Show Notes
Anyone else feel like we don’t have enough fugues in F major? In the last of Bach’s four layerings to the fair copy of The Well-Tempered Clavier, we see some beautiful details that would have been lost had Bach not made this last series of revisions in the 1740s. It makes you wonder if Bach would have made even more, should he have lived as long as Telemann! Bar 42 reads like this in A1-A3 into the 1740s: Then, in A4, Bach found expression in the tie and 32nd notes: Such a revision physically looks like this on fair copy: This particular revision may not be immediately clear to the naked eye, but some are (see the e minor revisions at the bottom of the post.) I believe it was X-ray technology that led to such breakthroughs in the scholarship, but some layers might be a sort of ‘white-out’ or paste that physically would stand out on the paper— any expertise would be appreciated in the comments! We know that in the Saint Matthew Passion, Bach quite literally ‘layered’ smaller pieces of paper onto the manuscript, but I think that has to do with repair, not necessarily revision. One famous layering in A4 looks as if it’s been pasted onto the manuscript… but it could be my imagination. From the first fugue, BWV 846:
WTF Bach is free to all! Let’s spread the awareness of contrapuntal mastery. However, if you support financially, you’re much less likely to write parallel 5ths.
There are a number of revisions also in the F Major prelude. Interestingly, the length of both prelude and fugue remains unchanged between earliest versions and the fair copy. Bach had the general harmonic rhythm right, but smooths out the insides of some measures: (Early versions, followed by the fair copy) And so on… (more demonstrations in the episode.) I finish the episode with four beautiful revisions to the e minor prelude (covered in Ep. 114) again made in A4. These are typical of his final revisions to the WTC1, bursting with 32nds. Here, one can somewhat plainly see the difference between inks: Before these revisions, the melody was as follows: We survive solely on donations. Thank you for your help! We encourage our listeners to become a paid subscriberat wtfbach.substack.comFree subscriptions are also great for our numbers.You can also make a one-time donation here: https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbach Supporting this show ensures its longevity. Concepts Covered: J.S. Bach’s late A4 revisions to the Well-Tempered Clavier I (BWV 846–869) in the F-major fugue BWV 856, the F major prelude, the discant adjustments that earlier manuscript stages (A1–A3) lack. The late embellishments in the E-minor prelude BWV 855, The genesis of WTK I, variant readings, fair-copy corrections, Harmonic analysis, contrapuntal rules, and the general genius of Bach.
Get full access to W.T.F. Bach? at wtfbach.substack.com/subscribe
More from WTF Bach
The music at the end is BWV 600, from a forthcoming ‘electrified’ arrangement of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. The beautiful passage toward the end of my rant— with the koto accompaniment and bird song— comes from one of my absolute favorite books: R.H. Blythe’s writings about Haiku. Blyth considered the three greatest geniuses of time to be Basho, Bach, and Shakespeare— in that order! Wow! What am I missing with Basho!? More than a podcast. This is WTF Bach.
Volume 6 in ‘J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works’ is on presale today! Here are the relevant links: * J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works, Vol. 6 - Arrangements of Albinoni and Reincken(https://modernclassicalx.lnk.to/JSBachCompleteKeyboardWorksVol6FromArrangementsofAlbinoniandReincken) I might call this volume a ‘headphones album’ or perhaps one to listen to in the car: The sonic space shifts throughout the course of these pieces. I describe this process in depth in the episode, but essentially each track is two recordings of the piece, playing simultaneously: one recording is the original live performance, while another is that very same performance, played back through the Disklavier with the dynamics flatlined— as if the piano keyboard were incapable of dynamics — like a harpsichord. The two recordings were then ‘live panned’ during the mixing according to my feeling for the music. The result, while perhaps less extreme than this all sounds, is certainly a noticeable phenomenon, especially in headphones or seated between two speakers as in a car. But enough about that, let’s get to the music. Fugue it:
We’ve now covered the seven surviving earliest vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach! This episode is a brief tour through the episodes we dedicated to these pieces, refreshing our memories and attempting to identify unifying stylistic features. All the episodes covering the Arnstadt/Mülhausen cantatas can be found at:https://wtfbach.substack.com/t/early-cantatas Wanna Cantata?
“The consummate expressiveness of {BWV 4] has always been marvelled at. Each verse is as if chiselled in music.” -Albert Schweitzer, Vol. 2 Bach’s early Easter cantata remains one of the most beloved in the entire canon. Barely 22 years old, he is already in full command of his tone-painting. Here are three measures particularly packed with symbolism: Filling the music with rests at the word nothing, ‘one death eating another’ through the closest possible canon, crosses both in shape and every note ‘sharped’ (gekreuzt,) dripping blood on the Passover doors with short 8th notes, leaping a diminished 12th (!) in the bass aria at the word death, this cantata is a dictionary of text painting. …und singen Halleluja!
Sometimes an article from the EB strikes me as so amusing, I simply have to share it with you. See you next week (or the week after, latest) for the conclusion of our early cantata survey, with Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. Thanks for listening! Well, That’s Fascinating!