Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach once wrote that his father, Johann Sebastian Bach, was a “strong fugue writer.” If there were a contest for great understatements in music history CPE would be the winner.
According to the Grove Dictionary of Music, a fugue is “a composition in which three or more voices (very rarely two) enter imitatively one after the other, each ‘giving chase’ to the preceding voice.” That’s the textbook version, Bach’s fugues are wonders of complexity, precision and beauty. He took the form, which had its roots in the early Renaissance, and transformed it into something sublime, transcending all that came before and setting a standard which has been imitated but never equaled.
Whether he was writing for clavichord, harpsichord, organ or an early version of the pianoforte, the fugue was a dominant element in Bach’s keyboard music. But Bach didn’t restrict himself to writing fugues for keyboard instruments alone. Countless fugal passages can be found in his instrumental, orchestral and choral music. To cite just a few, there’s the epic fuga of the Violin Sonata No. 3, a fugal opening to the finale of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 and somber fugues that form the core of the motet Jesu meine Freude. That’s just scratching the surface.
In many ways the Art of Fugue represents the zenith of Bach’s fugal writing. He didn’t compose the work for a specific instrument, so over the centuries it’s been successfully performed and recorded by keyboardists, string quartets, chamber orchestras, trombonists and others. Early music superstar Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XX offer a fresh take on the chamber orchestra formula.
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by Craig Zeichner
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