So ahem, moving on now...
The fifth prelude and fugue from Bach's second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier is a fabulous contrast in many ways to the previous set. Out of the gnarled, tangled key of C-sharp minor we find ourselves in one of the sunniest, robust keys that I know of, D major. The prelude is truly hilarious to me with its mash-up of styles. I hear a gigue with its compound, dancing and skipping rhythms, a French overture or some time of fanfare with the crisp double-dotted rhythms, a toccata with its fanciful, fast runs of sixteenth notes and also some sort of graceful smooth dance, with the more square legato, step-wise figures. Put them all together and you have a mighty fun dance that leaves me, quite frankly, out of breath.
Here is the Prelude in D major:
The fugue transports us from the country dance scene to the church. (Perhaps all of those rambunctious dancers needed to atone for some of their merriment.) This 4 voice fugue is extraordinarily simplistic, using very few rhythms and employing few fancy subject treatments. No backwards or upside-down subjects, or subjects stretched out and slowed down. Here you just get the subject repeated over and over again, one on top of another. And since few rhythms are used, much of the time the movement is homophonic, meaning the voices move together. It reminds me a bit of hearing hymns in church. Unlike the prelude, there is a solemnity and simplicity to this fugue that helps me to put aside all of the excess energy of the day and to focus on the simple beauty of a simple subject.
Other posts in this series:
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