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In 1979, Dr. Alfred Dürr wrote the following: „The literature on Bach´s Art of Fugue has swollen to such proportions in the last decades that it is hardly to be kept track of...Observing the degree to which the findings of even the most distinguished researchers differ, one is almost tempted to write a satire on the subject...(but recent research has shown that) study of the sources is still capable of turning up new insights of far-reaching significance.“ Since then, the stream has continued to swell, but something more closely resembling a consensus has emerged. The many riddles surrounding Bach´s grand project seem to have been solved, the only remaining uncertainty being how he would have wrapped up the unfinished fugue. There are those unwilling to live even with this last question unanswered, and who have offered the world „reconstructions“ of the intentions of the Master, dead this quarter-millenium. Much new light has indeed been shed on this fascinating subject. I will first try, as briefly as possible, to bring those readers who may not have been keeping track up to speed, and subsequently offer an hypothesis which differs from the conventional wisdom in significant points. * Our understanding of the genesis of the Art of Fugue took a quantum leap in 1983 when Christoph Wolff showed that the Berlin Autograph (BA), a fair copy of fourteen movements, dates from the early 1740´s, thus driving a considerable chronological wedge between that source and the posthumous Original Edition (OE). Since then, the latter stands out clearly, despite its many confusing errors, as the result of a major revision, expansion, and rearrangement of material to a large extent previously composed, and thus takes on greater weight as a reflection of Bach´s final intentions up to Contrapunctus 13; but a series of movements follows this 3-part „mirror-fugue“ of which the majority clearly are out of order or superfluous: -Contrapunctus à 4, an earlier version of Cp.10 -Canon per Augmentationem in Contratio motu, also extant as a 3-page autograph Stichvorlage -Canon alla Ottava -Canon alla Decima (in) Contrapunto alla Terza -Canon alla Duodecima in Contrapunto alla Quinta -Fuga à 2 Clav. and Alio modo Fuga à 2 Clav., an arrangement for two keyboards of Cp.13 -an unfinished Fuga à 3 Soggetti, also extant in a separate, 5-page autograph MS -a Choral Prelude, Wenn wir in hoechsten Noethen (The question of whether the BA represents a completed first version need not concern us here.2) Previous to this, Wolfgang Wiemer had published a remarkable study of the OE3 wherein he made use of the fact that the engraving technique employed by the young Johann Heinrich Schübler, in the metalworking village of Zella in the Thuringian forest4, produced a near-facsimile of the Stichvorlage, a working-manuscript like the cartoon for a fresco, which perforce takes into account all aspects of order and layout. Wiemer was able to show that the first phase of the engraving consisted of Contrapuncti 11-13 and the four canons, from Stichvorlagen by Bach himself. This shows a high degree of concern on Bach´s part, stemming from bitter experience, about the accuracy of the engraving. The somewhat surprising back-to-front procedure probably was born of the fact that the novice Schübler could thus cut his teeth on the canons. Also, this block contained significant new compositions: the canons at the tenth and the twelfth, new versions of the other two canons, and possibly the two mirror-fugues (see note 2), as well as the revision of the biggest of the fugues, Cp.11. Bach would have been happy to have gotten all this fresh material off to the engraver, before tackling the revision of the earlier part of the cycle, to which he added another new composition, Cp.4. He then made a start with the remaining Stichvorlagen, getting as far as Cp.1,3,4, and the beginning of Cp.2, before breaking off and delegating the rest of this relatively mechanical work to various scribes from his inner circle. He was forced to this expedient in all likelihood by a sudden deterioration in his eyesight, which Prof. Kobayashi dates to August, 1748.5 In the same year as Wiemer´s publication, Gregory Butler presented a paper6 showing that, in his initial shipment of Stichvorlagen to Schübler, Bach had left a six-page gap, to be filled in later by a new composition, between Cp.13 (the second mirror-fugue) and the group of canons. The editors of the OE, faced after Bach´s death with the already-numbered plates for the closing group of canons, decided to fill the gap by renumbering the Augmentation Canon (which lost its logical place at the end of the group of four) and inserting the early version of Cp.10 (which of course has no place in the later cycle; nor do the version of Cp.13 for two harpsichords and the closing chorale). The unfinished fugue, understandably but incorrectly, was placed at the end. Butler, and most other writers7, see the unfinished fugue as having been intended for the gap of six pages. But everyone seems to agree that, in its final phase following the five pages it now occupies, Bach planned for its three themes to be joined by the Main Theme in its original form, thus crowning the cycle with a quadruple fugue, and lending a da capo aspect to the overall form; a cue taken from the Goldberg Variations. It is where this idea raises its seductive head that I part ways with the communis opinio. * A layout for the Art of Fugue8 of extraordinary simplicity and symmetry presents itself when a Cp.14 is postulated between the mirror-fugues and the canons - the position of the six-page gap:
The most obvious articulation in this scheme is that between the 14 Contrapuncti and the four canons. It will not be putting too much of a strain on readers with a healthy skepticism in matters of number-symbolism to mention that the number fourteen is generally thought to be Bach´s signature. The four two-voice canons look like an echo of the four Duetti at the end of Clavierübung III, convincingly shown by R.A. Leaver as representing the four moments for daily prayer at home prescribed in Luther´s „Small Catechism“9. Bach seems to be putting himself in the position of a supplicant to the Almighty, like the portrait of a donor in an altar-painting. On another level, the groups are laid out like a baroque facade, in alternating fours and threes. The central group (flanked by a total of fourteen movements) is given extra emphasis: its corner- columns, as it were, are the two triple fugues, Cp.8 and Cp.11, both of which use the same themes in inversion, one of them being B-A-C-H in disguise. Other symmetries and number relationships present themselves on further study, but it is perhaps best not to belabor the point. The unfinished fugue, whether or not it was intended as a quadruple fugue with the Main Theme, does not, in any convincing way, fit into the group with the two mirror-fugues. But there are two fascinating clues that the perfect Cp.14 had at least an embryonic existence. One is found in the obituary, known as the Nekrolog, published in 1754 in Mizler´s Musikalische Bibliothek10. Here is the much-quoted, relevant passage, from the list of Bach´s works: Die Kunst der Fuge. Dies ist das letzte Werk des Verfassers, welches alle Arten der Contrapuncte und Canonen, über einen eintzigen Hauptsatz enthält. Seine letzte Krankheit, hat ihn verhindert, seinem Entwurfe nach, die Vorletzte Fuge völlig zu Ende zu bringen, und die letzte, welche 4 Themata enthalten und nachgehends Note für Note umgekehret werden sollte, auszuarbeiten. (The Art of Fugue. This is the author´s last work, which contains all types of Fugues and Canons on a single theme. His final illness prevented him from carrying his plans to completion. The penultimate fugue was not altogether finished, and the last, which was to have four themes and subsequently be inverted (umgekehret) note for note in all four voices, was not worked out.) The passage dovetails with a somewhat cryptic note, thought to be in the hand of Johann Christoph Altnikol, on the back of the last page of the unfinished fugue: „und einen anderen Grund Plan“: „and (there is also) another Grundplan“11. (illustration 1) This brief message from Bach´s son-in-law and former student has been variously interpreted, but it seems obvious to this writer that Altnikol is using a synonym for Grundriss, which Marpurg, in his authoritative Abhandlung von der Fuge, defines thusly: Alle die verschiedenen Sätze, die untereinander verbunden werden sollen, müssen, bevor man sich an die Arbeit machet, erstlich nach den Regeln des doppelten Contrapunkts zusammengesetzet werden ... Hiernach entwirft man den Grundriß der Wiederschläge in der Partitur. (All themes which are to be connected with one another must, before one commences work, first be put together according to the rules of invertible counterpoint...Subsequently one puts the groundplan of the later entrances into score.)12 The import of these two pieces of evidence is clear enough: the editors of the OE had in front them fragments of two separate fugues, and Altnikol´s note is a warning not to overlook what may have been a mere scrap of paper. The one „not altogether finished“ we have, but what was the last fugue, the one „not worked out“ but existing only as a Grundplan, of which no trace remains? The remarkable thing about it, according to the Nekrolog, was that all four voices were to be „subsequently inverted note for note“. This points clearly to the missing member of the group of mirror-fugues. Cp.12 and 13 are, of course, given in two versions in both BA and OE, although the OE sacrifices, in all likelihood under the exigencies of printing, the beautiful „synoptic“ layout of the BA., and gives the inversus versions „nachgehends“15. (Confusingly in both modern English and German, „inversion“ and „Umkehrung“ can both mean either invertible counterpoint (the preferred modern German for which is Stimmtausch) or melodic inversion (Gegenbewegung). But in eighteenth-century parlance, Umkehrung means only the former.16) A three-page fugue where SATB become, nachgehends, BTAS, would be a perfect fit for the 6-page gap for two reasons: 1) Cp. 12 is a true „mirror-fugue“: not only the order of the voices is mirrored, but their melodic lines as well. On the other hand, Cp.13, known as the „3-voice mirror fugue“, is no such thing. It is, rather, a dizzying hybrid, a trait d´union between two complementary models of Umkehrung, Cp.12 and the postulated Cp.14: its voices are first shuffled - SAB becomes BSA - and only then are the lines melodically inverted. The proposed group-arrangement à4-à3-à4 is symmetrical, and a microcosm of the cycle. 2) Such a Cp.14 would be an hommage to Bach´s greatest mentor, Dietrich Buxtehude. The latter´s „Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfahrt“ has often been pointed out as one of the most significant antecedents of the Art of Fugue. Bach would be duplicating the technique of one of the two settings of the chorale „Mit Fried' und Freud' fahr' ich dahin“ which Buxtehude entitles Contrapunctus, and follows with an inverted Evolutio. But this seed of a worthy Cp.14 never germinated and grew. Instead, we are left wondering what to think about the unfinished fugue, a magnificent torso, but a Fremdkörper in the cycle. * The first step towards a true understanding of this piece is the relinquishment of a cherished and almost universally held myth: that the Main Theme fits in with the existing three, thus furnishing the makings of a quadruple fugue17. I will list my objections to this old canard18 in extenso, since it seems to me the single most salient error still current in Bach scholarship. They fall into two categories: technical weaknesses and stylistic anomalies. (Ex.1)  1) The third bar of Ex.1 is a fearful congeries of dissonances and parallels. Bach sometimes goes amazingly far in such things, but this is a blot of improbable ugliness on such an exposed location in an exemplary work19. 2) It leads, on the first beat of bar four, to what looks like an F major triad with no fifth and a doubled major third. The latter weakness, though frequently frowned upon, is certainly not mortal; but the former comes in for heavy criticism from German Baroque theoreticians, who share Bach´s love of full harmony. To name just two examples: Burmeister20 condemns the omission of a member of the trias harmonica, and gives it a typically half-Greek, half-Latin rhetorical label: Elleimma conjugati. Werckmeister21 arranges chords into three degrees of acceptability, but such monstrosities as this one don´t even make it into the third rank, which is already bad enough in the author´s eyes to merit the following excoriation: „Der Grund worauf die Harmonia beruhet wird verschwächet, und die Zweige der Würtzel wovon die Harmonia gleichsam ihre Nahrung hat werden weggerissen, daher sie nicht so gut sein kann als sie sein sollte, und kommt so zu reden alles aus der Ordnung.“ („The ground upon which the harmony stands is weakened, and the branches of the roots from which the harmony, as it were, takes its nourishment, are ripped away, so that it is not as good as it ought to be, and everything collapses, so to speak, in disorder.“) 3) The harmonies in bars 1, 2, and 4 are too bald, boring and slow-moving. There are other technical details about which one could quibble, but the point is this: with the free fourth voice in the MS, none of these objections arise in the first place - all is consummate elegance. (Ex. 2)  As to stylistic objections: 1) It is Bach´s norm to have multiple themes enter consecutively, but not for one to end before the others. The Main Theme is absent for the final 1/3 of Nottenbohm´s Grundplan. 2) Theme I and the Main Theme are far too similar. Contrast between themes is a solid principle of this composer, except sometimes in early works. 3) To bring this putative quadruple fugue to a conclusion following Bach´s practice, the following must still take place: development of Themes I-III together, exposition of the Main Theme, development of Themes I-IV together. There is no space left for all this in the single page remaining for this already very long fugue (longer again by 1/3 compared to its closest rivals, Cp.8 and Cp.11, the „pillars“ of the cycle´s layout). 4) Aside from problems of space and relative length, any further developments would be aesthetically impossible and grotesquely anti-climactic after the tremendous non-thematic pre-peroratio in bars 229-232, with its pedal-point, five cadences, and eschatological rhetoric. After this, surely all that remains is to develop Themes I-III, and add a fitting coda; just right for one page of 50 bars at the most. 5) The configuration of the four themes in Ex. 1 is one of the very few that work to any extent at all, or are even playable. This fact ought to arouse suspicion, since the point of multiple themes is to be able to show them in a respectable number of combinations. To my knowledge, Bach never wrote a four-voice quadruple fugue, probably because even he would have needed a free voice or two to solve the problems arising in quadruple counterpoint (this may have been one of the problems that stumped him on the lost Grundplan). The closest he comes to such a miracle are three-voice works in triple counterpoint like the A major Prelude in Book I and F-sharp minor Fugue in Book II of Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, or the F minor Sinfonia. Contemplating his Grundplan, Nottenbohm says, „Dies kann kein Werk des Zufalls sein.“ (This cannot be the result of coincidence.) In this he is quite correct, although not in the way he meant it. Given that, as we shall presently see, Theme I and II are variants of the Main Theme, it is really not that surprising that the Main Theme can almost be squeezed into this fertile contrapuntal environment, so carefully prepared in advance by Bach for just such combinations. Much is made of the quavers from the Main Theme in bar four; it is thought that they fit so well that all possible doubt as to the rest ought to be silenced. But of themselves they fit in at various other places in the Grundplan of this triple fugue, so their fitting so nicely into bar four is no particular justification for overlooking all the other glaring faults enumerated here. But the critical faculties are all too quickly suspended when a scholar smells a scoop, and once established, a theory takes on an almost ineradicable life of its own. The extent to which good people have been blinded by a chimera is shown by the numerous „completions“ of the Fuga à 3 Soggetti, as the editors of the OE correctly entitled the unfinished fugue. Aside from the highly questionable wisdom and taste of such an enterprise, the results, often so prominently published, are always lamentable. And the crux towards which they so earnestly strive - the return of the Main Theme after so much development and change - always ends up sounding puny and futile in the shadow of Bach´s immense edifice. * The unfinished triple fugue is sufficiently interesting without the Main Theme being dragged in by its heels, and the piece´s plan and significance are clear and momentous enough, if not, perhaps, worked out with the same diligence as the rest of the cycle. The similarity of Theme I and the Main Theme mentioned above is intentional; the editors, and everyone before Nottenbohm, saw the one for what it obviously is - a variant of the other. But I am not aware of it having been previously pointed out that Theme II continues the Main Theme to its conclusion. From the exact point where Theme I breaks off being the Main Theme and becomes, instead, an armature for Theme III (B-A-C-H), Theme II practically takes us by the hand and leads us on an extended variation in quavers of the second part of the Main Theme. (Ex. 3)  The gematric explanation for the surpising length of this excursion would be that it contains 41 notes, a number also often thought to be a signature (J9+ S18 +BACH14), and the reverse of 1422. The unfinished fugue - the only possible candidate remaining for a Cp.14, which the editors of the OE mistakenly saw as „die Vorletzte Fuge“ - is the only one of the cycle where the Main Theme is split in two and then varied, after the manner of the old variation ricercar. Perhaps one of the artistic statements impicit here is a reference to the character of the Art of Fugue as a whole: that of a gigantic variation ricercar23. It is also striking that, at the junction of the three themes, Theme II takes the lead, reversing the order of events as the bisected Main Theme passes by one last time, just before the MS breaks off. This brings to mind the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 19, verse 30: „But many who were first shall be last; and the last shall be first.“ Whether this is intentional is a subject for mere speculation, but Bach did send a similar message on one of the sources of the canon BWV 107624, where it is inscribed „Christus Coronabit Crucigeros“ - „Christ will crown the crossbearers“. Bach had a life behind him on the whole rather closer to hell than to heaven, and knew perfectly well that he deserved more recognition in this vale of tears than he had ever received. Whether his expectation of a celestial reward for his labors on earth is expressed in the layout of Cp.14 is a question to which the present writer will venture no answer. * What circumstances could have driven Bach to abandon his original plan for Cp.14, destroy the beautifully symmetrical group of what might best be called „inversion-fugues“, and substitute a triple fugue of largely symbolic significance? An answer is again suggested by the sources. The reader is asked first to consider these two points: 1) The MS of the Fuga à 3 Soggetti is the only composing-MS from the whole project to have survived25. Its handwriting definitely belongs to the very last period of Bach´s life - of this I am assured by Prof. Yoshitake Kobayashi, whose source-studies have been so valuable, especially for the chronology of Bach´s later life26. But in a recent conversation, he could give me no explanation for the lightness, clarity and security of the script in this fugue, which contrasts strangely with other late documents, where the strokes of Bach´s pen are massive, thick, sometimes shaky; obviously the work of one whose sight was failing. 2) We now know that the Nekrolog was wrong about the Art of Fugue being Bach´s last major work, which was, in fact, the completion of the B minor Mass, his only missa tota. The final phase of this almost life-long project produced a considerable number of new compositions, including masterpieces like the Confiteor. He turned to this solemn duty when his vision suddenly deteriorated in August 1748, delegating the work on the Stichvorlagen and postponing Cp.14 for work of a higher priority. Some of these late MSS for the Mass look as though they were written very shortly indeed before complete blindness set in, during October 1749. After this long decline to final catastrophe, how could Bach, returning at some point to the task of filling the six-page gap, have produced such a clear MS as that of his Ersatz Cp.14? Let us consider what the Nekrolog has to say about Bach´s last days: „Zehn Tage vor seinem Tode schien es sich gähling mit seinen Augen zu bessern; so daß er einsmals des Morgens ganz gut wieder sehen, und auch das Licht wieder vertragen konnte. Allein, wenige Stunden darauf, wurde er von einem Schlagfluße überfallen; auf diesen erfolgte ein hitziges Fieber, an welchem er, ungeachtet aller möglichen Sorgfalt zweyer der geschicktesten Leipziger Aertzte, am 28. Julius 1750, des Abends nach einem Viertel auf 9 Uhr, im sechs und sechzigsten Jahre seines Alters, auf das Verdienst seines Erlösers sanft und seelig verschied.“ (Ten days before his death his eyes seemed to improve gradually, such that, one morning, he could see quite well, and bear the light. But a few hours later he suffered a stroke; there followed an acute fever, of which, in spite of all possible care taken by two of Leipzig´s best doctors, he died, by the grace of his Saviour quietly and blessedly, at 8:15 PM on July 28, 1750, in his sixty-sixth year.) I see only one possible solution to the last riddle: the Fuga à 3 Soggetti was written down in those „few hours“, some short time before his death, from a new Grundplan already ripened in Bach´s mind, perhaps while hope grew for a restoration of his sight. The handwriting is certainly that of someone who could „see quite well“. The loose, quasi-improvisatory character of the first exposition seems almost like the finger-exercises of a long-inactive composer; its rather prima prattica style may reflect his recent preoccupation with the B-minor Mass. The fugue gains rapidly in density and force as it develops the next two themes. But then, as the combination of the three themes approaches, the most banal of problems arises: Bach runs out of paper. He had only four sheets of previously-prepared oblong music-paper left27, and when he got that far, had to rule a fifth. He practiced the process, grown unfamiliar after months of blindness and ill-health, on the backs of page four, and of the blank sheet which became the fifth and final page. (illustration 2) The job went well enough at first, but as his hand stiffened up, he spoiled the bottom of the new page. (illustration 3) Bach continued composing up to the Grundplan of his triple fugue, but with markedly deteriorated handwriting. He then broke off, and went back for a first round of corrections. I suspect that what he saw disappointed him. The most significant correction is at bars 110 to 115, where this almost skeletal transition to Theme II (Ex. 4)  is given immensely higher rhetorical power and harmonic complexity, more in line with the rest of the cycle: (Ex. 5)  The revision, in German tablature at the bottom of the page, looks very shaky indeed. (illustration 4) It seems possible that this falling gesture in the obsolete notation of his boyhood now adorning the first entrance of Theme II was his final thought before the stroke hit him. If all this is true, C.P.E. Bach´s inscription on the last page, usually relegated to legend, may not have been that wide of the mark: „ NB Ueber dieser Fuge, wo der Nahme BACH im Contrasubjekt angebracht worden, ist der Verfasser gestorben.“ (N.B. The author died over this fugue, where the name BACH appears in the contersubject.) Some writers go so far as to accuse Emmanuel Bach of baldly lying about this - a heavy accusation ideed, given the seriousness of the subject. What conceiveable motivation could he have had for such a disgraceful action? It seems far more likely to me that this crucial piece of evidence, inserted by J.S. Bach's second son into the autograph of what I would argue is his last work, should be inaccurate only to the measure of the few hours that elapsed between the stroke, which was in fact mortal, and the actual time of death. * The foregoing hypothesis has, I think, at least the merit of giving a plausible place to all the scraps of information in the sources, and even that of according them a little more credibility than previous theories have allowed. The only error it ascribes to those entrusted with divining Bach´s intentions is that of over-inclusiveness. In this, they erred on the side of caution. To summarize: the sketcy evidence we possess leads me to conclude that Bach, whose „industry“, as the Nekrolog says , „must have been unremitting“, finding himself given, towards the end of the month of July, 1750, a reprieve from darkness of unknown duration, went to his long-deserted Componierstube to finish the job of work set aside for the Catholische Messe. Daunted, after his long illness, by the formidable task of „working out“ his original Grundplan, he decided to fill, while he still could, the six waiting copper plates with a triple fugue which, if not the cycle´s best or most complex, was its longest and most archaic; a farewell to his Art, claimed for his own name and that of his family line not only in bold chromatic minims, but also with multiple signatures in the mystic language of numbers. It was his relentless, always-revising perfectionism - the very quality which raised him so far above the rest - that killed him, and thus prevented his carrying to its final destination the heaviest burden ever taken up by a composer of music. NOTES („Bach Dokument“ refers to the sequentially numbered documents published by Bärenreiter in three volumes between 1963 and 1972.) ___________________________________________________________________________________ 1 Neue Forschungen zu Bachs Kunst der Fuge, Die Musikforschung, Vol. 32 (1979), p.156. 2 Pieter Dirksen, in his admirable Studien zur Kunst der Fuge von J.S. Bach (Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel Verlag/Heinrichshofen Bücher,1994), adduces evidence that the two mirror-fugues, Cp.12 and 13, were added some years later. A conversation in 1996 with Mr. Dirksen stimulated me to read his book. Finding myself much enlightened, but also in doubt about some of the author´s conclusions, I decided to find out what I really thought, and presented the findings contained herein at a lecture at the Musikhochschule in Würzburg, January 2000. 3 Wolfgang Wiemer, Die wiederhergestellte Ordnung in Johann Sebastian Bachs Kunst der Fuge - Untersuchungen am Originaldruck (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1977). 4 The Schübler brothers spent most of their time engraving decorations on the luxury firearms for which Zella was famous. This explains the resemblance of the floral ornaments in the OE to such work. 5 5. Prof. Yoshitake Kobayashi, Zur Chronologie der Spätwerke Bachs - Kompositions- und Aufführungstätigkeit von 1736 bis 1750. Bach Jahrbuch 74 (1988). 6 Published in Musical Quarterly 69 (1983) as Ordering Problems in J.S.Bach´s „Art of Fugue“ Resolved. 7 Christoph Wolff, as far as I know, still rejects Butler´s findings, holding to the view that the unfinished fugue, which he believes to have been completed on a lost „Fragment X“, belongs at the end of the cycle. See his edition (Peters 1987) and the various publications noted there. The following will show why I cannot agree with Prof. Wolff, but I would like to add here that his „Fragment X“ theory presupposes an extraordinary degree of stupidity on the part of the editors of the OE. Admittedly, they made major mistakes, groping in the dark about Bach´s intentions, but the idea that they would not recognize beginning and end of the same piece seems incredible. 8 A layout of 59 pages. 5+9=14. 9 Bach´s „Clavierübung III“: some historical and theological Considerations. Organ Yearbook, Vol. VI (1975). 10 Bach-Dokument 666. According to an attractive theory advanced by Hans Gunter Hoke (Neuen Studien zur „Kunst der Fuge“ BWV 1080, Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 17, 1975), the Art of Fugue was to be Bach´s third and final statutory contribution to Mizler´s Societät der musikalischen Wissenschaften, of which Bach was the 14th member. 11 The words in parentheses are implied by the accusative case-endings. 12 Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Abhandlung von der Fuge..., 1. Teil (Berlin, 1753), 131-2. 13 It was probably the fifteen-year-old Johann Christian, who was also very likely involved in the production of Stichvorlagen (see Wiemer, op.cit.), who brought the bundle of papers to Berlin when he went to live with Philipp Emanuel after the breakup of the Leipzig household. Friedemann signed both the protocols of inventory and division of his father´s estate with power of attorney for Philipp Emanuel, who seems not to have been able to get away from his duties at the Prussian court. (Bach Dokumente 627 and 628). 14 Had Altnikol merely been referring, as is often assumed, to the difference in order between OE and BA, he surely would have used different wording, and made his remark elsewhere. The back of the last page of the unfinished fugue, kept in a separate folder from the main MS, would be the place to note the existence of another fragment. 15 Whether it reverses the order of rectus and inversus, as has been persuasively argued, is another question that need not concern us here. 16 For a list of sources proving this point, see the article by Ulrich Siegele, Wie unvollständig ist Bach´s „Kunst der Fuge“? in the Bericht über die wissenschaftliche Konferenz zum V. Internationalen Bachfest der DDR... (Leipzig, 1988). 17 Wether the Grundplan actually showed four Themeta to be developed in a proper quadruple fugue, as the authors of the Nekrolog surmised, is open to doubt. One or more of the lines in such a sketch could well have been free counterpoint. 18 The combination was first argued in 1871 by the Beethoven scholar and close friend of Brahms, Gustav Nottenbohm. The counterpoint resulting from this „discovery“ may have been good enough for Brahms, or even Beethoven, but not for Bach. 19 Kirnberger, in Die Kunst des reinen Satzes, quotes many unusual turns in Bach´s works, but warns repeatedly, almost frantically, against trying to imitate the freedoms taken by „men of the first rank“. Bach Dokument 767. 20 Musica Poetica, Rostock 1606, English translation by Benito V. Rivera (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1993) 21 Harmonologia musica, Frankfurt and Leipzig 1702, quoted in Rolf Damman, Der Musikbegriff im deutschen Barock (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2nd Ed.1984), 48. 22 One final number, and I will try the reader´s patience no more: the third theme, B-A-C-H, enters in bar 194. 1+9+4=14. 1 (3x3) 4. 23 Forkel calls the work „Variationen im Großen“ (J.N. Forkel, Über Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke, Leipzig 1802, edited W. Vetter, Berlin 1974). 24 Bach Dokument 174, the Stammbuch of a Leipzig student-musician. The canon is a revision of BWV 1087/11, one of the cycle of 14 on the bass-line of the Goldberg Variations. 25 The last trace of the numerous missing MSS is a note by C.P.E. Bach, now lost but formerly part of the BA: „Herr Hartmann hat das eigentliche“ - „(the publisher Traugott) Hartmann has the actual material“. (Mentioned in Wolff, Zur Chronologie und Kompositionsgeschichte von Bachs Kunst der Fuge, Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 25, 1983) This could refer to the composition MSS of the early or late version, a fair copy of the latter, the Stichvorlagen (none of which survive except that for the Augmentation Canon), or more than one of these. If Philipp Emanuel had been just a little more irresponsible with his inheritance, there might be no BA at all. See, in this connection, his sheepish apology in Bach Dokument 793. 26 See his seminal article mentioned in note 5. 27 The watermark, as is that of the final page, is singular, and thus of no help in dating. |