The subtitle of the last movement of The Art of Fugue falsely indicates that it is a triple fugue, with three completely new subjects: the first in long held notes, the second more active and the third with Bach’s musical signature (B-A-C-H, according to the practice of great painters). After all three themes were introduced, the manuscript was left unfinished. The structure of this fugue is thus A (b. 1‒115), B and A+B (b. 114‒193), C and A+B+C (b. 193‒239). Interestingly, already in 1880 the German musicologist Gustav Nottebohm commented that it was possible to combine all three subjects with the original subject, which was curiously absent from the fugue, and thereby challenged musicians to try to finish it. For this recording, a relatively recent elaboration has been chosen, composed by the Hungarian musician Zoltán Göncz in 1992. Göncz’s solution, which mostly follows Bach’s permutation of the fugue, has been highly praised by György Ligeti, and subsequently published by Carus Verlag. All four subjects are inverted in permutation through all the voices. Based on Bach’s strategy in Contrapunctus 11, Göncz decided to enrich the texture by adding a fifth voice, thereby bringing out the original subject in inverted form and producing a magnificent and saturated finale to the cycle.

--

Contrapunctus 14
The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080
1st subject 00:00
2nd subject 03:45
B-A-C-H 06:17
Göncz reconstruction 07:51

Pavao Masic, organ

Recorded at the Great Organ of St. Mark's Church, Zagreb, 2017
Published by Croatia Records on CD: BACH: Die Kunst der Fuge
Organ by W. Eisenbarth (2011) - III/41

Visit: www.pavaomasic.com/die-kunst-der-fuge.html

свернуть