c. 1726/7?, fugue unknown copyist), P 837 (c. 1829, probably from another source).
Two staves; title in P 804 ‘Praeludium in A. cum Pedale’. Mistakes in P 804 suggest that the Prelude’s source was tablature (KB pp. 474–5).
It used to be supposed that the ‘early version’, BWV 536a, was later ‘re-worked’ in Weimar where pedal e was available (Keller 1948 p. 81) and remade with a ‘more lively organism’ (Spitta I p. 581), i.e. better use of note-patterns. More likely, however, is that BWV 536a is neither an early nor an authentic version, but rather a later arrangement made by L. Scholz (see BWV 536a).
Because, as Spitta noted, its fugue-subject is somewhat like that of the opening ‘Concerto’ of Cantata 152 (1714), BWV 536 used to be dated 1715–17 (e.g. Besseler 1955) – described as melodious, like a minuet or forlana (Krey 1956 p. 191), and inspiring similar counterpoint. But the re- semblances are too slight to indicate date (KB p. 473), nor need the date of a vocal piece indicate the date of an instrumental. Similarly, pedal compass
with or without eand C is no reliable indication of time and place, since one cannot know what the composer wrote or how literally in practice any notation was followed. Here, the Prelude’s construction suggests an earlier date (with the decorated chords, pedal points, modest length of a North German toccata) than the Fugue’s (fully fledged ritornello), but this too is inconclusive.
P 804’s having two copyists has led to the idea that BWV 536 contains a Bach prelude copied by Kellner, with a fugue by someone else (Kellner himself? – Humphreys 2000 p. 39). As with BWV 534, hypotheses are based on identifying ‘weaknesses’ in harmony, counterpoint or modu- lation. Perhaps the lightness and charm of both movements reflect its composer’s familiarity with a certain toccata and passacaglia of Bernardo Pasquini, associated in a lost MS with BWV 536 and once said to have been copied by Bach (Beisswenger 1992 p. 57). A different conjecture is that the Prelude once belonged to a Praeludium of four sections, like BWV 566.
Prelude
Open broken chords were typical of keyboard preludes in major keys, from Buxtehude’s Prelude in D major BuxWV 139 to mature works of Bach (BWV 541). The opening ten bars have the conventional harmonies of a pedal point spread over a large canvas (5/3, then 6/4, then 7/4/2 etc), and as convention required in this bland spectrum, the first chromatic tone is the dominant leading-note (b. 11). Pedal points frame the movement as in BWV 534 or 535, with various keyboard patterns across bb. 15–27, in the concentrated manner of J. S. Bach – for example, there seems the making of a fugue over bb. 14–18.
There is a certain glowing, lyrical ton here, familiar in praeludia in bright keys by Bach (E major) and Buxtehude (BuxWV 151, 141). The opening arpeggio, which informs the piece from first bar to last, is of a kind found in J. K. F. Fischer’s Blumenstrauss (Example 28), but more open to pleasing development. Such figures go on appearing in chorales, as in BWV 651a. The resulting feel of the prelude, with its wide tessitura, occasional playfulness (bb. 5–10) and dance-like suspensions in bb. 15–27, is brighter than that of BuxWV 139.
58 BWV 536
A tablature origin would explain why the pedal-lines of the prelude in both versions are unclear as to (a) when the pedal plays, (b) at which octave. Perhaps players were given some licence in both respects?
Fugue
1–41 first dominant answer tonal, second real; countersubject 41–65 ‘false stretto’; tonal answer 49 answered en taille; ‘rocking’
figure
65–85 ‘false stretto’; tonal answer, answered in the bass 85–110F minor, B minor, first with ‘rocking’ figure 110–36 entry and answer in D; episodes
136–53 closer 2-part stretti; tonic in b. 145 153–82 final entry (pedal); coda on scale pattern
The entry in (e.g.) b. 69 is disguised, and only gradually is it clear that this is not merely an episode stretto. An overall shape is
A 1–45 B 45–153 C 153–82
in which B is characterized by pseudo-stretto, the last of which (from b. 136) is at one bar not two bars. The original countersubject is hinted at before it returns above the final entry, and the ‘rocking’ countersub- ject is useful in the quasi-episode from b. 115. If the fugue-subject really is derived from bb. 14–16 of the Prelude (bass) and its coda modelled on the Prelude’s first half, then indeed one might claim that ‘virtually all the thematically significant material in the prelude returns in the fugue’ (Humphreys 2000) – which would be unusual for the period, probably unique.
This is an original fugal conception, with a smooth, effortless counter- point treating the subject almost as an ostinato, an impression heightened by the fugue’s rhythm and persistent eight-bar phrase. Although the work’s invention has been called ‘minimal’, merely fourteen variations on a sub- ject (Humphreys 2000 p. 33), many players agree with Spitta in hearing a ‘wonderful intensity’ in the sustained three- and four-part counterpoint (I p. 581), where entries have a more singing quality than even those of BWV 535 or 578. An unusual effect overall is given by the constant series of thirds and sixths, brought about in part by elementary stretti and pretty dance-like cadences (bb. 76, 88, 114, 122, 181), more fluent than those of the tight permutation fugue in Cantata 152. The particular flavour of such bars as 60–70 is unusual and, like the non-stop quavers, rather like the moments
between cantus firmus phrases in many an organ-chorale. The short final chord suggests a strong rallentando.
Altogether, the A major Fugue is far more original than its unassuming lyricism might at first suggest, and neither the canon at b. 136 nor the inner thirds at bb. 146ff. would be out of place in the Ob. Of course, much of this could result from a skilled pupil’s adoption of techniques learnt from Bach works, and the argument for or against authenticity is difficult to take further. For the player, a further question concerns manual-changing, which is entirely practical here: the episodes are such that changing is effortless, even to a third manual during one of them (b. 123).