Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: This article focuses on a pattern of harmony and voice leading that appears, elaborated, in several fugue expositions (and generically related passages) by J. S. Bach. I contextualize this pattern in examples of “schematic” Baroque fugal writing and suggest that for Bach it functions as a sort of “proto-theme,” with respect to which certain expositions stand as “variations.” These expositions eschew normative I–V–I progressions ofStufenand thus offer a challenge to William Renwick’s exhaustive methodology for fugue analysis. Bach’s variations may respond motivically and energetically to a sense of retrogression implicit the proto-theme, as I demonstrate with an analysis of the Fugue in A minor from Book II ofThe Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 889.
Source: Music Theory Online
DOI: 10.30535/mto.26.4.7
Author: John S. Reef
Institution: Nazareth College
Language: English
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3119737073