Alberto Rasi / Accademia Strumentale Italiana
Die Kunst der Fuga, BWV 1080 (Mus. ms. Bach P 200)
- Type CD
- Label Challenge Classics
- UPC 0608917284225
- Catalog number CC 72842
- Release date 12 June 2020
About the album
Rethinking a masterpiece. The Art of Fugue is both Johann Sebastian Bach’s opus summum and last complete work, presumably undertaken between 1740 and 1742. According to the frontispiece, the work’s original title actually read DIE KUNST DER FUGA, notably featuring the Latin (or Italian) word fuga rather than German Fuge - as found, instead, in the two printed editions of 1751 and 1752. Die Kunst der Fuga (KdF hereafter), in the form and the order presented in the Berlin Autograph, has all the appearance of a finished work featuring 14 fugues and canons, all based upon a single original theme, serving as the work’s foundation and with the individual pieces progressing in an increasing order of difficulty and contrapuntal perfection.
This brief study sets out to attempt a switch in perspective, shifting from the ‘point of view’ of the First Printed Edition – through which the KdF has traditionally been examined by the vast majority of scholars – to that of the Berlin Autograph. Despite having already been studied and collated with the 1751 and 1752 editions, the autograph has always been viewed by the dominant ideology as incomplete; little more than a preparatory stage for its printed counterparts. Only in recent times have scholars (amongst whom Christoph Wolff) started to note that the KdF as found in the autograph manuscript at the time of its completion might well stand comparison with the alleged ‘final version’ of the printed editions, and thus may be elevated to the full dignity of an Alte Fassung. And this study would argue that the Berlin Autograph contains, in fact, the latest and ‘closest-to-final’ version of the KdF, whilst the First Printed Edition is entirely the result of the conjoint efforts of Bach’s children and students as there is no proof that Bach was ever involved in preparatory works concerning any other of its pieces. Furthermore, the order displayed in the Berlin Autograph appears decidedly more logical and “artistic” than that of the First Printed Edition – which, by comparison, appears less interesting (tending towards pedantic) and not without compilation errors.
Far from being a merely speculative or theoretical work, Die Kunst der Fuga is a work for manualiter keyboard. But true to the spirit of an era of musica prattica, performing polyphonic keyboard repertoire with instrumental ensembles aligns with a consolidated tradition that finds it roots in an amply documented practice dating all the way back to the 16th century. The viol consort had been the “instrument” par excellence since the 16th century for its ability to render transparent even the most complex of polyphonies, and it had only just left the scene to the modern virtuoso baroque orchestra. And our choice of combining the violin (a da braccio instrument) with the members of the da gamba family falls perfectly within the German musical tradition.
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11Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 I. Fuga simplex rectus BWV 1080/1
03:04 -
12Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 II. Fuga simplex inversus BWV 1080/3
02:57 -
13Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 III. Fuga plagalis BWV 1080/2
02:48 -
14Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 IV. Counter-fugue – fuga inversa BWV 1080/5
03:16 -
15Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 V. Fuga rectus with obbligato countersubjects alla Duodecima BWV 1080/9
02:29 -
16Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 VI. Fuga inversus with two obbligato countersubjects alla Decima BWV 1080/10
03:47 -
17Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 VII. Fuga inversa in Stylo Francese BWV 1080/6a
03:34 -
18Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 VIII. Fuga inversa per Augment. et Diminut. BWV 1080/7
04:37 -
19Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 IX. Canon in Hypodiapason (Canon alla Ottava) BWV 1080/15
02:48 -
110Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 X. Fuga a tre Soggetti a? 3 BWV 1080/8
07:15 -
111Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 XI. Fuga a quattro soggetti a? 4 BWV 1080/11
06:38 -
112Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 XII. Canon per Augmentationem in contrario motu BWV 1080/14
06:54 -
113Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 XIIIa. Mirror fugue in contrappunto simplici a? 4 rectus BWV 1080/12,1
02:28 -
114Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 XIIIb. Mirror fugue in contrappunto simplici a? 4 inversus BWV 1080/12,2
02:25 -
115Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 XIVa. Mirror fuga inversa in contrappunto duplici a? 3 rectus BWV 1080/18,2
02:18 -
116Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 XIVb. Mirror fuga inversa in contrappunto duplici a? 3 inversus BWV 1080/18,1
02:21 -
117Die Kunst der Fuga - BWV 1080 Fuga a 3 Soggetti [unfinished]
08:38