Perfil de resistencia antimicrobiana

No Autograph MS; extant copies probably either via C. P. E. Bach (P 290, Am.B.60a Berlin copyist, after 1754) or J. C. Kittel (e.g. Lpz MB III.8.14, J. A. Dr¨obs).

Two staves; title in Am.B.60‘Preludio e Fuga per l’Organo pieno’ (Italian terms common in the Berlin school), in Dr¨obs ‘ . . . f¨ur die volle Orgel’. Good extant sources suggest BWV 543.i to be a revised version of an earlier Prelude BWV 543a paired with the present Fugue, the revised originating after Kellner had already made a copy of BWV 543a (Breig 1999 p. 660). But it would not be impossible for Kellner’s to be the revised version, despite assumptions made about Bach’s ‘modifications’ being always in the direction of greater complexity (Rien¨acker 1995). In any case, it is hard to imagine the Fugue being a Leipzig work, as is sometimes conjectured (Humphreys 1989 p. 85), whenever Kellner’s copy was made (see below, p. 95).

The Fugue has often been likened to the keyboard fugue BWV 944 in ABB and claimed as some kind of version of it, as if it was only in organ fugues that Bach was to ‘seek and find adequate expression’ (Oppel 1906 pp. 74ff.). But resemblances – contours of subject and countersubject, a perpetuum mobile element, a rather free close – are too slight to imply a history of either, shared or not. While the subjects circumscribe similar harmonies, these arise from conventional formulae not unlike an Italian ritornello’s; and while both contain playful figures in a harpsichord-like style (Hering 1974 p. 49), the genres are quite distinct. The composer’s associations with A minor can produce shared details.

Other resemblances have been found: between the subject’s outline and that of the A minor Fugue BWV 559, or between the pedal figures in both Preludes’ closing stages (Beechey MT 1973 p. 832). The outline has also been traced in the Prelude’s opening rh figure, in a Corrente in Vivaldi’s Op. 2 No. 1, of 1709, and in a Fugue in E minor by Pachelbel (Keller 1948 p. 84). Of course, minor-key subjects that first trace the triad and then run into a sequential tail of some length are bound to sound similar. Such a perpetuum mobile-like subject, however, is unusual for an organ fugue of J. S. Bach and, like that in BWV 564, it breaks up towards the close.

Prelude

It is true, as Spitta pointed out, that the so-called early version of the pre- lude shows ‘certain characteristics reminiscent of the Buxtehude School’ (II p. 689), but his instances of Buxtehude-like figures from bb. 22 and 33 are also found in the ‘later version’. Other characteristics of northern

praeludia are: an opening rh running solo; its latent counterpoint in two or three parts; a pedal version of it some time later (rather than the dominant pedal point that might be expected); and the kinds of note-pattern in bb. 1, 23, 30, 33, 36 (with pedal quavers), and 50–3. For the copyists’ notation of b. 33, see a comment on BWV 549a below. Two further ‘errors’ may have been transmitted by the copyists: should the pedal point begin in the second half of b. 9, and should bb. 19, 21 continue the crotchet lines of bb. 11, 13, 15 and 17?

Traditional are the ‘latent counterpoint’ of the opening (Mattheson gave a somewhat similar example in 1739 pp. 354–4) and its chromatic descent (in fact two chromatic fourths A–E, E–B), the tonic pedal point (from b. 10) followed briefly by dominant and then another tonic, and the running figures isolated above other pedal points (b. 33 etc). More characteristic of J. S. Bach, perhaps, are the regularity of phrase in the opening rh solo, dramatic use of the tonic pedal point in b. 10(a rise in tension), careful reduction of note-values (semiquavers, triplets, demisemiquavers) to which the trilled chord in b. 23 is a climax, the texture of bb. 31–3, and the systematic pairing of pedal points and manual patterns in the second half. The trilled figure of b. 23 may be found in Buxtehude, but less obviously as a climax than here.

As a logical answer, the pedal solo of b. 25 would best begin in the minor (i.e. with g), a detail perhaps missed by the various copyists. Other conventions are explored, such as the little broken-chord or bris´e effect in b. 29 (Example 46). The pleasing keyboard idiom over bb. 36–46 derives from the opening bar, now in the major and disguising the commonplace harmonies – harmonies that have been improvised by countless organists, on any registration from a single Open Diapason to plein jeu, depending on local tradition. The final bars have something of a bariolage as found in the (contemporary?) Passacaglia, and a pedal motif used very differently in ‘Alle Menschen m¨ussen sterben’ in the Ob.

Example 46

The piece may reflect the composer’s interest in integrating different prelude traditions. At the return to the tonic halfway through (b. 31), a free-roving tenor melody in the lh keeps up the motion, in this Prelude

94 BWV 543

the only such figure but one of a type familiar elsewhere in early Bach. (See Fugues BWV 535 at bb. 52ff. and BWV 578 at b. 51; also the Praeludium BWV 566 at b. 85 and the chorale ‘Wie sch¨on’ BWV 739 at b. 69.) ‘Northern’ are such details as the little obsessive g (bb. 10–14) and c (16–20), in effect chromatic acciaccaturas colouring the buildup of a tonic pedal point in preparation for a dominant answer.

Fugue

The subject’s head motif and lengthy sequential tail, which paraphrases the A minor sequence at the beginning of the Vivaldi concerto BWV 593, are broken chords suitable for pedals. They easily confuse the ear about the beat. The codetta (bb. 11–14) already reduces tension, and the episodes (bb. 56, 66 etc.) rarely rise above a certain level of melodiousness against which the subject is conspicuous. The shape is:

1–30exposition, in regular four parts, of a subject 41₂ bars long; consistent countersubject; two codettas

31–50episode extending the exposition; pedal sequence; new material; tonic entry (after hemiola cadence), head motif in stretto

51–61 further hemiola cadence; entry in dominant (subject head hidden); episode on a further circle-of-fifths sequence to: 61–95 relative major entry en taille; episode; answer; episode

(all episodes based on circle of fifths)

95–135 stretto entries 95/96, dominant 113/115; final 131; all followed by derived episodes and short pedal points (the last a trill?)

135–51 pedal point then solo; quasi-cadenza manual figures

The piece is a good instance of the growing interest in long-phrased fugues, tight in neither counterpoint nor form. Entries appear as if delayed after drawn-out episodes, effective and unusual, each time heightening the sense of singable melody.

Like the Prelude’s opening solo, the Fugue’s final manual solo is not free but regular, running straight into a cadence of great finality. It thus resembles the C major Toccata’s Fugue, though the cadence itself and the previous pedal solo remind one more of the Toccata in F. And for the pedal of b. 145, see the first recitative of Cantata 161 (1715/16). Older features include a profusion of circle-of-fifths sequences, rising but mostly falling, as in the subject itself. Another ‘early’ sign is the array of Neapolitan sixths (bb. 85, 111, 134), which like the bris´e figures vaguely recall the Prelude (Neapolitan 6th at b. 43). Such harmonic turns as the diminished sevenths

over bb. 146–50were highly inventive at the period and, like the dissonant acciaccatura chord of Example 47, counteract the predictable sequences. (The second part of Example 47, from the Concerto in D minor, shows a simpler acciaccatura.) As in the C major Fugue BWV 564, the simple figures sometimes turn into brief moments of complexity for the player (bb. 26–7 etc.).

Example 47

The Fugue is irrepressibly fluent: a singable, sequential subject whose lively figures produce only two different harmonies per bar, hence the sig- nificance of hemiolas early on and the cadenzas near the end. The metre itself adds triplets and sextolets to the Prelude’s repertory of note-values. (It could be anachronism to suppose that the final demisemiquaver sextolets represent a ‘written-out rallentando’, to be played half as fast as written, as suggested by Emery in MT 1967 pp. 32–4: succinct closes are in style with these earlier Bach fugues.) Most semiquaver groups can be traced to the way countersubjects spin off a tuneful subject, right to the end (bb. 132–4), and the Fugue is free of mere scales until the last episode. If the ‘motoric’ subjects of Reinken, Buttstedt, Heidorn and others inspired this Fugue, its sequences from bb. 28 or 132 were highly original at the time, almost as if this were an essay in the art of writing them.