Bach's Art of Fugue: EMS 16 Sptember

[doversoul1]

Lucie Skeaping takes expert advice from Simon Heighes to explore the background, purpose and music of JS Bach's last great masterpiece - The Art of Fugue.
[…]
Lucie pulls together various recordings of the work and, in conversation with Bach expert Simon Heighes, unpicks some of the thinking behind this extraordinary composition.
(R)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vd58l

[MickyD]

Lucie Skeaping takes expert advice from Simon Heighes to explore the background, purpose and music of JS Bach's last great masterpiece - The Art of Fugue.
[…]
Lucie pulls together various recordings of the work and, in conversation with Bach expert Simon Heighes, unpicks some of the thinking behind this extraordinary composition.
(R)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vd58l

I should give this a listen, as I have always found this piece one of Bach's toughest nuts to crack.

[Bryn]

I should give this a listen, as I have always found this piece one of Bach's toughest nuts to crack.

Even if they play all the right notes, what chance is there of them even knowing for sure what the right order is? Oh, and will they add a few at the end?

[Padraig]

Oh! There's no end to it!

[BBMmk2]

Mustn’t forget this!

[Richard Tarleton]

Oh! There's no end to it!

Indeed, looking forward to this. I have 4 versions - Angela Hewitt, the Keller Quartet (per Richard B's recommendation) - both following the same (numbered) order, I think - while Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque go for a different order grouping the fugues into types (Double, Counter, Triple, etc).....Most bizarre to my untutored mind is Mahan Esfahani who sticks Contrapunctus 14 bang in the middle. I'm sure he has an excellent reason but this is not vouchsafed in the sleeve notes of the BBC Magazine CD. Ms Hewitt's 2-disc set is accompanied by her what I find very helpful notes. After a long pause after 14, she finishes with BVW 668a, which was apparently CPE Bach's idea. This is her performance practice.

[ardcarp]

What was SH thinking when he said 'In all probability Bach composed it [Der Kunst] at the keyboard.'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/b03vd58l

...about 25 mins from start.

What???!!! I'll bet any money that Bach wrote nothing 'at the keyboard'! He would have had a working desk with quills, inks, candles, etc and would have known exactly what he was writing without plonking away at a keyboard in order to hear it.

I think the 'open score' format of Der Kunst was under discussion. That would have meant four lines in soprano [not treble], alto, tenor and bass clefs.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think the 'open score' format of Der Kunst was under discussion. That would have meant four lines in soprano [not treble], alto, tenor and bass clefs.

Indeed - as can be seen in Bach's manuscript:



... the first notes on the top line are A D C A G# etc - as are those of the Tenor line (an octave lower) when it first enters on the second system.