BACH'S' 'THE ART OF FUGUE,'
Played by JAMES CHING
Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Fugues
HERE, towards the end of his work. Bach shows still more wonderful skill. He begins the Twelfth Fugue with the tune in this rhythm :
After treating this in a broadly-sweeping style, and coming to a clear resting-place, lie states the tune again, this time in inverted form, and again works it out fully with the same perfect facility and resource. the most remarkable thing about the feat being that the whole of the second half (not merely the tune) is an exact ' upside down ' version of the first half—just as if the first had been held up before a mirror ; and it is all done without in the least putting a damper on the music's spirits-or on ours.
The Thirteenth Fugue, in like manner, starts off. rather like No. 9, with an octave leap and n cavorting down the scale, three notes to a beat. This Fugue (in which we have hints of the melodic shape of the original tune of the set) likewise has its mirror-inversion, made without Haw or smudge.
Fugue Fourteen is described as a Variant of No. 10. It starts with the basic tune. in the rhythm in which we first met it in Fugue 5. The broken theme, with its phrase of three notes, which began Np. 10, enters here in the Bass, after the basic theme has been preached upon (so to speak), and a very clear and simple-sounding piece is made out of the two ideas.