The inventio of a fugue is its subject, and this provides a microcosm of the whole piece, not only in its technical ingredients but also in its expressive nature. Mattheson discusses the thema in terms of small fragments chosen for their associations (1739 Part II Chapter 4 para.15; Butler 1977 pp.72–5). Since the subject appears first, every slightest detail contributes vitally to its character. The intervals of which it consists are therefore of the greatest expressive impor- tance. In fugues with one or more retained countersubjects, which complement and reinforce the expression of the subject, the whole block of invertible counterpoint may be considered the inventio (described by Dreyfus as ‘fugal complex’; 1996 Chapter 6).
Expression and character 81
Musicians of Bach’s time were very sensitive to the affective value of all musical ingredients, and there are many tables of intervals and their affects from which one may extract a general consensus (Wessel 1955 pp.87–8). The falling 3rd is melancholy and supplicative (Book II, C minor); the falling 4th is pathetic, doleful, grave and solemn (Book I, B flat minor); the rising 5th is bold and commanding (Book II, E flat major); the rising minor 6th is lamenting, mournful, suitable for exclamations (Book I, D minor). This last subject, which gradually unfolds the minor scale degrees, is in sharp contrast to that of the E flat major fugue of Book II which, after its bold rising 5th, thrusts the major 3rd and 6th immediately at the listener (Bent 1994 p.98). Even ornaments have affective weight, an important point since Bach, in common with other great masters of musical materials and expression such as Monteverdi and Purcell, frequently gives ornamental elements motivic significance. Various eighteenth- century writers discuss ornaments in terms of their affective value. According to Quantz, short trills express cheerfulness and happiness (Wessel 1955 p.99; F sharp major fugues of Books I and II) and most writers speak of the mordent as happy and cheerful (p.104; Book II, C major). As with all such simple equations, the interest is when ingredients of different affective value are mixed to give a subtle shade, as in the F minor fugue of Book II with its falling 5th, cheerful mordent, pathetic falling diminished 7th, and lively bourrée rhythm, all in the context of a strongly flavoured minor key.
The most obvious cases of expressive subjects are those with a chromatic element. In seventeenth-century fantasias such subjects tend to have a neutral quality, as demonstrations of the genus chromaticum. Bach gives them a strong element of personal expression. Even when he uses the commonest formula, the descending chromatic tetrachord (lamento-bass pattern), in a fairly straightforward form, as in the D minor fugue of Book II, it is set up with a rising figure of galant-style triplets which take away the stiffness of the formula and give it a floating quality, further emphasised by the supporting counter- point. Less personal is the subject of the E minor fugue of Book I, but this is a speculative piece aiming to combine this traditional ingredient with the motoric manner of the Italian violin sonata, and the stiffness of the subject is worked out in the rigid symmetries of this fugue. The rising chromatic tetra- chord is given the most subtle personal expression in the F sharp minor fugue of Book I by its hesitant, syncopated rhythm, an effect also worked out between the subject and countersubject of the D sharp minor fugue of Book II.
The other traditional chromatic shape used in the 48 is the chiasmus (cross shape).7 Both the half-way point and the conclusion of Book I are marked by fugues with subjects of this type. The F minor fugue moves chromatically in two directions, as does the so-called ‘Wedge’ fugue for organ BWV 548/2; the B minor fugue is designed to cover all twelve semitones and is full of
82 Fugues
chiastic symmetries. In both cases the expression is a blend of the personal chromatic element and the traditional dignitas of a single note value and a final cadential trill.
Characteristic rhythms also play a part in the affect of a subject. Some have gone to great lengths to relate Bach’s rhythms to the metres of ancient Greek verse (Westphal 1883, 1891; C.F.A. Williams 1893). This is not so far fetched as it might seem today since Greek learning was part of connoisseurship in the Baroque. Mersenne (1636) spent much time detailing Greek metres and their affects, particularly in relation to dance rhythms, and these were worked out in a most practical and influential way by Lully.8 Mattheson gives the fullest summary for the late Baroque (1739 Part II Chapter 6), and some of his examples are strikingly similar to Bach’s rhythmic patterns. But it would be as insensitive and pedantic to apply Mattheson’s affects crudely in respect to rhythm as it would be to take his 1713 description of key characters as normative. Given the rich variety of stylistic prototypes Bach drew on, it cannot always be said that a particular rhythmic character was in the forefront of his mind. Some subjects do nonetheless have prominent rhythmic charac- teristics which may relate to these traditional affects.
Of verse feet with two syllables, the example of the spondee (two long syllables) relates to the subject of the B major fugue of Book II (Ex.4.2).9The Greek term spondee means a libation, or solemn offering; its affect is honourable and grave (‘ehrbar und ernsthafft’) and at the same time easily comprehensible (paras.6–8). Of feet with three syllables, the tribrach (three short syllables) relates to the G sharp minor fugue of Book II (Ex.4.3a). This is mainly associated with gigues, but may include serious expression, and may also appear as triplet groups in non-compound times (paras.27–8). To some feet Mattheson attributes very specific affects, such as the proceleusmaticus (four short syllables), from a word meaning to command, for a rousing sailors’ shout (‘ein befehlendes, aufmunterndes Geschrey der Schiffleute’). It would be absurd to see such specific meaning in the repeated notes of the B flat major fugue of Book I and the G minor fugue of Book II, but there is no denying their insistent effect. More puzzling is the affect of the bacchius (a short and two longs), since Mattheson’s example is strikingly similar to the G minor fugue (Ex.4.3b).10
Ex.4.2 Mattheson 1739: Spondee
[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]
Expression and character 83
The hobbling and reeling (‘hinckendes oder taumlendes’) effect of this rhythm is associated with its ancient use by those making an offering to the god of wine. Mattheson adds that this rhythm was much used ‘in der heutigen Melothesie’, particularly in fugues with several subjects (para.29). Few would guess the affect of Bach’s fugue as half-seas-over, and yet there is a curious lurching effect in the rhythm, emphasised by Bach in the off-beat beginning to his subject.
Mattheson was drawing on a common fund of lore, and he claimed to be doing no more than summarising common practice (Part II Chapter 13 para.142). There is no reason for Bach to have got his information from him, though part of Der vollkommene Capellmeister had already been published in 1737. But given Bach’s demonstrative intentions with the 48 in other respects, it is not unlikely that he intended to demonstrate the technical and expressive possibil- ities of rhythmic characters. It can hardly be accidental that so many types of subject with a single note value are represented: all minims (B major of Book II), all crotchets (F minor of Book I), all quavers (B minor of Book I), all triplet quavers (G sharp minor of Book II), all triplet semiquavers (C sharp minor of Book II). Some characteristic rhythms, on the other hand, probably have to do with a different sort of association. The anapaest rhythm of the C minor and A minor fugues of Book I probably has less to do with its supposed character in prosody than the fact that it was used in the fugal movements of Benedetto Marcello’s concerto Op.1 No.2 (arranged for harpsichord as BWV 981) and specially Vivaldi’s D minor concerto Op.3 No.11 (arranged for organ as BWV 596). Vivaldi’s lively, driving impetus, combined with the use of quadruple counterpoint and other fugal techniques, evidently appealed to Bach.11
Much has been made of Bach’s use of dance metres, particularly in Book I, compiled at Cöthen when he was concerned almost exclusively with secular music and with the suite (Besseler 1950 etc.). Dance topics are as old as the concept of fuga itself, if the words to be set suggest them, and there is nothing new about them in themselves. Various dance metres appear as standard section Ex.4.3 (a) Mattheson 1739: Tribrach
(b) Bacchius.
(a)
(b)
[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]
types in contrapuntal works for keyboard by Frescobaldi and his followers, such as galliard rhythm in Frescobaldi’s capriccios (1626) and gigue rhythm in Froberger’s canzonas and capriccios. Gigue rhythm continues to be by far the most common dance metre in fugues in Bach’s earlier keyboard works. Very few of the organ fugues in dance metre are other than gigues (they are listed in Little and Jenne 1991 Appendix B), though quite a number of fugal chorale preludes (not listed by Little and Jenne) are. Mattheson (1739 Part II Chapter 6) demonstrates how a chorale melody may be adapted to a variety of dance metres. In the fugues of the 48, as in the preludes, Bach was demonstrating variety of time signatures and metres, particularly the newer, lighter dance metres associated with French harpsichord and orchestral music.
All this is very well put by Kirnberger, who lamented the loss of variety of character in the later eighteenth century, both in the disappearance of the old modes, and in the range of metres. These are all aspects of expression and eloquence. One should learn to play dance pieces in order to learn how to project a melody, its variety of phrases, etc.: ‘In particular it is impossible to write or play a fugue well without knowledge of all the variety of rhythms, and because study of these is neglected nowadays music has declined from its former dignity and fugues are no longer tolerated, since the type of impover- ished performance that does not project phrase sections or accented beats leaves them no more than a chaos of notes.’12
Conservative as Kirnberger was, there is no doubt of the growing unpopu- larity of fugues, and this was specially so for the harpsichord. Niccolo Pasquali, writing in the mid-1750s, says that it is forty years since they were in vogue. Citing one of Handel’s most effective keyboard fugues (from the E minor suite of 1720), he points out that in places not all the notes can be sustained, so the written four parts sound as only two. Music masters do not notice this because they can see the music, but to the listener it sounds as uninteresting as a thoroughbass. The Alberti-bass is much more suitable since it keeps the harpsi- chord in vibration (c.1758 pp.21–4). Pasquali has a point. One of the most striking things about Bach’s keyboard counterpoint, and one generally ignored by analysts, is its lucid playability, an art not always mastered by even the best of his followers. It is instructive to compare the clarity and projectability of the counterpoint of, for example, the F minor Sinfonia BWV 794 or the A major prelude of Book I with the layout of similar material in the Andante of C.P.E. Bach’s fourth Württemberg sonata (1744).
Clarity of projection is the essence of Bach’s fugues, whether of rhythm, melody, or character. In Bach’s day students learned character projection from dance suites, and Bach’s contribution was to bring this liveliness and variety into the fugue. The traditional gigue is represented by the C sharp minor and F major fugues of Book II, but more recent types are also present, such as the bourrée (C sharp major of Book I, F minor of Book II, in metrical character
Stile antico 85
if not in note values); the gavotte (F sharp major of Book II, which even has the characteristic gavotte four-quaver phrase ending, often in the form of a
tierce coulée, at the end of the subject); the minuet (B flat major of Book II); and
the passepied (F major of Book I, B minor of Book II; Little and Jenne 1991 Appendix B). None of these is in the form of the binary dance in the sense of a gigue with a double bar and the subject inverted thereafter. But Bach has explored with great subtlety the phrase structures of dances and how they can be wedded to the fugue (as in the F major fugue of Book I), and to the sonatafied binary dance (in the C minor fugue of Book I and the B flat major fugue of Book II; see Chapter Three section 6). Other fugues simply take a selection of genre markers, whether dance rhythms or the features of a French
entrée (D major fugue of Book I), and work them in other formal terms. One
might regard them to some extent as en rondeau in that the subject returns, though not always in the same key.