Despite the "greatness" of yesterday's A flat major Fugue it is by no means perfect. That is to say, Bach made a small number of errors and the work is not without shortcomings in the form in which we have it. Let us list four of them:
Let us examine a few of these negative observations...
1) The transitional passage in the second half of bar twenty-seven and bar twenty-eight - containing a figure that in fact recalls the point where the final, incomplete section of the Art of Fugue breaks off - has here the function of a mere "space filler"; probably it marks the join between an earlier version of the work and a section added later. It could be done better and should be re-worked.
This does nothing more or less than was customary for Bach: having introduced a short
codetta into the exposition (bar 5, before the entry of voice 4), which he then expands and contrapuntally develops a little shortly afterwards (bars 10 to 13, preceding the entry of the Subject in the bass voice), his normal strategy is then to
take up this subsidiary idea (and its contrapuntal development) for further expansion during the main Episodes of the central part of the fugue. Now the first time this happens is your 'dreaded' bar 27, but he injects a further refinement at this point: added to what has already been earlier previewed, Bach now throws in a fragment of the opening figure of the Subject too! Again - I should have thought - we see here the workings of a mind that at every stage brings together differing fragments and ideas, but synthesizes them with great skill as part of the continuity and unfolding of yet another latent masterpiece ('latent' only because the piece is still at this point only
progressing).
2) On the first beat of bar forty we hear a C natural, but we long for a C flat! Bach was here finally over-stretching himself in his gropings upward was not he?
I don't - I have to say - 'long for a C flat' here, What Bach provides, as he colourfully inflects the mode from Ab Major to Ab
minor is a delightful upward scale using the 'melodic minor' (which at once provides the psychological link between the Major/Minor forms of Ab, while still being entirely melodic and dynamic).
3) In bar forty-four there is no real harmonic progression; it is another "filler" we suppose but in simply "marking time" it falls well below Bach's usual pungent standard.
I should ask you to listen more carefully to bar 44, because you have again failed to respond to Bach's subtle change of mode (as you did in the previous complaint) - and it is these changes of mode that make his music so interesting and expressive harmonically. So what does he do here?
Having decided, surely, that he wishes to build up block chords to approach and highlight (and indeed to dramatise) the closing section, he chooses a clever harmonic move, again via the 'tonic minor' mode, to approach a
Neapolitan Sixth in bar 45. The harmonic logic - and
tension - is articulated through this change of mode. (If you examine bar 44 you will see that far from having 'no real harmonic progression' this bar takes the music smoothly - using the chromatic idea that originated in the Countersubject - through the tonic minor to arrive in bar 45 at the startling and highly-charged harmony of the Neapolitan 6th).
4) The dreaded "Scotch snap" makes its ugly appearance half-way through bar forty-eight. That alto passage would certainly profit from a re-write would it not!
You really should not have these silly hang-ups Mr Grew! They get in the way of seeing what the composer is really up to. In this instance, by 'being annoyed' about the use of a 'Scotch snap' on beat 3, you have thereby failed to understand WHY it was used, and HOW it enhances the structure at that moment.
Inevitably, by having been 'annoyed' by the Alto movement on beat 3, you have failed (it seems) to notice that this is precisely where the final entry of the main theme is introduced in the 'Tenor' voice. The purpose of the 'Scotch snap' is only one of making the Alto voice at that moment move aside to clear the path for this Tenor theme. Furthermore, since this piece and its accompanying Prelude clearly (in my view) were written for the
harpsichord (which should have been clear to anybody listening to the opening of the Prelude with its spread repeated chords) Bach has merely at this point introduced a
spreading or 'arpeggiation' into the texture suitable entirely for the instrument itself. I do not hear your 'Scotch snap' as being of any actual rhythmic importance whatsoever.
I should say, on the basis of your enquiries, that you have made a 'good beginning' in understanding this fugue, but that perhaps you still have 'some way to go'. I feel sure, however, that eventually you will feel that the effort was entirely worthwhile.
Baz
