(Mus. ms. Bach P 200) Accademia Strumentale Italiana ...to the autograph manuscript Mus. Ms. P 200 preserved at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer ... a more complex final

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACHDie Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080(Mus. ms. Bach P 200)Accademia Strumentale Italiana Alberto Rasi

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACHDie Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080(Mus. ms. Bach P 200)Accademia Strumentale Italiana Alberto Rasi

Rossella Croce violin

Alberto Rasi treble viol

Claudia Pasetto tenor viol

Paolo Biordi bass viol

Michele Zeoli violone

Luca Guglielmi organ

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)

Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 (1742-1750)

[1] I. Fuga simplex rectus BWV 1080/1 3:04

[2] II. Fuga simplex inversus BWV 1080/3 2:57

[3] III. Fuga plagalis BWV 1080/2 2:48

[4] IV. Counter-fugue – fuga inversa BWV 1080/5 3:16

[5] V. Fuga rectus with obbligato countersubjects alla Duodecima 2:29

BWV 1080/9

[6] VI. Fuga inversus with two obbligato countersubjects alla Decima 3:47

BWV 1080/10

[7] VII. Fuga inversa in Stylo Francese BWV 1080/6a 3:34

[8] VIII. Fuga inversa per Augment. et Diminut. BWV 1080/7 4:37

[9] IX. Canon in Hypodiapason (Canon alla Ottava) BWV 1080/15 2:48

[10] X. Fuga a tre Soggetti à 3 BWV 1080/8 7:15

[11] XI. Fuga a quattro soggetti à 4 BWV 1080/11 6:38

[12] XII. Canon per Augmentationem in contrario motu BWV 1080/14 6:54

[13] XIIIa. Mirror fugue in contrappunto simplici à 4 rectus 2:28

BWV 1080/12,1

[14] XIIIb. Mirror fugue in contrappunto simplici à 4 inversus 2:25 BWV 1080/12,2

[15] XIVa. Mirror fuga inversa in contrappunto duplici à 3 rectus 2:18 BWV 1080/18,2

[16] XIVb. Mirror fuga inversa in contrappunto duplici à 3 inversus 2:21 BWV 1080/18,1

[17] Fuga a 3 Soggetti [unfinished] 8:38

Total time 68:24

Johann Sebastian Bach - Die Kunst der FugaRethinking a masterpiece

Introduction and historical framework – ‘Inverting the paradigm’

The Art of Fugue is both Johann Sebastian Bach’s opus summum and last complete work, presumably

undertaken between 1740 and 1742. According to the frontispiece added by Johann Christoph Altnickol

to the autograph manuscript Mus. Ms. P 200 preserved at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer

Kulturbesitz (hereafter, ‘Berlin Autograph’), the work’s original title actually read “DIE KUNST DER FUGA”,

notably featuring the Latin (or Italian) word ‘fuga’ rather than German ‘Fuge’ - as found, instead, in the two

printed editions of 1751 and 1752.

The work is part of Bach’s scientific production and the embodiment of the interest in counterpoint and its

artifices: an interest which defined the last decade of his life; and which, together with his study of double

counterpoint and canons, would eventually earn him a membership in the Correspondierenden Sozietät

der Musicalischen Wissenschaften [Corresponding Society of Musical Sciences] founded in 1738 by his

former student, Lorenz Mizler – which he would only join in 1747, after waiting for two other candidates to

be admitted before him, so as to become its fourteenth member (!).

In addition to other scientific works he composed for the Society in those years (such as the Canonic

Variations BWV 769/769a and the Musical Offering), Bach’s extensive activity ranged from revising and

copying large-scale choral works (the B minor Mass and the two Passions), and composing keyboard music

such as the Fantasia and Fugue in C min. BWV 906 (seemingly incomplete, but in fact a fugue with Da

Capo) and pieces destined for the peculiarly gut-strung Lautenwerck harpsichord (amongst which BWV

997 and 998, which underneath an appearance of extreme simplicity reveal, in fact, an intricate four-voice

polyphony ‘disguised’ as two melodic lines – perhaps a polite response to Scheibe’s famous criticism of

him for being an “utterly obscure” and unfashionable composer, and his music difficult to follow).

Die Kunst der Fuga (hereafter, ‘KdF’), in the form and the order presented in the Berlin Autograph, has

all the appearance of a finished work: featuring 14 fugues and canons, all based upon a single original

theme, serving as the work’s foundation; and with the individual pieces progressing in an increasing order

of difficulty and contrapuntal perfection – almost a sort of Gradus ad Parnassum (the famous treatise by

Fux, which, unsurprisingly, Bach had in his library). Having already been submitted to various corrections

over the years, the author’s untimely death interrupted its finalisation right as he was about to further

revise some parts of his work and was seeking to undertake the project of a printed edition. Of these

last revisions we have but a single contribution: the Abklatschvorlage or Stichvorlage (i.e. the definitive

manuscript copy for the engraver, indicating the form the author wished his work to take in the final print)

of the Canon per Augmentationem [in] contrario motu: the piece that more than any other had given Bach

problems from its very first draft, and which he had revised and corrected as many as three times before

being finally satisfied with it.

What this brief study sets out to achieve is to attempt a switch in perspective, shifting from the ‘point of

view’ of the First Printed Edition – through which the KdF has traditionally been examined by the vast

majority of scholars – to that of the Berlin Autograph.

Despite having already been studied and collated with the 1751 and 1752 editions, the autograph has

always been viewed by the dominant ideology as incomplete; little more than a preparatory stage for

its printed counterparts. Only in recent times have scholars (amongst whom Christoph Wolff) started to

note that the KdF as found in the autograph manuscript at the time of its completion might well stand

comparison with the alleged ‘final version’ of the printed editions, and thus may be elevated to the full

dignity of an “Alte Fassung”. And this study would argue that the Berlin Autograph contains, in fact, the

latest and ‘closest-to-final’ version of the KdF; whilst the First Printed Edition, instead, is entirely the result

of the conjoint efforts of Bach’s children and students, as, apart from the draft for the printed version

he prepared of the Canon per Augmentationem [in] contrario motu, there is no proof that Bach was ever

involved in preparatory works concerning any other of its pieces. Furthermore, the order displayed in

the Berlin Autograph appears decidedly more logical and “artistic” than that of the First Printed Edition

– which, by comparison, appears less interesting (tending towards pedantic) and not without compilation

errors. For a first overview of the differences between the two, view the following comparative scheme.

Die Kunst der Fuge(1751/1752)

Die Kunst der Fuga(Mus. ms. Bach P 200)

[Simple fugues] Contrapunctus 1.Contrapunctus 2.Contrapunctus 3.

*Contrapunctus 4.

[Counter-fugues]Contrapunctus 5.Contrapunctus 6. a 4 in Stylo Francese.C ontrapunctus 7. a 4 per Augment.

et Diminut

[Multiple subject fugues]Contrapunctus 8. a 3.Contrapunctus 9. a 4 alla Duodecima.

*Contrapunctus 10. a 4 alla Decima.Contrapunctus 11. a 4.

[Mirror fugues]Contrapunctus inversus 12. a 4.Contrapunctus inversus a 4.Contrapunctus a 3.Contrapunctus inversus a 3.

[inserted by mistake???] Contrapunctus [10] a 4.

[B = 2]I. [Fuga simplex rectus] BWV 1080/1a II. [Fuga simplex inversus] BWV 1080/3a

[A = 1]III. [Fuga plagalis] BWV 1080/2a

[C = 3]IV. [Counter-fugue – fuga inversa]

BWV 1080/5V. [Fuga rectus with obbligato

countersubjects alla Duodecima] BWV 1080/9

VI. [Fuga inversus with two obbligato countersubjects alla Decima] BWV 1080/10a

[H = 8 (2 +1 +2 +1 +2)]VII. [Fuga inversa in Stylo Francese

(Thema passeggiato + mensural variation)] BWV 1080/6a

VIII. [Fuga inversa per Augment. et Diminut. (Thema passeggiato + 2 mensural variations)] BWV 1080/7

Die Kunst der Fuge(1751/1752)

Die Kunst der Fuga(Mus. ms. Bach P 200)

[Canons]Canon per Augmentationem in Contrario Motu.Canon alla Ottava.

*Canon alla Decima Contrapuncto alla Terza.

*Canon alla Duodecima in Contrapuncto alla Quinta.

[Arrangement for two keyboards of the three-part mirror fugues]Fuga à 2 Clav.Alio modo Fuga à 2 Clav.

[Quadruple fugue (?) unfinished]Fuga a 3 Soggetti.

[Choral dictated on his deathbed, according to tradition…]

*Choral. Wenn wir in hoechsten Noethen.

*not in the Berlin Autograph

IX. Canon in Hypodiapason [Canon alla Ottava] BWV 1080/15

X. [Fuga a tre Soggetti à 3] BWV 1080/8XI. [Fuga a quattro soggetti à 4] BWV

1080/11XII. Canon per Augmentationem in

contrario motu BWV 1080/14XIIIa. [Mirror fugue in contrappunto

simplici à 4 rectus] BWV 1080/12,1 XIIIb. [Mirror fugue in contrappunto

simplici à 4 inversus] BWV 1080/12,2

XIVa. [Mirror fuga inversa in contrappunto duplici à 3 rectus] BWV 1080/18,2

XIVb. [Mirror fuga inversa in contrappunto duplici à 3 inversus] BWV 1080/18,1

It is worth noting that the order of the 14 pieces contained in Berlin Autograph derives its internal

articulation from Bach’s very name. In fact, according to the very popular Gematria code in use in

Germany in the Eighteenth century well known to the Leipzig Director Musices: B=2, A=1, C=3, H=8,

from which descends that BACH(2+1+3+8)=14. Taking this into account, the very order of the autograph

reveals itself to be a ‘signature’ within the KdF, as the work as a whole is articulated in a first pair of fugues

(B=2), rectus and inversus; an isolated fugue (A=1), notably ending on the dominant of the tone, i.e. ‘A’ in

German alphabetic notation; a ‘triplet’ of fugues (C=3) that show the use of the inversus answer, further

combining the rectus and inversus subjects first with one and then two obbligato counter-subjects; and

a more complex final group of eight pieces (H=8), articulated in three pairs of fugues interspersed with

two canons (2+1+2+1+2; with the number ‘2’ appearing three times, thus using the previously employed

numbers 2, 1, and 3 to form the 8), showcasing the various and different possibilities of mensural variation,

of multi-subject fugues, and of mirror fugues.

Illustrious predecessors

The KdF might not be quite as original as one might expect, but it is a great work of recapitulation:

culminating an illustrious tradition of publications dedicated to severe counterpoint and its extreme

applications. And although very different in terms of destination and use, a direct fil rouge with it may be

traced all the way back to four capital works which paved the way for Bach’s opus summum.

- Girolamo Frescobaldi, “Fiori Musicali” (1635): the last published work (bar the “Aggiunta” to the First

Book of Toccatas in 1637) of the great master from Ferrara, “‘monster’ of the organists and inventor of

many styles of playing” (in the words of Luigi Battiferri), of whom it is known that Bach was a great admirer.

Evidence, in fact, suggests that his personal music library contained a handwritten copy of the Fiori, which

he had personally annotated. Its rigorous use of counterpoint in its different species and various artifices

was certainly a research model for the stile antico to which he would dedicate himself in the last decade of

his life.

- Dieterich Buxtehude, “Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfahrt” BuxWV 76 (1674): this work, with its famous

“Klag-Lied”, was published as a funeral tribute to Buxtehude’s late father, Johann, and was composed as

a series of Contrapuncti on cantus firmus, displaying many typical stylistic features later found in the KdF,

such as the employment of inversion and double counterpoint.

- Giovan Battista Vitali, “Artificii Musicali” Op. XIII (1689): an admirable collection of enigmatic canons, crab

canons, scherzi musicali, and other works in double counterpoint, arranged in increasing order of difficulty

and presented in a ‘closed form’, which is to say, without being solved.

- Johann Theile, “Musicalisches Kunst = Buch” (1691): a miscellany of fifteen compositions of various

lengths and different styles, unified by the application of double counterpoint. This is not a collection

based on a single theme (as is, instead, the KdF), but rather a pedagogical work aimed at improving one’s

composition techniques and gaining a comprehensive knowledge of counterpoint. The title “Kunst =

Buch” resonates with that of the KdF: suggesting that the Kunst itself, which is to say the ‘mastery’ of the

artist in question, is the true protagonist of the publication – something similar will survive all the way into

the 20th century, with the practice of the so-called libro d’artista.

The Berlin Autograph and the First Printed Edition: paternity and authenticity issues

What this present study means to propose by “inverting the paradigm” is – as Nikolaus Harnoncourt

would have suggested – to go so far as to create a tabula rasa effect by imaging an entirely opposite

scenario to our own. Were we, in fact, to imagine the Berlin Autograph had been the only surviving source

until a recent and fortuitous uncovering of the ‘First Printed Edition’, our most obvious reaction would

be to compare our discovery with our only available frame of reference. Our understanding of the new

source would, thus, be inevitably conditioned by the established authority of that single older one; and

our attention would likely be more inclined to notice all the things appearing to have been ‘added’ in the

printed edition rather than those ‘lacking’ in the manuscript. Such an inversion of what is still the dominant

perspective on the matter today would be so powerful that any critical opinion we might form regarding

the First Printed Edition would be much less favourably biased toward it than it has been to date (with

the autograph mostly acknowledged as an earlier version, at best). Were we, then, to further stretch this

hypothesis to its most extreme consequences, we would find ourselves being forced to admit that the

Contrapunctus 4 (as numbered in the First Printed Edition), together with the Canon alla Duodecima in

Contrappunto alla Quinta, Canon alla Decima in Contrappunto alla Terza, the codette in Contrapunctus 1,

2, 3, and even the first 11 measures of Contrapunctus 10 are, in fact, not by Bach at all. With no autograph

or handwritten copy dating prior to the printed version of any these ‘additions’ to the music in the Berlin

Autograph, it would seem legitimate to suspect they might be later compositions, especially created by

the compilers of the KdF with the intent of integrating the new Grund Plan (ground plan), as well as to

somehow link their art to Bach’s and, perhaps, even wishing to leave a ‘signature’ of their own in such a

significant work.

Let’s briefly analyse the parts of the First Printed Edition which do not appear in the Autograph.

Contrapunctus 4 immediately appears unusually lengthy for a piece positioned amongst the group of so-

called “simple fugues” (with 138 measures against an average of 74 in the first three counterpoints – and

in tempo alla semibreve too), and the writing presents more than a few weak spots for a work written

in the 1740s, at such an evolved stage of Bach’s maturity. The subject alone is already anomalous, as

it cannot be considered an inversus (i.e. inverted form) of the original KdF subject, whilst the subject

of Contrapunctus 4 should have either been the answer to the subject of Contrapunctus 3 or the exact

‘mirrored’ inversion of the original KdF subject. But to employing the ‘mirror’ technique so early on in

what is effectively demonstration of all operable possibilities in a fugue seems a little premature; and as

we shall see, Bach will actually reserve it a spot at the end of his opus summum. A decadent chromatic

countersubject immediately follows in the rhetorical figure known as circulatio: something extremely

unusual for Bach’s treatment of melodies and choice of intervals. Furthermore, ‘permutations’ of the

subject are found right in the middle of the fugue’s development, with the aim of using them to create

subject ‘episodes’. Iterated three times in a modulating sequence, the third iteration of the permuted

subject (given to the soprano) harmonizes in a way that strikes as bold, as at m. 79 it leaps upward to land

onto minor ninth: something which the strict counterpoint master Bach would not have hesitated to mark

as an error. Similarly, at m. 75, the subject’s second iteration creates a diminished seventh harmony, which

something which we find is repeated in exact the same way in the first 11 measures of Contrapunctus

10: precisely another one of those parts which, according to this study, were a later addition. A final

observation concerns the lack of effectiveness, in terms of counterpoint, of the simultaneous presence

of the subject in both its original and syncopated form, repeated in two obbligato bicinia in the parts of

Soprano/Alto and Tenor/Bass (m. 107-109 and 111- 113).

The two Canons absent in the Berlin Autograph, which this study would argue are later compositions, are

probably two ‘exercises in style’ on double counterpoint by Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel

Bach. Moreover, unlike the other two canons, they present the original KdF subject (duly varied and

transformed) only in its original form rather than combining rectus and inversus as one would expect from

their placement in medias res within the KdF, and since rectus and inversus had already been presented

separately at the beginning, after which all following pieces go on to elaborate both

forms simultaneous.

Regarding the first 11 measures of Contrapunctus 10, as found in the printed version, their addition may

be explained as the compilers’ desire to include the piece amongst the group of ‘multiple subject fugues’,

achieving a minimal effort ‘improvement’ by taking one of the two obbligato counter-subjects and using it

to create a new exposition to precede the introduction of the KdF foundation theme. This new exposition

actually proves quite captivating in its own right, but the authors did run into some voice-leading

problems when it came to ‘sewing’ their addition onto Bach’s original work (m. 21), not least because

of the ‘false entry’ of the KdF foundation theme, used to accompany the its original opening (m. 25). To

confuse matters, the original version of Contrapunctus 10 was also left in at the time of printing, under

the title of Contrap. à 4: an ‘oversight’ (?) on either the compilers’ part or the engraver’s (Schübler). Yet a

possible explanation for this may lie in the fact that, by including it in the total number of Contrapuncti

(the four canons and Fuga à tre soggetti excluded), the sum becomes 14! The attention to numbers and

Gematria, both applied to the family name and to musical composition in general, must not have been

unknown to Bach’s children.

As for the so-called “Fuga à tre soggetti” (Three-subject Fugue), found instead in the Berlin Autograph

as “Beilage 3”, though included in the First Printed Edition, this study would argue that, in fact, it too

is not part of the KdF – a thesis Gustav Leonhardt himself vigorously supported. Its inclusion as an

‘appendix’ to the autograph is most likely by the hand of Bach’s sons together with those who reordered

Bach’s composition materials after his death; and the wish to include it in the First Printed Edition is to

be ascribed them alone. Furthermore, despite all the hypothesis advanced on how to complete it (as

first argued by Gustav Nottebohm in 1881, and then attempted – with alternate results – by Sir Donald

Francis Tovey, Helmut Walcha, Lionel Rogg, David Schulemberg, Davitt Moroney, Michael Ferguson,

Zoltan Gönctz, Indra Hughes, Bernard Foccroulle, etc.), and despite theories put forward suggesting

supposed ‘clues’ on how to do so allegedly planted in it by Bach himself in the form of numerological and/

or proportional rebus, this study would further argue that the Fuga à tre soggetti cannot be ‘completed’:

neither by employing the KdF theme in its original form, nor its passeggiato version, as both are too

similar to the first subject to achieve the effectiveness required at a point in the fugue’s development

which, instead, should represent its very climax. Moreover, the combination of all four subjects, including

the original KdF subject, cannot be considered in quadruple counterpoint, since they cannot be used in

all four voices. In summary, the so-called Fuga à tre soggetti featuring the BACH theme as its last subject

should be considered an independent work, separate from the KdF, and an example of composition

at its finest: demonstrating all the artifices available to severe counterpoint (inversion, retroversion,

diminution, aggravation, transposition, etc.), and with both rectus and inversus forms of its subjects

appearing simultaneously. It is quite likely that this ‘perfect fugue’ with Bach’s special ‘signature’ affixed

to its third section could have been his last and supreme musical contribution to Lorenz Mizler’s Musical

Society. Bach, in fact, would soon have turned sixty-five: the age after which members of the Society were

exempted from having to present their annual contribution.

Nevertheless, even without including the famous unvollendet, upon closer examination, one might

actually come to notice that the KdF already contains a quadruple fugue. In fact, what we find as

“Contrapunctus 11 à 4” in the First Printed Edition displays eight different subjects: or rather, four subjects

and their respective inversions, including the inversions of the two new subjects of Contrapunctus 8 à 3,

which in the Berlin Autograph immediately precedes Contrapunctus 11. Indeed, placing Contrapunctus 11

immediately after Contrapunctus 8 is perfectly musical choice, as the former may be considered to stem

from the latter; and such an arrangement seems to be further validated by manuscript copies of the KdF

made by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s circle for the amateur organist and harpsichordist princess Amalia of

Prussia, showing that the order found in the Berlin Autograph clearly continued to be preferred, despite

having been made after the appearance of First Printed Edition. Contrapunctus 11, with its four sections

(m. 1-27, 27-71, 71-89, 89-184) and four subjects, would, in fact, be impossible to define as anything other

than a quadruple fugue: a fugue in which, given that human consciousness is unable to perceive any real

polyphony beyond three voices (as asserted by a musico prattico such as Arturo Toscanini, as well as

scholars of music phenomenology such as, amongst others, Ernest Ansermet and Sergiu Celibidache),

rather than simultaneous combining all four subjects, Bach choses to employ a sequence of different

combinations of three of them at a time.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that we find Bach’s musical signature again at m. 89, at the beginning

of the fourth section: first transposed in the tenor voice, then once more in its real form at m. 91 in the

contralto voice, which clearly enunciates the same B-A-C-H theme (B flat–A–C–B) we find in the several

other compositions of Bach’s maturity (such as the Canonical Variations BWV 769/769a for organ).

The theory for which the Beilage 3 containing the unfinished triple fugue would represent the advanced

stage of perfection of an Abklatschvorlage (or engraving copy) does not hold for several reasons. Firstly,

it is written in keyboard tablature (i.e. on two lines) rather than on four separate lines (in partitura), as

in the rest of the KdF. Secondly, important corrections to the musical text are still visible on the page:

the most striking of which concerns the cadential transition from the first section to the second, which

is even annotated at the bottom of the page with the use of the alphabetic notation of German organ

tablature. Thirdly, Bach’s manuscript, whilst clear and precise, does not appear to be as elegant as it

typically would have to be to serve as an Abklatschvorlage, the purpose of which is to be model for the

engraver. This contrasts, instead, with the elegance we find in the third and final version of the Canon per

Augmentationem contrario motu, complete with ‘prove di svolazzo’ to render more attractive the mid-

line interruptions written so that the performer’s right hand may more easily turn the page – incidentally,

this model was disregarded entirely by the KdF compilers, who did not follow Bach’s layout design in

their printed edition. Last but not least of reasons for which the Beilage 3 cannot be considered an

Abklatschvorlage, it lacks a title for the piece.

As previously mentioned, Johann Sebastian Bach’s only contribution to the compilation of the First Printed

Edition of the KdF was the Abklatschvorlage of the Canon per Augmentationen [in] contrario motu, the

final draft of which is found in the Berlin Autograph as “Beilage 1”. The numbering that Bach wrote

in the upper margins of the three pages containing the Abklatschvorlage (26, 27, and 28) shows, in fact,

that the order he had in mind for his printed edition would have been the one indicated in the Berlin

Autograph; whereas the order chosen for the First Printed Edition by its compilers is utterly fictitious –

contrary to the imaginative theories presented by Gregory Butler’s in his essay “Ordering Problems in

J.S.Bach ‘Art of Fugue’ Resolved”. Even more interesting are the numberings found on the bottom right

of the first and last pages of the Abklatschvorlage, marked “33” and “35”. These are most likely traces

of a second stage of planning for the order of the printed edition, which, nevertheless, still maintained

the order of the Berlin Autograph. Bach must have simply realised that the 25 pages he had originally

calculated might have been too few a number to include all the material preceding the Canon per

Augmentationem contrario motu. But if the first page of the Canon per Augmentationem contrario motu

should in fact have been number 33 (as by Bach himself indicates), then the order the KdF should have

had in its First Printed Edition appears to be radically different from what it later become. And if we try

reconstruct the original layout as intended based on this numbering, we can successfully propose the

following hypothetical scheme.

Pages BWV Pieces1, 2 1080, 1a I. [Fuga simplex rectus]

3, 4 1080, 3a II. [Fuga simplex inversus]

5, 6 1080, 2a III. [Fuga plagalis]

7, 8, 9 1080, 5 IV. [Counter-fugue – fuga inversa]

10, 11, 12 1080, 9 V. [Fuga rectus with an obbligato countersubject alla Duodecima]

13, 14, 15 1080, 10a VI. [Fuga inversus with two obbligato countersubjects alla Decima]

16, 17, 18 1080, 6a VII. [Fuga inversa in Stylo Francese (Thema passeggiato + mensural variation)]

19, 20, 21 1080, 7 VIII. [Fuga inversa per Augment. et Diminut. (Thema passeggiato + 2 mensural variations)]

22, 23 1080, 15 IX. Canon in Hypodiapason [Canon alla Ottava]

24, 25, 26, 27 1080, 8 X. [Fuga a tre soggetti à 3]

28, 29, 30, 31, 32 1080, 11 XI. [Fuga a quattro soggetti à 4]

33, 34, 35 1080, 14 XII. Canon per Augmentationem in contrario motu

36, 37 1080, 12/1 XIIIa. [Mirror fugue in contrappunto simplici à 4 rectus]

38, 39 1080, 12/2 XIIIb. [Mirror fugue in contrappunto simplici à 4 inversus]

40, 41 1080, 18/2 XIVa. [Mirror fuga inversa in contrappunto duplici à 3 rectus]

42, 43 1080, 18/1 XIVb. [Mirror fuga inversa in contrappunto duplici à 3 inversus]

Reception, failure, intelligentia, classic canon

The printed versions of 1751 and 1752, identical but for the preface later added by Marpurg, are

exclusively the result of the combined efforts of Marpurg himself, Bach’s sons Carl Philipp Emanuel,

Johann Christoph Friedrich, and perhaps even Wilhelm Friedemann, Johann Friedrich Agricola, and

Johann Philipp Kirnberger, one of Bach’s most gifted pupils (though more academic and musically

pedantic). Yet, having first seen Bach’s work and plans only after his death, his compositional process and

multiple revisions of the KdF were unknown to them. So any information about Bach’s latest works must

have been passed on to them by the family members who were with him at the time his death. But other

Anna Magdalena’s daughters and his daughter Catharina Dorothea (from his first marriage), the only one

of Bach’s children still living with him was 15-year-old Johann Christian, his youngest son, who still had to

find employment at court. In fact, his older brother Johann Christoph Friedrich, three years his senior, had

just taken up service at the Court of Bückeburg in January 1750, first as a harpsichordist, then as Cammer-

Musicus, and finally as Kapellmeister, and would only return to Leipzig in August 1750, following the death

of his father.

It is worth mentioning the obituary drafted by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Friedrich Agricola,

published by Lorenz Mizler in 1754 in his Musicalische Bibliothek, which reported the following news:

“Seine letzte Krankheit hat ihn verhindert, seinem Entwurfe nach, die vorletzte Fuga völlig zu Ende

zu bringen, und die letzte, welche 4 Themata enthalten, und nachgehends in allen Stimmen Note für

Note umgekehrt werden sollte, auszuarbeiten” (“His latest illness prevented him from completing the

penultimate fugue and from realizing the last one, which should have been a fugue with four subjects

and which should then have been reversed, note by note”). This assertion has been interpreted in many

different ways, giving rise to the most absurd and convoluted conjectures; however, if we take the Berlin

Autograph as a valid paradigm, we may advance a decidedly more coherent interpretation – if slightly

daring.

Bach had just completed the à 2 Clav. arrangement of the 3-part mirror fugues: the last piece in the

Autograph. This arrangement can be considered the definitive version of this obbligo: an inverted mirror

fugue with three obbligato voices and a free voice. In the Goldberg Variations, many of the nine variations

in canonic form effectively use a free part to somewhat ‘soften’ the rough edges created by the strict

canon of the obbligato parts. And same kind of arrangement would be applied to the other pair of mirror

fugues, those in simple four-part counterpoint, constituting precisely the ‘penultimate’ work of the KdF.

Looking at a piece composed with three obbligato parts enriched with a fourth free part so that it may

be equally divided between two keyboards, one could imagine it to be a piece with four obbligato voices

enriched with two other free parts so that they may equally resonate with three voices for each keyboard.

Coming to the part of the obituary that tells us that Bach to realise “the last [fugue], which should have

been a four subject fugue and which should have been reversed, note by note”, this statement probably

‘mixes’ two separate facts: namely, the inability to complete the triple fugue with the name B-A-C-H as its

third subject; and the existence within the KdF of the so-called Contrapunctus 11, which we have seen to

be a quadruple fugue in which four subjects with their relative ‘note by note’ inversions do, in fact, appear.

We will never be able to reconstruct what led the compilers of the Obituary (and of the KdF) to acquire

the information that lead them to these conclusions. However, amongst all of the known hypotheses, the

one this study puts forward is probably the most consistent with the validity of the paradigm the Berlin

Autograph represents. It has already been noted that the KdF compilers have radically altered Bach’s

basic plan, changing the order of the pieces, introducing an arbitrary sub-division into groups of four,

integrating the work with three new compositions, and making many ‘corrections’, as well

as minor additions.

An inscription on the verso of one pages of the Beilage 3 in the Berlin Autograph that reads “...und ein

andere Grunds Plan” (“...and another ground plan”), probably by the hand of Johann Christoph Friedrich

Bach (the ‘Bückeburg’ Bach), proves providential.

It is worth remembering that the process which lead to the creation of First Printed Edition of the KdF

happened in a fairly short time, having Bach died in July 1750 and the First Printed Edition been published

in time for the Easter fair of 11th April 1751; and that, from the point of view of late Cantor’s children at

least, who were trying to split amongst themselves a relatively small inheritance in a time when there

were no social funds or pensions, it was an understandable attempt to make as much of a profit as

possible from what seemed to be a nearly finished work destined for the press. One should also keep in

mind that Bach’s music was already seen as démodé as early as the 1730s, considered both too difficult

to understand and to perform. And as he never really bothered to contradict this in later compositions,

though we might not entirely approve of the compilers’ choices, we might at least sympathise with the

effort they put into rendering a work of such extreme difficulty slightly more ‘palatable’ to a broader

audience than a very restricted niche of connoisseurs. The meagre balance of only 30 copies sold

between both editions of 1751 and 1752, and the attempt by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to sell the copper

plates used for the engraving for a few Grotschen in 1756, are enough to give us a very clear impression of

how understood Bach’s music would have been in the 1750s.

However, this bleak image of the failed ‘success’ which was the KdF’s printed edition should not lead us to

think that Bach would quickly to fall into oblivion, as instead would be the fate of many famous musicians

of his time, such as Vivaldi, Hasse, or Bononcini.

After his death, in fact, Bach’s music never stopped being studied and admired by the musical intelligentia,

though their numbers were naturally very limited. Thus, Mendelssohn’s supposed ‘rediscovery’ of Bach

in 1829, in that most ‘Romantic’ of events which would mark the beginning of an era of ‘Denkmäler’

(monumenta) to composers, must read as an attempt to create a cult of ‘national’ composers at a

crucial moment in the gradual creation of a unified German culture and State, first with the German

Confederation and then with the proclamation of the Deutsches Reich by Bismarck and the Prussian

emperor Wilhelm I in 1871. Similarly, KdF was not ‘invented’ by Wolfgang Graeser in 1927 thanks to his first

and most famous orchestration; if anything, his merit was to have contributed in bringing it to the general

public. In addition to the 19th century editions of Carl Czerny and Philipp Spitta, there is evidence of the

KdF being in the libraries of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms.

Nevertheless, the interest in the musical antiques shown by scholars such as Padre Martini, Van Swieten,

and others, though instrumental passing the knowledge of Bach’s music to such musicians as Neefe,

Mozart, Beethoven,

and Mendelssohn, was definitely rare or at the very least still far from the following it would gain thereafter,

making a success of a work which when published was well ‘out of touch’ with the times.

History would eventually decree the musical value of the KdF to be Absolute, and welcome it in the so-

called classical canon, despite the extreme difficulty

to perform and its apparent incompleteness.

Luca Guglielmi ©2019

A note to our performance

Far from being a merely speculative or theoretical work, Die Kunst der Fuga is a work for manualiter

keyboard. But true to the spirit of an era of musica prattica, performing polyphonic keyboard repertoire

with instrumental ensembles aligns with a consolidated tradition that finds it roots in an amply

documented practice dating all the way back to the 16th century, with the Canzoni e Ricercari per ogni

sorta di stromenti by Palestrina, Gabrieli, Battiferri, and Fontana, as well as the works for viol consort by

Trabaci, Strozzi, and Salvatore, and Cherubino Waesich’s works for the “Concerto delle Viole Barberini”.

So much so that in publishing his 1660 Fugues et Caprices a quatre parties for keyboard, French organist

François Roberday even commented that a further advantage of having keyboard works in an open score

is that whenever one wishes to play them with viols or other such instruments, one already finds each

performer’s part conveniently detached.

Indeed, the viol consort had been the ‘instrument’ par excellence since the 16th century for its ability

to render transparent even the most complex of polyphonies, and it had only just left the scene to the

modern virtuoso baroque orchestra. And our choice of combining the violin (a da braccio instrument)

with the members of the da gamba family falls perfectly within both the German musical tradition, most

notably of Buxtehude, as well as the English, with William Lawes’s broken consorts and sonatas for violin,

bass viol, and organ. A choice which, through its various combinations, wishes to highlight the great

variety of thematic material Bach’s great work delivers, in an intimate performance we would like to think

as “scientific” in nature as Die Kunst der Fuga itself: the recapitulation of the glorious traditions of both

a past compositional technique and performance practice. One that, then as much as today, echoes the

magic of a lost sound.

Alberto Rasi & Accademia Strumentale Italiana

The Accademia Strumentale Italiana was founded in Verona with the specific purpose of recreating

the atmospheres of those ancient and illustriuos academies, where the pleasure of meeting one another

gave a special flavour to making music together. Its repertoire encompasses instrumental and vocal music

ranging from the Renaissance to the Baroque, performed according to strict philological canons, but

without compromising its ability to comunicate with the present: its musicians are convinced that even if

the score is ancient, Music is always timeless.

The Accademia has performed extensively in Europe and has been invited to several international festivals

where it has always met with widespread critical acclaim. The members of the Accademia are all renowned

specialists in HIP and work together with some of the most famous European ensembles.

Since 1993 the Accademia has recorded mainly for Stradivarius and DIVOX, collecting prizes and awards

from the specialized press (Midem Classical Award 2007 with the CD Dolcissimo Sospiro). With the

recording of Die Kunst der Fuga started a collaboration with the Dutch label Challenge Records.

Alberto Rasi is the group’s musical director; the ensemble is currently composed of a consort of viols,

who are joined by guest artists invited to partake in larger projects.

Alberto Rasi, veronese, after his studies in Double Bass and Composition, studied Viola da Gamba

and Violone at the Schola Cantorum Basel with Jordi Savall, and at the Conservatoire de Génève with

Ariane Maurette.

Since 1978, taking advantage of his training as a Double Bass player, he began playing both the viola da

gamba and violone, giving concerts and recordings with the most renowned groups.

In 1981 he co-founded Accademia Strumentale Italiana with the harpischordist Patrizia Marisaldi.

As soloist and with this ensemble he has given concerts throughout Europe and beyond. In 1992 he became

Artistic Director of this group and he has recorded several CDs for the Stradivarius label of Milan and various

others CD labels winning various prizes including: Diapason d’Or, 10 de Repertoire, Musica 5 Stars, Amadeus

and the Midem Classical Award 2007 in the category, Early Music.

He is currently teaching viola da gamba at the Conservatory of Verona.

In 1999 he founded the Baroque Orchestra of Verona, Il Tempio Armonico, which he conducts from the

violoncello, and with which he has recorded the complete orchestral music of the veronese Evaristo

Felice Dall’Abaco.

Recorded at: Nazareth Church, Verona, Italy

Recording dates: 10-13 September 2019

Recording producer: Andrea Dandolo

Sound Engineer: Filippo Lanteri (Audio Classica)

Editing: Alberto Rasi

A&R Challenge Classics: Marcel Landman & Valentine Laout

Liner notes: Luca Guglielmi

Translations: Lothar Banse

Cover photo: Barbara Rigon

Product coordination & booklet editing: Boudewijn Hagemans

Graphic Design: Natasja Wallenburg & Juan Carlos Villarroel

www.challengerecords.com / www.accademiastrumentale.it

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