Wolfgang Rübsam - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Art of Fugue, Vol. 1 (1993)

Posted By: ArlegZ

Date: Jan. 20, 2025

The fugue of the mature Baroque was the final flowering of Renaissance and Baroque polyphony. While most composers of Bach's generation had turned to other musical forms, Bach himself continued to write in "older" styles, and was to become the unchallenged master of the fugue. Die Kunst der Fuge was written during the last years of his life, and was being prepared for publication at the time of his death.
Though it was highly revered by later composers and in small circles of musicians, the work was not generally known to concert audiences until 1927, when it was performed at Bach's own Thomaskirche in Leipzig. This performance premiered an arrangement of the work by Wolfgang Graeser for orchestra, under the baton of Karl Straube. Graeser was under the impression that he had rediscovered a lost work. This fact, coupled with a lack of historical information concerning the work, led to a great deal of conjecture and speculation on the part of early 20th-century scholars.
Especially unfortunate for the work was the idea that, since Bach himself made no indications concerning performance medium, it was not intended for performance. Many scholars through the years tended to consider Die Kunst der Fuge little more than a didactic treatise, even referring to it as "eye music". This has resulted in it being among Bach's least-performed and least-known works. Yet, given Bach's well-documented practicality and his nature as a musician, it seems unimaginable that he would have conceived this or any of his works without performance in mind.
Many possibilities as to performance medium exist today, including arrangements of the work for instrumental ensembles not even known to Bach. Still, keyboard instruments offer the most stylistic and logical realization of the score. The organ, with its tonal colour possibilities, its ability to sustain the numerous pedal points in the work, and its obvious prominence in the composer's life, seems increasingly to be the best vehicle for performance of Die Kunst der Fuge.
Die Kunst der Fuge consists of fourteen "Contrapuncti" and four canons, all based on a single fugue subject or elaboration of it. An extremely wide range of contrapuntal types and styles is represented. From straightforward fugues in the earlier counterpoints, the work progresses through double and triple fugues (i.e., fugues with more than one subject) and mirror fugues (employing invertible counterpoint).
The final fugue, generally thought to have been left unfinished at Bach's death, is the torso of w hat appears to be, a quadruple fugue, combining four subjects. The first three of these are fully developed; Bach's manuscript trails off at the point where the fourth (probably the original) subject would have been introduced. Such a fugue would have been a major technical feat and a fitting close to so monumental a work.
Many questions still surround Die Kunst der Fuge. None of them need preclude today's listener the enjoyment of it as a musical masterwork demonstrating the highest achievement in fugal technique from the pen of its fines! master.
–Don H. Horisberger

Performer:
Wolfgang Rübsam, organ

Tracklist:
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue), BWV 1080 (excerpts)
01. Contrapunctus I
02. Contrapunctus II
03. Contrapunctus III
04. Contrapunctus IV
05. Contrapunctus XII (Canon all'ottava)
06. Contrapunctus V
07. Contrapunctus VI a 4 in Stylo Francese
08. Contrapunctus VII a 4 per Augmentationem et Diminutionem
09. Fuga a 3 Soggetti (Contrapunctus XIV)
10. Contrapunctus IX a 4 alla Duodecima
11. Contrapunctus X a 4 alla Decima
12. Contrapunctus VIII a 3
13. Contrapunctus XI
14. Contrapunctus XV (Canon alla Duodecima in contrapunto alla Quinta)

EAC LOG

Exact Audio Copy V1.6 from 23. October 2020

EAC extraction logfile from 19. January 2025, 11:52

Wolfgang Rübsam / Bach: The Art of Fugue, Vol.1

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