Chapter 30: Process as Meaning - Bach and Fugue+

instrumental music often includes a component of improvisation. this is why while some counterpoint based music can be understood as individual pieces, counter point is also a process

Keyboard instruments in the Baroque Era

  • keyboard instruments suited to polyphonic performances, featured in western music since the middle ages

  • 1600s — the organ and harpsichord were the main keyboard instruments of the baroque era

  • keyboard players improvised and created free form pieces called preludes and toccatas, followed by more structures works, such as Fugues

Harpsichord = differs from modern piano. strings are plucked, rather than hammers , tone cant be sustained like the modern ones. and how keys cannot produce the modern pianos extremes of loud and soft

Organ = created by German builders, 1600s - 1700s,

  • toccata or prelude = intro to fugue, instrumental following larger act. Both were designed to showcase the performers contrast


Fugue and its devices

  • fugue = contrapuntal composition, single theme (subject)

    1. exposition, presents 2 or more voices

    2. alternation between returns of the subject and contrasting musical ideas

  • entering voices in an instrumental line (one after other). Based on imitation

  • contrapuntal writing marked by number of devices used since polyphony

  • Augmentation = when subject is presented longer time values, twice as slow as original

  • Diminution = shorter time values that go by faster

  • retrograde = pitches can be stated backwards

  • Inversion = moving by same interval but in opposite directions

  • stretto = overlapping statements of the subject (heightens the tension)


    Bach’s Keyboard Fugues

  • Bach was most renowned for writing and improvising fugues for a solo keyboard

  • the well tempered clavier and the art of fugue are J.S Bach’s most comprehensive collections of contrapuntal writing ( well tempered clavier = 48 preludes and fugues) (art of fugue = last demonstration of contrapuntal mastery, explores all fugal devices)

  • among Bach’s many keyboard fugues the little fugue in g minor is his most popular

    • opening = minor triad

    • middle part repeats

    • end = picks up steam

    • final chord = major triad

  • A shift from minor to major a common feature in Baroque keyboard music

  • All of Bach’s keyboard music was designed to teach prospective students

  • worked whole life to refine fugal technique

  • no two fugues are alike.