements, that at least the harpsichord part of BWV 1044 is by JS Bach, contrary to what many scholars think! So in this case, I do want to speak of improvements, and that, to me, is no nonsense! >
I also play both BWV 894 and BWV 1044, but I'm not personally convinced that all the changes into BWV 1044 are necessarily improvements. Especially I got the impression that some of it seems weakened, as to harmonic focus. Even more so, when both are played (as I've done) in what I believe was Bach's WTC temperament...the tonal focus seems more purposeful and tightly directioned (at least to me) in BWV 894.
But, I'm open to be convinced otherwise by your version and recording melding the two versions; thanks for mentioning them!
I don't disagree that Bach himself is probably the re-arranger of at least the harpsichord part in BWV 1044.
Sof the split-hands stuff in BWV 1044 is (marginally) more fun to play than its counterpart in 894....
I think a funny spot is on the last page of the piece. The BWV 894 version bashed up against the top note of the instrument, d''', and that's obviously why the hurtling-upward passage stops suddenly there...and it still does so in 1044. But, the middle movement of BWV 1044 demonstrates that the harpsichord for this particular performance of its debut does not stop there; it has e''' and f''' as well, as very few other Bach pieces do. So, when playing either BWV 894 or BWV 1044, why not put those notes back into the last page of the last movement as well, keeping up the parallel motion above the left hand? That's bar 208 in BWV 1044, immediately before the cadenza. We can once again make it smash up against the top note of the instrument, in this case f''', preserving that particular effect!
Here's a question I posted to HPSCHD-L five weeks ago, but nobody responded. Any takers here?
"Speaking of BWV 1044: has anybody else written out or improvised a fresh left-hand part to the cadenza on the last page, where it's otherwise just sitting there forever on a dead pedal-point? I worked up some bits of countermelody and rhythmic riffs here and there, both to keep the pedal point sounding (in higher octave) and to drive up the energy level yet more during the cadenza, and to play up the implied harmonic changes...but maybe I'm just weird? It seems a shame to have merely the right hand playing the cadenza while the left hand is uselessly holding a decayed note. So, I made it like a creatively accompanied recitative. Nobody from the audience or orchestra came up to whack me across the knuckles with a ruler, afterwards, and I wasn't struck down by lightning that day." |
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Ewald Demeyere wrote (October 21, 2006):
I do agree with you that some aspects of the triple BWV 1044 are somewhat problematic. In fact I believe that Thurston Dart held the view that it may have been re-arranged somewhat by one of the sons (possibly CPE?) although I have never seen any evidence for this (I have his recording of the work on LP made, I think about 40 years ago, but it still stands up well) . It's still a fascinating work though
[To Julian Mincham] There's absolutely no prove whatsoever that BWV 1044 would have written by anyone else but JS Bach. This theory of another composer came along because of the fact that the string parts are not really idiomatic. And so, it 'could' not be Bach. Some scholars believe (I think Leonhardt does too) that this is from Krebs. Too me, it doesn't really matter from whom BWV 1044 is, I'm convinced that at least the harpsichord part was from JS Bach. Have a look at the first movement of BWV 894 and 1044 and compare both of them. All of the problems of BWV 894/1 are resolved in BWV 1044/1.
In fairness my original listing was intended to make the point (perhaps not with due clarity) that people often confuse the different types of reworking that Bach indulged in. In the majority of cases he keeps the original structure of the reused movement completely intact --he may add lines and change instrumentation and if he rewrites a violin part for harsichord (as in several of the concerti) he invents new idiomatic writing. But there are, I think fewer examples where he almost starts from scratch, seeming to use the original as little more than a sketch for the later version. I was offering the A minor triple as an example of this process rather than as an 'improved' work as here, I think, the concept has little meaning.
I AGREE!
I'd be interested on your further views of this interesting work. And while on the subject, what do you think of the last movement of the A major concerto BWV 1055 (possibly reworked from one for oboe d'amore)? I find parts of this to be most 'galante' in style having more in common with the work of JC than JS Bach. Either Bach was more adept at the more modern rococo styles than we (or Frederick the Great) might think--or else someone may have tinkered with it.
First of all, BWV 1055 being a transcription of a lost concert for oboe d'amore is based on nothing; there is no historical prove that there was ever a concerto for oboe d'amore.
I think it is generally accepted now how far Bach went using new styles. He actually went much further than his sons WF and CPE ever did in the new styles. Indeed, a beautiful example is the last movement of BWV 1055. But there are so many more. The one I find particularly interesting is the first movement of the B minor flute sonata with obligato harpsichord. There he went much further in the Empfindsame Stil than CPE ever did. For the people who don't know this piece, I can suggest my own recording of it with Barthold Kuijken for ACCENT :-)
If you want to know more on this topic, David Yearsley wrote an excellent book (among others) on this aspect. He discusses the duetto in F Major in this light. |
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Julian Mincham wrote (October 21, 2006):
Ewald Demeyere wrote:
< There's absolutely no prove whatsoever that BWV 1044 would have written by anyone else but JS Bach. This theory of another composer came along because of the fact that the string parts are not really idiomatic. And so, it 'could' not be Bach. Some scholars believe (I think Leonhardt does too) that this is from Krebs. Too me, it doesn't really matter from whom BWV 1044 is, I'm convinced that at least the harpsichord part was from JS Bach. >
Hi Ewald thanks for your thoughts.
I don't really disagree with the above but, out of interest, here is what Dart had to say about the work:
'The concerto contains many features which are not at all characteristic of Bach's style: an extensive use of pizz, detached triple stopped chords for the ripieno strings; elaborate passage work for the solo instruments in the galant style: some extraordinarily awkward figuration for the harsichord: and a very free use of fugal technique in the last movement (which contains a certain amount of Alberti patterning for the harsichordist).'
Hardly compelling evidence, but a point of view from an interesting figure of his time. It does remind me of some silly speculation I came across last century about the great D minor harsichord concerto of which some 'scholars' noted features not typical od Bach and used them to claim that he could not have composed it.
The unanswerable question which arises is, if Bach did not compose such works then who amongst his contemporaries was capable of doing so? Long long silence!!
I think the last movement of the A major concerto is slightly different. The opening theme is entirely galant in style--simple harmonies and bass line, virtually no counterpoint, very predictable 4 bar phrasing and the bass keeping the musical interest going in a rather obvious way at the ends of the melodic phrases (e.g. bars 4, 8, 12). Very few similar movements in Bach's concerto output, I find.
However, the argument that Bach may have done something only accasionally is not, as we know an argument that he didn't compose it in the first place. It may simply be further evidence of his enormous range. But still interesting to note and exchanges views about. |
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Preludes & Fugues BWV 894-902 - Discography |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (February 7, 2007):
Following previous discographies of Bach's keyboard works, I have added now a comprehensive discography of the group of Preludes & Fugues BWV 894-902. AFAIK, this is the first ever web-discography of this group of works
As previously, I have used every possible source I could find, including web-catalogues, web-stores, web-magazines, artists' websites, labels' websites and other websites, as well as various printed catalogues and my personal collection.
Since these works are not often recorded, I compiled all the known recordings (47 albums) into a single page. You can find them all through the main page of BWV 894-902 at the BCW: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV894-902.htm
This page includes, as usual, internal links to reviews and discussions.
If you are aware of a recording ofthese works not listed in the discography, or if you find an error or missing information, please inform me, either through the BRML or to my personal e-mail address. |
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BCW: Various Preludes & Fugues BWV 894-902 - Revised & Updated Discography |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (July 18, 2011):
The discography of various Preludes & Fugues BWV 894-902 on the BCW has been revised & updated:
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV894-902-Rec1.htm
The discography is arranged chronologically by recording date and includes 70 different recordings.
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me. |
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BCW: Discographies of Small Keyboard Works BWV 894-902; BWV 917-970 |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (July 11, 2013):
The discography pages of more keyboard works by J.S. Bach on the BCW have been updated. The discographies are arranged chronologically by recording date. The Preludes & Fugues BWV 894-902 discography has a page per a decade; the pages are inter-linked. The discographies of BWV 917-970 are complied by groups; a page per each.
Preludes & Fugues BWV 894-902 (78 recordings). 1st page (1900-1949):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV894-902-Rec1.htm
Fantasias & Preludes BWV 917-923 (54 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV917-923-Rec.htm
Little Preludes for W.F. Bach BWV 924-932 (42 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV924-932-Rec.htm
Six Little Preludes 933-938 (54 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV933-938-Rec.htm
Five Little Preludes BWV 939-943 (46 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV939-943-Rec.htm
Fugues BWV 944-962 (74 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV944-962-Rec.htm
Sonatas BWV 963-970 (51 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV963-967-Rec.htm
Various Movements BWV 968-970 (24 recordings):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV968-970-Rec.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me. |
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