ExclusiveBach: Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 906

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Johann Sebastian Bach: Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 906. This beautiful piece was played by Mark Johnston. It has Creative Commons license (CC BY 3.0 DEED, Attribution 3.0 Unported) and is provided through www.musopen.org.

NETHERLANDS BACH SOCIETY writes in "About Us":

Ever since 1921 we have dedicated ourselves with heart and soul to sharing Bach's music with the world. We show the diversity of early music and the Netherlands Bach Society.Even in the Sarabande, the melody gains the upper hand.

Here what they write about Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 906:

Bach ventures into the style of the younger generation

Johann Sebastian was not the only composer in the family. If this Fantasia and fugue in C minor had not survived in two manuscripts in Bach’s own handwriting, it might have been attributed to one of his composer sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel or Wilhelm Friedemann. The title Fantasia, the use of triplets and the rather fitful yet airy character are all hallmarks of the empfindsame (sensitive) style. And this style is found much more often in the works of Bach’s sons than in those he wrote himself. The way the hands cross over one another is also something that regularly appears in the work of both sons. They picked up all sorts of things as teenagers at home.

The fugue is a different matter altogether. Whereas the chromaticism in the fantasia consisted of ornamenting the melody, it borders on the extreme in the structure of the fugue. And in the other parts, too, Bach tries not to neatly channel the chromaticism. He continually uses strange diminished and augmented chords, sometimes adding extra dissonants as well. The whole becomes a sort of harmonic distorting mirror, as if a normal fugue has gone off the rails.

Then suddenly everything changes! The fast notes return from nowhere and a new theme appears. There are even hand crossovers, a technique Bach seldom used in fugues. And just as the chromatic fugue theme returns and Bach seems to be clarifying matters, the manuscript ends abruptly in the middle of a page, leaving us rather confused with a musical question mark.

bachvereniging.nl

The evening sky was shot by Simone Schlegel and the video was edited by Wenjing Ma.






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