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Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750)
Chromatic Fantasia
and
Fugue
in
C Minor
S. 903
A Performing
Edition
Transcribed for Organ by
Ennis Fruhauf
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chromatic
Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor stands as a landmark among his compositions
for clavier solo. Although it exists in numerous copied sources, the
autograph is lost, giving rise to considerable variation from one version to
another. While Bach himself might have been responsible for some of the
changes and alterations, this work has been reassembled from source scores
once owned and/or copied by C. P. E. Bach, J. G. Müthel, J. C. Kittel, and
others.
A unique challenge in the performance
of the fantasia can be found in the extended arpeggiated passages, notated
by half and quarter note chords. While not unusual in the body of Baroque
keyboard literature, such notation requires careful thought in terms of its
realization at the keyboard. The present edition for organ offers a detailed
and specific reconstruction of all improvisatorial sections, as well as
adding similar detailed suggestions for other arpeggiated chords throughout
the fantasia, and at the conclusion of the fugue. The few ornaments that
have been added can be identified as being variants of the predominant
source symbol, ‘tr.’
A pedal part has been included, but
it is applied sparingly to provide bass notes for certain chordal
progressions, as well as throughout the arpeggiated passagework of the
fantasia. Its use in the fugue is conservative, with the resulting effect
that the inherently keyboard-oriented nature of the composition is retained,
in strong contrast to Bach’s traditional idiomatic approach to writing for
organ solo.
One of the distinctive
characteristics of the fantasia and fugue lies in its remarkably chromatic
harmonic language, not only in the modulatory passages of the fantasia, but
in the actual pitches of the fugue subject as well. Also unusual is the
section of the fantasia marked ‘Recitativ,’ evocative as it is of
some of the more somber and angst-laden portions of numerous of his cantatas
and settings of the Passion of the Lord.
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