BACH’S ‘ THE ART OF FUGUE'
Played by JAMES CHING and VICTOR HELY -
HUTCHINSON
First Fugue (for two
Pianofortes)
Second Fugue (for two Pianofortes)
Fifteenth Fugue (for one Pianoforte)
TWO of Bach's examples in The Art of Fugue were written for two
Pianofortes. They are amongst the liveliest of all in the set. Each uses :t different form of the same theme-one going up where the other goes down, and vice versa. In this bounding tune we find hints of the basic theme, though this covers more ground. It begins thus : (a) is the theme of the first Fugue, and (b) that of the second.
In each Fugue, when the second Pianoforte answers the first, it is with the tune upside down.
The most remarkable thing about these two-piano works is that throughout the second Fugue two of the four ' voices ' concerned reproduce, bar by bar, the music heard in the first Fugue, but in inverted form.
The Fifteenth Fugue has not, strictly, anything to do with the others in the Art of Fugue, in that it is not founded on the basic theme which Bach took for exposition. It was found in its unfinished state among his papers after his death, and his sons presumed that it was meant for The Art of Fugue.
It is a Fugue based on three tunes, lettered
(a), (b) and (c) below : :
. It will bo noticed that one of these gives the letters of Bach's name (the note B flat in German being called B; and B natural, H).
Each tune is worked out separately, and Bach left off just as he was apparently about to show how the three could be' combined and developed together.