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Analysis of J S Bach's organ works

Bach>Meer

New member
Hi all

Is there such an analysis as the above? I'm slowly wanting to get into the tougher Bach pieces at the risk of running before I can walk but in order to help me I'd like to try and understand maybe the Bach blueprint (if there is one?)

At the moment I'd really like to know what he tends to do in the hands typically when playing a fugal theme in the feet. Does every fugue tend to take the same format or does it differ from piece to piece?

I'm looking for some common themes to aid understanding basically.

Can you help?!

Thanks
 

dll927

New member
Sounds like one of those things that people write Ph.D dissertations on. I'm sure there are any number of people who could pretend to give you a VERY long answer.

Bach having been Bach, would he have consistently stuck to one approach? One thing that seems to make a composer is an almost never-ending run of musical ideas. Mozart lived only about 35 years, but he sure had a lot of different ideas. And did he ever have a "way" with melodies!!

Scholastically speaking, there was a time when learners "apprenticed" themselves to masters. It seems to have been around the middle of the 19th century that the idea of music conservatories and academic treatment of music came into recognition. And at least for a while there seems to have been some controversy over whether or not such a thing made sense. But don't ask the local music professor to think that.

A good example is John Near, a professor at a midwestern college who has gone into Widor's music almost to the last detail and has published newer versions after some pretty thorough research.

Chances are, there would be a number of different answers to this question.
 

acc

Member
dll927 said:
Bach having been Bach, would he have consistently stuck to one approach?
Click to expand...

He would not. For one, much of his musical output was inextricably linked to the various jobs he had during his life: surely, you don't write music the same way when you are a Kappellmeister at a prince's court in Köthen and when you are a Cantor at a church in Leibzig.
 
Contratrombone64

Contratrombone64

Admiral of Fugues
The art of fugue is not an analysis of Bach's music, however, it does demonstrate what one who is supremely gifted can do with the fugal form.

Bach's music in general terms is no different to any other standard baroque piece, so as structures go (form) then the way he deals with the gavotte or the sarabande is no different to anyone else from that era, excepting that Bach just did it so well. William Lovelock's tome on form might be useful as it explains their structures. He also wrote an excellent book called the Examination Fugue, which demonstrates how a fugue is made up ... and he goes to great pains in point out that a fugue is not something you can just sit down and describe and write.
 

rovikered

New member
Hi Bach>Meer,
I've only just spotted this thread with your enquiry so my contribution may be somewhat out of date and not now required. However, for what it's worth, here it is.
The best authoritative book on Bach's organ music by a contemporary scholar is 'The Organ Music of Bach' by Peter Williams (Cambridge University Press). On the subject of Fugue (history, analysis, construction) the best one I know of is 'The Technique and Spirit of Fugue' by George Oldroyd (Oxford).
With regard to the organ registration of Bach's works, there are detailed suggestions in the Widor-Schweitzer Edition which I was introduced to in my first year at the organ 50 years ago. However, I do not know if this edition (published by Schirmer) is still in print and I suspect that the suggestions would now be controversial.
There used to be another book available (probably now out of print as it dated from the 1920s):'The Organ Works of J.S. Bach' by Harvey Grace (Novello) but that would be regarded as unauthentic now.
Undoubtedly, as I cited above, Williams' book is the best; and it is vital to hear authentic exponents of Bach playing his works on (preferably historic) authentic instruments.
Best wishes.
rk
 
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