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Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750)
Fugue
in
C
Minor,
S.
562
[Fragment]
Continuation and Termination by
Ennis Fruhauf
Notes
Johann Sebastian Bach’s
organ fugue
fragment in C minor, S. 562, is but one of a number
of his works that has not survived intact; only the first 27 measures have been preserved in manuscript form.
The compositional style of S. 562 is
not typical of Bach’s idiomatic writing for the organ: in particular, the
fugue’s countersubject is not readily adaptable to pedal, unlike a majority of his other organ fugue subjects. The
polyphonic approach itself includes occasional overlapping and
crossing of voices that would be more likely to occur in ensemble repertory
than in solo literature. The subject of the fugue is notable, however, in
its use of a chain of syncopations, a trait characteristic of Bach’s
writing. Also notable: in its melodic inversion, the subject presents the
first six notes of the theme of Bach’s organ Passacaglia in C minor (which
was in turn, drawn from the first half of the Christe movement from André
Raison’s Organ Mass in D minor).
S. 562 presents a serious challenge
as a reconstruction project, a fanciful one at that in that there are few
guideposts to suggest what Bach himself might originally have written or
where he might have left off and never revisited the page. The continuation
and termination presented here include the introduction of a contrasting
second countersubject, inversion of the fugue subject itself, stretto
presentations of the subject and second countersubject, a brief cadenza, and
a concluding cadential subject statement.
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