Johann Sebastian Bach's Art of Fugue

Performance Practice Based on German Eighteenth-Century Theory

Ewald Demeyere

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Monograph - ebook

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A practical guide to the performance of the Art of Fugue (with separate sheet music booklet - 34 p.)
With the Art of Fugue Bach delivered a polyphonic composition for keyboard of unprecedented proportions and complexity. Notwithstanding the vast existing literature on this brilliant work, a performer does not often find answers in it to practical questions such as ‘Why is this note not flatted?' or ‘How can one make this peculiar voice-leading work during performance?' This book by a leading Bach performer is designed to fill this void and provide a practical guide to the performance of the Art of Fugue. The first part contains an overview of four important Baroque topics related to the concept and performance of the Art of Fugue (rhetoric, metre, syntax, and keyboard technique). The second part basically demonstrates, with reference to the first four Contrapuncti, how the background presented in the first part often enables possible explanations for both text-critical and conceptual issues to be formulated. The final purpose is to achieve as eloquent a performance as possible of these pieces.

This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
PART ONE
1. On Musical Rhetoric
2. On Metre
3. On Articulation, Fingering, Technique and Gradation of Tone
4. On Voice-leading
PART TWO 175
1. On Contrapunctus 1
2. On Contrapunctus 2
3. On Contrapunctus 3
4. On Contrapunctus 4
APPENDIX 1: Glossary
APPENDIX 2: Musical-Rhetorical Figures
APPENDIX 3: Open Score Contrapuncti 1-4
Select bibliography
Index

Format: Monograph - ebook

254 pages

ISBN: 9789461661296

Publication: June 26, 2013

Languages: English

Ewald Demeyere (www.ewalddemeyere.be) is a harpsichordist, conductor, theorist and Professor at the Royal Conservatory Antwerp.


Het is een musicologische studie die de uitvoerende musicus ter zijde staat om tot in de kern van de zaak te kunnen doordringen en zo Bach zijn 'Kunst der Fuge' te absorberen en via de uitvoeringen van zijn muziek aan het publiek duidelijk te maken. We mogen dit boek -; ook al zijn we ontgoocheld dat het uitsluitend in het Engels te verkrijgen is -; verwelkomen als een belangrijke verrijking van het aanbod musicologische studies over het werk van Johann Sebastian Bach.
Ludwig Van Mechelen, Klassiek Centraal, 04/01/14 >