Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543

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Prelude and Fugue in A minor,

There are two versions of the Prelude, both dating from the same period in Weimar (1708–1713). The versions of the fugue are identical, whereas the two versions of the prelude are distinct, the first version BWV 543/1a is shorter and presumed to be the earlier. The sources for BWV 543 are summarised in the section above. The differences between the two versions of the prelude are discussed in Williams (2003): the earlier version is 43 bars long, while the later version is 53 bars long. The main differences occur in bars 1–6 of BWV 543a/1 and bars 1–9 of 543/1 where the descending semiquaver broken-chord figures are altered and truncated. The same applies for the corresponding passages for bars 17–18 in BWV 543a/1 and bars 26–28 in BWV 543/1. In addition the triplet semiquavers in the later prelude are notated as demisemiquavers. As Beechey (1973) observes, "The more serious question concerning the opening passage of the prelude in its early and later versions is the fact that Bach changed his demisemiquavers to semiquavers [...] and in doing so preserved a calmer mood and a less rhapsodic feeling in the music; this change, however, does not and cannot mean that the early version is wrong or that the composer was mistaken. In the later version Bach was thinking on a larger scale and was considering the fugue and companion movement on a similarly large scale [...] The simplest way of extending the early prelude was to double the note values of the passages cited and thus make its flow more even."^[1][5][6]

Fugue

The musicologist Peter Williams has pointed out that the catchy "lengthy sequential tail" of this fugue subject (its last 3 bars) "easily confuse[s] the ear about the beat" and is harmonically an exact "paraphrase" of the sequence in bars 6-8 of Vivaldi's double violin concerto Op. 3 No. 8 in A minor (RV 522, from L'estro armonico). Bach arranged this Vivaldi concerto as his solo organ "concerto" BWV 593, probably in 1714–16.^[1]

This 4-voice fugue BWV 543 has been compared to Bach's harpsichord Fugue in A minor, BWV 944, a 3-voice fugue that was probably written in 1708, and this organ fugue has even been called "the final incarnation" of BWV 944.^[7] (A similarity had been mentioned by Wolfgang Schmieder, editor of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis.) However, the idea of any close relationship (let alone a reincarnation) has been challenged.^[8] Williams writes that the fugue "has often been likened to the keyboard fugue BWV 944 [...] and claimed as some kind of version of it [but] the resemblances – contours of subject and countersubject, a perpetuum mobile element, a rather free close – are too slight" to support the comparisons. Williams also cites similarities "between the subject’s outline and that of the A minor Fugue BWV 559, or between the pedal figures in both Preludes' closing stages [and] in the Prelude’s opening [right hand] figure, in a Corrente in Vivaldi’s Op. 2 No. 1, of 1709, and in a Fugue in E minor by Pachelbel." Aside from Williams' observations about the fugue subject, the fugues BWV 543 and 944 differ in their larger outlines: their harmonic structure and the series of expositions and episodes are not parallel.^[1]

Musical structure

Prelude

Prelude, BWV 543

Silbermann organ, village church of Großhartmannsdorf

, Saxony

and then, after a lengthy demisemiquaver embellishment over a tonic pedal point, are heard again in the pedal. The highly embellished cadence that follows—full of manual runs over sustained pedal notes—leads into a contrapuntal exploration of the opening material in

Fugue, BWV 543

Silbermann organ, village church of Großhartmannsdorf

, Saxony

The versions of the 4-part fugue for BWV 543a and BWV 543 are identical; it lasts 151 bars. The theme can be traced back to Bach's organ concerto in A minor

• Bars 1–30. There is an exposition for each of the four parts, three in the manuals and one in the pedal, each lasting four and a half bars with a connecting half bar. The main subject starts with a
  codetta, heralding the first entry of the lower manual part. There is a similar six and a half bar codetta before the pedal entry sounds, but now the subject is off kilter, with the pedal entry starting on the off beat.^[1]
• Bars 31–50. There is a four and half bar episode, developing the exposition, with the 3 manual parts in the countersubject and busy arpeggiated sequences in the pedals. The lower manual part then remains silent, as new freely developed thematic material begins: first in parallel sixth semiquavers in the upper manuals accompanied by quaver motifs in the pedals; and then with briefly semiquaver motifs in the pedals before a three bar trio between the upper parts and pedal, leading to a
  3/4 time, ornamented on the last beat for the cadence). The highest part now sounds the fugal theme, with simple accompaniment from motifs in the other upper manual part and the pedal: their trio is truncated by a further hemiola with ornamental cadence.^[1]
• Bars 51–61. The lowest manual part enters in the dominant key, with a disguised version of the head-motif of the fugal theme. The pedal part remains silent, while, led by the lowest manual parts, the upper parts together play "circle of fifths": baroque musical sequences, with successions of harmonies that at each stage progress from dominant to tonic (or tonic to dominant).^[1]
• Bars 61–95. This passage, for keyboard alone, is a new restatement of the fugue theme in C major, the relative major. The manual entry is en taille, from the French "in the waist," a tenor voice often played on a tierce or cromorne organ stop. In this case the fugal entry plays between the highest and lowest parts on the manuals. There is then an episode involving circle of fifths; an answering entry on bar 71 in the highest part; a pedal point in the lowest manual part, above a circle of fifths episode; and finally, as the lowest part is silenced, a duet between the upper parts, with a further restatement of the fugal theme in the lower part followed by another circle of fifths episode.^[1]
• Bars 95–135. The first bars of this section involve a stretto passage: the pedal starts to play the fugue theme as usual, only to be taken up by the true fugue theme, off the beat and in the lowest manual part. Between bars 113 and 115, there is a further fugal entry in E minor in the middle manual part. Finally, at bar 131, there is the last fugal entry in the lowest manual part. After each of these fugal entries, episodes are freely developed over brief pedal points. In bars 132–134, the rising quaver scales in the pedals lead up to the final section.^[1]
• Bars 135–151. There is a pedal point for four bars, with the upper manual parts accompanying the arpeggio motifs in the lowest manual part; that is followed by solo arpeggio pedalwork for seven bars; then, in a virtuosic cadenza-like coda, the regular semidemiquaver passage-work in the highest part leads up to an emphatic closing cadence in the minor key.^[1]

The fugue is in

Liszt's transcription of BWV 543 (9:58)

Raymond Smullyan, piano

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Problems playing this file? See media help.

Because of the piece's overall

Already in 1836, early in his career, it is known that Liszt had developed a reverence for Bach's great "six preludes and fugues", BWV 543–548, or "The Great Six" fugues as they became known in the nineteenth century. In fact the previous year Liszt had eloped to

BWV 548 at the Singakademie and the A minor fugue of BWV 543 in Potsdam.^[12]

During that period, as a travelling musician, Liszt's pianistic pyrotechnics proved a huge attraction for concert-goers. The term Lisztomania was coined by Heinrich Heine in 1844 to describe the frenzy generated by his Berlin audiences, even amongst the musically informed. Liszt performed the A minor fugue regularly in Berlin between 1842 and 1850. During this period there were reports that Liszt resorted to stunts in front of live audiences, which prompted possibly deserved charges of charlatanry. In August 1844, Liszt stayed in Montpellier while performing in the region. While there, he met up with his friend Jean-Joseph Bonaventure Laurens, an organist, artist and writer. His friendship with the Schumanns and Mendelssohn and the Bach library he had assembled with them enabled Laurens to become one of the main experts on Bach organ works in France. 40 years later, Laurens' brother recalls their lunchtime conversation. In semi-serious banter, Liszt demonstrated three ways of playing the A minor fugue, a work that Laurens said was so hard that only Liszt might be the only one capable of tackling it. Liszt first gave a straight rendition, which was a perfect classical way of playing; then he gave a second more colourful but still nuanced rendition, which was equally appreciated; finally he provided a third rendition, "as I would play it for the public ... to astonish, as a charlatan!" Laurens then writes that, "lighting a cigar that passed at moments from between his lips to his fingers, executing with his ten fingers the part written for the pedals, and indulging in other tours de force and prestidigitation, he was prodigious, incredible, fabulous, and received gratefully with enthusiasm." Stinson (2006) points out that this kind of gimmickry was not uncommon at that time: "Indeed, [Liszt] is reported to have accompanied Joachim in the last movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with a lighted cigar in his right hand the entire time!"^[12]

In 1847, exhausted by his years on the concert circuit, Liszt retired to the

BWV 544 last, altering the standard order in most of the editions for organ. With his view that Bach was "the St. Thomas Aquinas of music," Liszt ultimately had an almost religious zeal for respecting the score as written by Bach. As Stinson concludes, "over thirty years later Liszt commented to his piano class that it would have been “sinful” of him to add dynamic markings to the score of the A-minor fugue, since “the great Bach” had written none himself." Even in his later years, Liszt's A minor fugue remained one of his favourites: when he was invited to play at a private evening concert, with guests of honour Prince Albert of Prussia and his wife Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg, Liszt's first choice was the fugue and in his letter of thanks disclosed that Clara Schumann now as matter of course played his transcription rather than her own. In the 1880s, American pupils of Liszt, particularly Carl Lachmund, attested to his pleasure in hearing or speaking about the fugue, be it at a Weimar dinner party in his honour, where students sang it together, or in a masterclass discussing its performance. As Stinson points out, "Liszt's lifelong advocacy of this movement—as a performer, transcriber, and teacher—is surely one reason for its enduring popularity."^[12]

Max Reger

In 1895–1896,

G. Schirmer in New York, contains ten pieces, with a high level of difficulty.^[13][14][15] While making the transcription in 1895 in Wiesbaden, Reger commented dismissively to Ferruccio Busoni, the Italian composer and fellow Bach transcriber, that, "It’s too bad that Franz Liszt did such a bad job on his transcriptions of Bach’s organ pieces—they’re nothing but hackwork."^[15][16] In 1905 Reger became the regular piano partner of Philipp Wolfrum, director of music at Heidelberg University and author of a two-volume monograph on Bach. Their collaboration not only involved concert tours, but a special "Bach–Reger–Musikfest" in June 1913, organized as the fifth Heidelberg Music Festival. As a Bachian, organist and composer, Reger's views on Bach reception, in particular his public writings, are well recorded in the literature.^[17] According to Anderson (2006a), in 1905, Reger was one of several German musicians, artists and critics surveyed by Die Musik on J.S. Bach's contemporary relevance (“Was ist mir Johann Sebastian Bach und was bedeutet er für unsere Zeit?”); as Anderson concludes, "The brevity of Reger’s “essay,” however, does not prevent the emergence of certain themes that are developed at greater length elsewhere in his writings: the nature of progress, the “illness” of contemporary musical culture, German nationalism, the guilt of the critics." In his much cited response, Reger wrote: "Sebastian Bach is for me the Alpha and Omega of all music; upon him rests, and from him originates, all real progress! What does—pardon, what should—Sebastian Bach mean for our time? A most powerful and inexhaustible remedy, not only for all those composers and musicians who suffer from “misunderstood Wagner,” but also for all those “contemporaries” who suffer from spinal maladies of all kinds. To be “Bachian” means to be authentically German, unyielding. That Bach could be misjudged for so long, is the greatest scandal for the “critical wisdom” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."^[15][18][19]

In 1898, before any recognition for his music, Reger had travelled to

Równo, he was informed that two fingers of his left hand would have to be amputated, one completely and the other partially. Despite his injuries, he moved through US university appointments to the University of Minnesota, re-establishing his career as an organist.^[23][24][25] In 2018, Dean Billmeyer, from the same university and a former organ pupil of Fleischer, wrote an account on the performance tradition of Straube, accompanied by performances from Germany, including a recording of BWV 543 from the Sauer organ in the Michaeliskirche [de], Leipzig.^[26]

Other transcriptions

• Simon Sechter (1788–1867) made one of the first four-hand piano transcriptions of BWV 543 in 1832 for the Viennese publisher Tobias Haslinger. The original manuscript, "Sebastian Bachs Orgelfugen für das Pianoforte: zu 4 Händen eingerichtet," has been digitised by the Austrian National Library.^[27][28] There was also a four-hand piano arrangement of BWV 543–548 in 1832 by an unknown copyist, now held in the Berlin State Library.^[29][30]
• Carl Voigt (1808–1888) made an arrangement of BWV 543 for piano duet around 1834, for the publishing company of Georg Heinrich Hedler in
  Frankfurt am Main.^[31]
• Franz Xaver Gleichauf (1801–1856), a pupil of
  C. F. Peters in Leipzig, with a medium level of difficulty. The album was republished by International Music Company in 1962.^[32][33][34]

In popular culture

The Oscar-winning Italian composer Ennio Morricone has described the relation between BWV 543 and the main themes of certain films he scored. In Alessandro De Rosa's 2019 book, Ennio Morricone: in his own words, Morricone described the main musical theme for the 1970 film Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion as an "ambiguous tango." Later he realized that it reminded him of the theme of The Sicilian Clan, released one year earlier. He remarked "[a]fter reflecting further on this resemblance, I then realized that the other theme as well was derived from my own idealization of Johann Sebastian Bach's Fugue in A Minor BWV 543. In search of originality, I found myself trapped in one of my deepest loves."^[35][36]

Notes

Sources

• Billmeyer, Dean (2018). "Straube plays Bach". Rondeau Production. Retrieved 21 October 2020. Introduction to early 20th-century historical performance practice, as prescribed in
  Peters edition of Orgelwerke II (including BWV 543–548). Recorded on Sauer organ in Michaeliskirche [de
  ], Leipzig.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to BWV 543 – Prelude and Fugue in A minor for organ.

• Bach, Johann Sebastian (1825). Sechs Praeludien und sechs Fugen für Orgel oder Pianoforte mit Pedal [BWV 543–548]. Wien: Tobias Haslinger.
• "Prelude and fugue, a BWV 543". Bach Digital. Leipzig: Bach Archive; et al. 14 May 2019.
• Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Hawley, Mike (ed.). "Bach/Liszt: The Great Prelude & Fugue in a, BWV 543". MIT. Archived from the original on 7 October 2008. Score of Liszt's transcription (in various formats).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link
  )
• Prelude and fugue for organ in A minor, BWV 543 at
  Muziekweb
  website (recordings)
• BWV 543 (free download of James Kibbie's recording)