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Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor, BWV 849: “Holy of Holies”

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The 19th century commentator, Hugo Riemann, described Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp minor, BWV 849 as the “holy of holies.” The phrase, found in the Hebrew Bible, refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God’s presence) appeared. The fourth piece from Book 1 of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 849 is solemn, meditative music filled with wrenching melancholy. The Prelude is a loure, a French Baroque dance which resembles …

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Copland’s Piano Variations/Orchestral Variations: Unrelentingly Organic

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Unlike the traditional “theme and variations,” Aaron Copland’s Piano Variations do not unfold as a frolicking and far-reaching episodic journey. Instead, they are unrelenting, declamatory, and haunting. The seven-note theme, equally reminiscent of Arnold Schoenberg’s tone rows and Bach’s C-sharp minor Fugue from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 849), permeates the entire work in a way which makes it feel severely organic. While Beethoven and Schubert improvised variations on a theme as a …

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Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543: “The Great”

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It was during his youthful tenure in Weimar (1708-1713) that J.S. Bach composed the “Great” Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543. Only a few years earlier, the 20-year-old Bach walked north 200 miles to Lübeck to hear the celebrated organist, Dieterich Buxtehude, and “to comprehend one thing and another about his art.” The influence of Buxtehude’s style, along with the Italian music of Corelli, can be heard in BWV 543, …

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Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 944: Warmup and Herculean Feat

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Composed in Weimar, circa 1713, J.S. Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in A minor, BWV 944 amounts to a warmup, followed by a herculean feat of athleticism. The warmup, for our ears, the players fingers, and the instrument alike, comes with the brief ten-bar Fantasia. Bach notated this opening as chords, with the instruction, “arpeggio.” The player is free to improvise on a harmonic progression which is at once melancholy, mysterious, and sensuous. …

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Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Minor, BWV 853: Tragedy and Catharsis

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The Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in E-flat minor, BWV 853 comes from Book 1 of J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. Beginning with the purity of C major, the two-volume collection is made up of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys. The key of E-flat (or enharmonic D-sharp) was rarely used during the Baroque period. For BWV 853, Bach transposed a previously written D minor fugue into D-sharp minor. …

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Liszt’s “Au Lac de Wallenstadt” from “Années de Pèlerinage”: Sighing Waves

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…Thy contrasted lake, With the wild world I dwell in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring. These lines from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage form the poetic caption for Franz Liszt’s Au lac de Wallenstadt (“At Lake Wallenstadt”). Following the exalted La chapelle de Guillaume Tell, with its distant Alpine horn calls, Au lac de Wallenstadt is the second movement of Liszt’s …

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Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons”: March, Song of the Lark

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In the 19th century, writers such as Charles Dickens commonly published books in monthly installments which appeared in popular periodicals. Published on the first day of each month in 1876 in the St. Petersburg music journal, Nuvellist, Tchaikovsky’s piano cycle, The Seasons, Op. 37a reached listeners in a similar way. Subtitled “12 characteristic scenes,” the atmospheric works are miniature tone paintings. Tchaikovsky composed them concurrently with the ballet, Swan Lake. In this era before recordings, …

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