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Re: GG - Wtc2 E major
Thanks for telling me this. Certainly, the WTCII E major fugue is my
favorite fugue (I play it on the piano myself), without a wasted note,
a stroke of musical genius. Gould and Bruno Monsaingeon I think even
said this was his favorite fugue. Although, I remember nothing about
Fisher's borrowed thematic subject.
Gould disagreed entirely with the bond between the prelude with this
fugue due to the time period differences. Being in the style of the renaissance,
the trio prelude accompanying is of the style of the early classical,
almost five hundred years of musical difference.
--
Sincerely,
Jonathan A. Feucht
feucht@bolt.com - email
(253) 503-2231 x8410 - voicemail/fax
---- Bradley P Lehman <bpl@UMICH.EDU> wrote:
> On Tue, 8 May 2001, Baldwin, Daniel wrote:
>
> > An excellent example of GG's Schoenbergian thinking is his
> analysis
> > of the E major fugue from WTC II in the video "An Art of the Fugue."
> I
> > recall him saying that the greatness of this fugue lies in the fact
> that
> > (among other things) "everything is material to the material." This
> ties in
> > more with the theory and practice of 12 tone music than it does with
> Bach.
>
> ...And it's interesting that this fugue's material was borrowed by
> Bach
> directly from JKF Fischer's _Ariadne Music_ (various copies exist from
> 1702/1710/1715), a direct predecessor of the WTC. Fischer in turn
> may
> have got the subject from Froberger. New piece, old cloth.
>
> The Fischer is a well-written little piece, too. (Track 13 at
> http://web02.hnh.com/scripts/newreleases/naxos_cat.asp?item_code=8.550964
> ) It's in "stile antico" and its notation is in white notes...so it's
> Fischer and Bach each doing something deliberately archaic in style,
> reminiscent of the 16th century!
>
> Was Gould aware of that history? (I haven't seen that video.) In
> his
> 1972 essay introducing an edition of WTC1 (see the _Reader_, p15) he
> mentions this piece from WTC2 and gives a few bars as a musical example.
> But all he says is: "Other fugues, like that in E major from volume
> 2,
> exhibit much the same sort of modulatory disinclination; and here so
> tenacious is Bach's loyalty to his six-note theme, and so diffident
> the
> modulatory program through which he reveals it to us, one has the
> impression that they intense and fervently anti-chromatic ghost of
> Heinrich Schutz rides again." So, clearly GG recognized the archaism,
> but
> did he have the Fischer thread?
>
>
> Bradley Lehman, Dayton VA
> home: http://i.am/bpl or http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl
> CD's: http://listen.to/bpl or http://www.mp3.com/bpl
>
> "Music must cause fire to flare up from the spirit - and not only sparks
> from the clavier...." - Alfred Cortot
>
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