Seemingly, no composition by J.S. Bach has been honoured with as many monographs and articles as The Art of Fugue, not many Bach scholars could resist the magnetic power of this masterpiece, devoting to it countless pages of study. This is due not only to the puzzling trajectory of its composition and publication, but also to the fact that there is still no scholarly consensus about its ever been completed.
Undoubtedly, this is the central and most intriguing question associated with The Art of Fugue. Certain scholars, grounding their claims on primary resources such as preserved scores and documents, avow that the composer did not finish it. Others, no less persuasively, insist that the composition is completed, corroborating their claim with indirect evidence, circumstantial particulars and the fact that many materials of The Art of Fugue were lost after the composer’s death. Each side sticks to its own truth, leaving the question unresolved.
This book proposes a solution that combines both primary and circumstantial data into a meaningful complex. The hypothesis presented here goes beyond the preserved documentation that is directly related to the creation and publication of The Art of Fugue, suggesting interpretations that interweave various contexts of Bach’s biography such as his social circumstances, his contacts with family members and—strangely perhaps—even with his illness and death. Further, it points at possible correlations between the contrapuncti and canons of The Art of Fugue and contemporary theories about counterpoint and fugue composition. All this is cardinal to the examination of the work’s completion. Particularities of the composition process are discussed as well as specific inscription techniques, paper types and note corrections. Within this broader context, both the manuscript autograph and the first printed edition of the work, respectively referred to as ‘The Autograph’ and ‘The Original Edition’,1 offer a wealth of relevant scholarly information formerly left unaccounted. In order to warrant a proper understanding of Bach’s ways of operation throughout the composition process, these two surviving documents are meticulously detailed in Part II of this book. The Autograph and the Original Edition differ significantly in content and internal order.2 However, as facts show and as most scholars agree, no existing source reflects Bach’s conclusive conception of the work, and in particular the internal ordering of the fugues.
The author closely inspects both the Autograph and the Original Edition and reveals in them traces reflecting Bach’s creative process. In Part III of this book, these two sources are combined with additional information, concluding in the proposal of four different versions of The Art of Fugue, consecutively envisaged by Bach. The first two versions are implied in the Autograph, and the other two—deduced from a combination of the Original Edition with information from the Autograph’s supplements. In Chapter 11, entitled ‘The Fourth Version,’ we propose a new perspective, suggesting Bach’s vision of a final, albeit never-materialised version of the work and describing its likely structure and features.
While deeply indebted to other reconstruction attempts, each with its own valuable insights, this book differs from former studies in its interdisciplinary approach. The purport of Baroque music included visual and conceptual elements, such as outlines created by the musical graphic notation, resulting in certain visual figurations, and that contributed to its signification. Symbolisation was a main device of Baroque musical expression, combining rational and emotional aspects of music into an interaction that exceeded their separate effects. An appropriate interpretation of Bach’s compositional choices must take such features into account, particularly in the many cases when his procedures may otherwise seem inexplicable, strange or even nonsensical.
Equally, a proper understanding of the Original Edition’s structure requires not only J.S. Bach’s actions, but also a careful account of the steps taken by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach during the publication of his father’s work. Consequently, descriptions of circumstances and individuals that contributed to and even guided both Johann Sebastian’s and Philipp Emanuel’s actions and ways of operation are provided, including listings of names, professional occupations, relocations and contacts and various additional data deemed relevant. A careful consideration of the theory of fugue composition and of some paradoxes associated with certain types of fugue, as well as of canon composition methods during Bach’s lifetime, may shed light on certain peculiarities of the Autograph (for example, the fact that some sections had to be written prior to others). Several explanations of additional terms are provided in notes, where a correct understanding of the eighteenth-century idiomatic use of musical terminology is needed to follow the logic of our argumentation.
1 This is the standard name for the first edition of The Art of Fugue published by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach after his father’s death.
2 ‘Order’ here means the sequencing of pieces (and their engraving) in The Art of Fugue, which actually leads to a reconstruction of the composer’s idea. See Gregory Butler, ‘Ordering problems in J.S. Bach’s Art of Fugue resolved’, The Musical Quarterly, 69/1 (1983): pp. 44–61. Later, Butler revised some of the principal ideas of this paper and presented his new view in ‘Scribes, Engravers and Notational Styles: The Final Disposition of Bach’s Art of Fugue’, in About Bach, Gregory G. Butler, George B. Stauffer and Mary Dalton Greer (eds) (Urbana and Chicago, 2008), pp. 111–23.