Talk:The Art of Fugue

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Untitled[edit]

This was a Tough one!!! Thanks so much for your "fiddles" hahahah very fitting in a Bach article----I wat to try your cheese there !!! Great editing--patrick-- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Composer333 (talk • contribs) 13:19, 12 July 2003 (UTC)[reply]

Can a work be posthumous? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.254.36.71 (talk) 17:53, 16 August 2003 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. A posthumous work is one which is published after its author's death. --Camembert — Preceding undated comment added 19:38, 16 August 2003

I've removed the "This was the first (and only) time in his music that Johann Sebastian Bach ever used his own name.". J.S.B used the B.A.C.H motif in several other works, for example in the "Canonic Variations over Vom Himmel Hoch". Jarle fagerheim 00:25, Dec 25, 2003 (UTC)

(Note to the curious: it's right at the end of the fourth variation --Camembert) — Preceding undated comment added 12:21, 27 December 2003

Notes missing?[edit]

It seems that several notes are missing from the theme. At least the page http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/introaof.html has several more, which I am tempted to regard as part of the theme too - but I am not in the least a musicologist. Neither am I able to create a .png file with the notes added, so I'm just pointing it out for people with the skills to set thing aright. Victor Gijsbers 19:14, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but since these are transformations of the main theme, their inclusion here is not really necessary. (JB) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baxendale (talk • contribs) 14:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, check the numerological sinificances of movements in the Partitas for keyboard (825–830) (JB) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baxendale (talk • contribs) 14:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Glenn Gould[edit]

Im searching a video recording of the "Glenn Gould - Art of Fugue" on DVD. If anyone knows where tho find this please answer me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.62.253.232 (talk) 23:55, 23 November 2004 (UTC)[reply]

You can find some on You Tube, just search for Glenn Gould... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.18.214.5 (talk) 12:15, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to intro[edit]

Sorry, I put my edit summary here because the edit summary box isn't big enough for me to say what I wanted to say!

I agreed with the tenor of the introduction, that this work is a masterpiece containing awesome wonders, but this was all expressed with the "is considered" get-out (even further qualified as "is considered by many"). When I took this clause out the article's introduction simply claimed that this is among the most complex contrapuntal music ever (which if it's important requires demonstration - there is no other complex counterpoint mentioned in the article to allow comparison); in any case I think the marvel is not in the complexity itself, but in the musicality Bach retained in the face of such (self-imposed) complexity. It also claimed that it is among the greatest pieces of absolute music ever written, which seems to me impossible to back up in an encyclopedia article. I hope the changes I made improve matters. I think the claims are now meaningful and verifiable. --RobertG ♬ talk 15:56, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction[edit]

Hi, I think the introduction is not very accurate. Recent studies suggest that the Art of Fugue was composed in the early 1740's. Actually the statement "A 1742 fair copy manuscript contains Contrapuncti I--III, V--IX, and XI--XIII, plus the octave and retrograde canons and an earlier version of Contrapunctus X" in "The sources" contradicts the introduction. Cheers--Riccardo (preceding unsigned comment by 140.105.16.2 (talk • contribs) 9 November 2005)

Translation from the German Wikipedia[edit]

There is a discussion of the single fugues in the German Wikipedia. Could someone translate this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.165.155.12 (talk) 06:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the subject[edit]

Where is the motto subject in Contrapunctus VIII? Does it appear? Astrophil 05:25, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After reading your comment, I had a very superficial scan through the score (using only a rubbishy PDF version, since I left my proper bound score in the church) of Contrapunctus VIII and the first place the subject jumped out at me was in Bar 183, which is only a few bars from the end, where it is stated in the bass in an inversion of the form is is stated in at the beginning of Contrapunctus XI. I'm sure it has to be somewhere else, so I'll have a look and maybe a play through as soon as I get my hands on my score again. — Doshea3 00:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bar 94 Probably. helohe (talk) 15:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Key[edit]

Ummm... About the key that the theme is in. The article claims it to be in the key of D minor, then shows a piece of music in the key signature of C, no sharps or flats. Last time I checked, the relative minor of C is A minor. D minor is written in the key signature of F, one flat. Does the article get the key wrong, or is the key signature out of whack? Could someone please clear this up?Amphion 21:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is indeed written in D minor. The image of the theme omits the key signature. Strad 14:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. Is there any way to fix this?Amphion 17:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The first three notes form a d-minor chord. That is clear. Music is the sound, not the symbols on paper.--68.195.44.150 04:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
True enough, but to omit the key signature from the theme exemplar is sort of "ungrammatical", to put it loosely; it ought to be fixed. Does anyone know how musical samples are assembled for Wikipedia? I could whip something up using Lilypond, but I'd prefer to do it in the customary way (if any). BrianTung (talk) 21:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The German wikipedia page has a version with the correct key signature -- perhaps we can use that? JeanneShade (talk) 23:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There was no mistake: in Baroque music, key signatures for pieces in minor keys were frequently written with one less flat than normal. Double sharp (talk) 11:12, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Very minor[edit]

This is just a very minor thought. Is 'musicality' really a word? Fephisto 06:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Noun derived from musical, as stated in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. [1] Matt.kaner 14:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Musicality is the natural gift (talent) of creating or performing good music with little effort. This was indeed true for Bach, he was a born composer. He could immediately write whole pages of fugue if given a few tones for a starter motif. He did this often to entertain his friends in the pub. 91.83.12.110 (talk) 21:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't define it that way, and it isn't used that way in this article. It can be "defined" as that quality of a piece of music that is musical—a somewhat unsatisfying definition, but probably sufficient for its use in this article. When applied to a person, it usually (in my experience) means something like the lyrical quality of a person's performance (or possibly composition), and not how preternatural their talent may be. The Old Bach was indeed a marvelous improviser, if we are to go by contemporary accounts, but I wouldn't call that "musicality". BrianTung (talk) 21:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Picture of permutation matrix[edit]

Looks like the picture of the permutation matrix is a one-to-one copy from the Zoltán Göncz edition of "Contrapunctus 14". The text is also very similar.

--helohe (talk) 00:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion seems lifted from a CD booklet[edit]

At one point in the discussion of the 'unfinished' fugue the text says 'in this recording the piece is left unfinished' - it is totally unclear what 'this recording' refers to!!

This is a telltale sign that a lot of the material was lifted wholesale from an essay meant to accompany a recording - i.e. a CD booklet - without checking if it still makes any sense. --Tdent 12:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Much of the "Background" section is lifted from CD booklets - compare with [2], for example. Sho Uemura 17:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Instrumentation[edit]

It isn't mentioned in the article that Bach never specified the instrumentation for this piece - although it was part of his Clavier-Ubung collection. This explains why we see all kinds of arrangements. Gautam Discuss 03:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • I remember playing a couple of the parts of the piece in a state honors band way back when. They were untransposed because they're in a key that a normal concert band could handle. --Grev (talk) 07:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bach's Portrait in the page[edit]

I think Bach's portrait at the top of the page is a fake. Well, I'm almost sure. It should be replaced by the ones by Hausmann (1748). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.104.126.98 (talk) 19:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The author of this site argues that the "Volbach portrait" is genuine, based (in part) on comparison of the faces in different portraits. Strad 19:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Crowning achievement"[edit]

"The Art of Fugue is one of the most complex works ever penned by Bach and is considered a crowning achievement of western art."[citation needed]" I agree with the author of this entry at Wikipedia. It is an understatement to call this work merely 'awesome'. Bach takes the same theme and writes 14 Fugues and 4 Canons using different musical intervals to achieve his aims. It's like a musical/mathematical puzzle and yet at the time, it has super-musicality in the music. It is seriously difficult to appreciate and needs several listen-throughs to get to grips with the 'argument'. I am enjoying the Grigory Sokolov (solo Piano) recording which needs to be considered for addition to the 'famed recordings' of this work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Znethru (talk • contribs) 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Glenn Gould Piano Recording Date[edit]

In the list of recordings, the article states that Glenn Gould recorded excerpts from the Art of Fugue on piano in 1962 (the same year as his organ recordings). This is untrue. He recorded the excerpts on piano many years after his organ recording of Fugues 1-9, for a documentary with Bruno Monsaigneon. Unfortunately I can't recall the exact year, though I'm pretty sure it was late 70's or early 80's. If anyone can find the exact date, please update the article; until then, I am simply leaving out the year of this performance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JeanneShade (talk • contribs) 15:07, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Section on permutation matrix blatantly copied from web site.[edit]

See here.

It also isn't the best writing in that section. It's interesting stuff, in my opinion; someone who understands the subject matter would do everyone a service by writing it out in plain, non-plagiarized English. Organ123 (talk)

Out of interest, I purchased the completion in question. Since there's no recording of the Goncz completion (as far as I know), I entered the last part into Lilypond and piped it through the MIDI synthesizer.
On the whole, I found this completion not entirely compelling. The permutation matrix (such as it is) is mildly interesting and suggestive, but it's a long walk from that matrix to an actual execution of the ending, and there are many infelicities in Goncz's completion. It is also extremely long—on the order of 200 bars long. (It's been a while since I looked at it, so that count might be somewhat off.) Contrast that with Moroney's completion, which is only about 30 bars long. I don't think it uses the permutation matrix—although I didn't check for sure—but it is more compelling musically and is more in line with what I'd expect from Bach's counterpoint, especially for a sequence-ending grand fugue. I believe Wolff adduced some evidence that Bach allotted six pages for the unfinished fugue, and estimated that this left room for only about 40 additional bars beyond what is in the manuscript. That's hardly ironclad but it is a significant strike against Goncz's particular realization of the ending. That's not to say the general idea of the permutation matrix is wrong, however.
At some point, it would make sense to include the above discussion (and other related information) in this section. BrianTung (talk) 01:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


A flame was moved[edit]

I consider the contribution below an unrelated non-productive flame and I have allowed myself to move it from the top of the discussion to the current bottom. I would like to delete it, but I am not currently enough informed about revision policy in Wikipedia Classic.

The posting has an interesting point the criticism of popularization in media like History Channel and other television communications (and wikipedia), and that further makes me uncertain wether it is wise to delete it. The criticism below does not go into the discussion of "social construction of truth" (a subject which in itself which is probably irrelevant here). I have only changed the language in one place exchanging a curse with X.


--d-axel (talk) 11:52, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Name: "the" Art of Fugue?[edit]

I thought about moving the page name, then thought again. I understand that in German it is "Die Kunst der Fuge", but is it really known in English as "The Art of Fugue" and not just "Art of Fugue"? Pfly (talk) 09:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - sometimes even (somewhat shakily) "The Art of (the) Fugue." HammerFilmFan (talk) 10:14, 11 April 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan[reply]

Sources of the work section[edit]

"...which Bach is said to have dictated on his deathbed." Besides a weasel work, there is a lot of scholarship calling doubt on this anecdote, and pointing to it being a reworking of a chorale from the Orgelbüchlein ("Wenn wir in höchsten nöten sein"). --JTL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.0.248.226 (talk) 03:47, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More Changes to Introduction[edit]

I have edited two erroneous statements in the introduction. The first being that the work is "supposedly" incomplete: the work is *obviously* incomplete, and the question of whether or not Bach intended this to be the case (as posited by I.N.M. Hughes), or his sons botched the publication (as posited by Wolff and *everyone* else), has no bearing. In either case, the work is still very much not finished, while the word "supposedly" implies that there is some reasonable level of dispute. There is not. Even Hughes writes of the incongruence of the inclusion of the 4-hand Mirror Fugue and the early version of Contrapunctus 10, meaning that, in its extant form, with its order in disarray, the printed edition of the work is incomplete. This fact needs no source other than the score itself.

Secondly, the statement that "Each of the 14 fugues except the final one uses the same subject in D minor" is flat wrong. Bach ceases to use this exact subject after the first fugue with the inclusion of a dotted tail, and then varies it considerably after the fourth fugue, and for the remainder of the work. If one believes that the subject of the second Mirror Fugue is indeed the same as the first Simple Fugue, I suggest switching them throughout, and checking your counterpoint. Each of fugues and canons use some *variation* of the subject, which is what I have written. Again, this is a statement that needs no source, as it is indisputable.

JoelThomasRunyan (talk) 11:37, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've attempted to clear up more ambiguous language in the introduction concerning sources of the work. I moved the "Sources" section above "Structure", as discussion of the former is necessary to comprehend the latter. JoelThomasRunyan (talk) 14:10, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite Tag[edit]

"Sources" needs rewrite with more accurate comparison of each source's contents, including description of the three Beilagen, Bach's participation as scribe for the first edition, etc. Include picture, and links to facsimiles.

"Structure" needs clean-up. An introduction describing the fugue and canon types employed, and the transformation of the subject... if not a chart or excerpt showing all the subjects individually, as Graeser from the BGS. More consistent notes on each fugue... Con. IV is not the first inverted subject, etc. Better formatting of sections for each type.

"Instrumentation" needs tone cleaned up. Leonhardt has been dead for a year, and wrote his monograph over 60 years ago.

"The unfinished fugue" needs rewrite... following sections need grouped in some sort of discussion of completions/conjectures... currently reads like a bad advertisement for Dentler, Goncz, and Desert Fugue. None of these warrant their own section, especially considering the current scarcity of "Structure".

JoelThomasRunyan (talk) 15:04, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Began to re-write "Sources" and "Structure", but they each need further work. I have *temporarily* deleted the sections on Dentler and Goncz; they need to be reset into a section on conjectural re-orderings and completions. Having them each under separate headings is frankly misleading.

JoelThomasRunyan (talk) 22:26, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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