ExclusiveBach: The Well Tempered Clavier, Book II - 3. Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp major, BWV 872

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well Tempered Clavier, Book II, BWV 870-893 - 3. Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp major, BWV 872. This beautiful piece was played by Raymond Smullyan. It has Creative Commons license (CC BY 3.0 DEED Attribution 3.0 Unported) and is provided through www.musopen.org.

Bach’s most lively fugue plays a game of transformation

For the third prelude in the Wohltemperirte Clavier II, Bach harked back to a figure he used in such legendary fashion to open the first part of the Wohltemperirte Clavier: rolling arpeggios. Originally, in the first known versions of BWV 872, there were simply big chords written down and it was up to the player to decide how to ‘break them up’. But because arpeggio technique had since fallen out of fashion somewhat – and Bach maybe wanted to be on the safe side in this educational work – he neatly wrote out the rolling arpeggios. Bach did a lot of tweaking to the tenor voice, which is given the most weight and indicates the harmonic direction. The minor passage towards the end of the first section is particularly impressive. With a stream of complex accidentals, Bach seems to be emphasising the ‘exoticism’ of the key of C sharp major in the landscape of High Baroque music.

The prelude ends in a short fughetta with a French undertone, which exudes the joy of composition. Just before the final chord, like an echo from the arpeggios, some newly written bars appear, in which the music shifts harmonically at great speed. Whereas the fughetta invites a flowing legato, the fugue cries out for staccato, so that the theme contrasts nicely with the runs (and runs, and more runs) that follow. Bach plays a game of transformation, and is expressly unclear about the scope of the theme. Does it stop after the first five notes, or does the following tune also belong to it? Each time the themes start up again, the next episode lasts longer and contains more rhythmic elements. From about halfway through, the theme is only heard in inversion, accelerated in minims and extended to twice its length – a lively, crazy texture!
(Source: bachvereniging.nl)

This video was captured near the Glütschbach by Simone Schlegel and edited by Wenjing Ma.







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