Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV. 565

 * __Historical Background (including biography)__ **

Life and Career of J.S. Bach
 * Born to a family of musicians working in what is now central Germany
 * Fulfilled various posts throughout his life
 * Arnstadt: church organist at Neue Kirche (1703)
 * Mühlhausen: church organist at St. Blasius (1707)
 * Weimar: position (organist then concertmaster) at the court of the Duke of Weimar (1708)
 * CöthenKapellmeister (music director) at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt in Cöthen (1717)
 * Leipzig: cantor of the St. Thomas School and civic music director
 * Bach's duties and activities in Leipzig

Read J.S. Bach's "Short but Most Necessary Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music," in Source Readings in Music History, rev. ed., vol. 4, The Baroque Era, edited by Margaret Murata (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998), 57–61.

Compositions by Bach: BWV=Bach-Werke Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalog)
 * Sacred Works
 * Church cantatas (about 200)
 * Latin church music (motets and mass)
 * Passions and oratorios
 * Organ works based on chorales (about 200)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Secular Works
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Secular cantatas
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Organ works independent of chorales
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Keyboard works: The Well-Tempered Clavier
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Solo instrument works
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Chamber works
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Orchestral works: Brandenburg Concertos
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Counterpoint studies: The Art of Fugue

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Political situation in German-speaking lands
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Holy Roman Empire: conglomeration of Imperial territories (the Hapsburg families), large and small principalities, and independent cities.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Multiple musical centers (unlike the more centralized environment in France and Germany)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Division between the Protestant and Catholic territories (The Thirty Years' War ended in 1648)


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Cultural Context__ **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Protestant Reformation (how much can we discuss this?)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Martin Luther's departure from the Roman Catholic church
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Development of new liturgy and accompanying music: chorales
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Compositions based on chorales (compare to Josquin's Missa Pange lingua)

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Bach Reception (in brief)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Reputation as a masterful but old-fashioned composer by the time of his death
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Known among later composers (such as Haydn and Mozart) in the 18th century
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Did not achieve revival until Felix Mendelssohn's efforts in the early 19th century


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Analytical Commentaries__ **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Toccata (//touched//): Piece for keyboard instruments (or Lute) in the Renaissance and Baroque Periods resembling improvisation that may include imitation. May be an independent piece or functions as a prelude to a fugue (as in this case)

Texture
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Juxtaposition of different musical ideas (single note in octave with ornament, rapid scalar passage, chords, rapid figuration and repeated patterns, etc.)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Virtuosic display of the performer
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">These create an effect of improvisation (composing music on the spot)

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tempo and Rhythm
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Frequent shifts in tempo
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Stop and go" feel

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fugue (Fuga, Fuge): Composition in imitative texture that is based on a single subject and begins with successive statements of the subjects in difference voices. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Recitativo at m. 97 initiates another improvisatory passage that explores various musical ideas in different textures, configuration, and tempo.
 * 1) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The main theme of the fugue is stated first in the tenor. This is called the subject.
 * 2) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The subject moves to the alto in m. 2. The tenor's part is called the counter-subject.
 * 3) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The subject moves to the soprano in m. 9.
 * 4) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Bach explores different musical ideas but refers to bits and pieces of the subject
 * 5) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Statement of the subject in the bass in m. 22
 * 6) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Statement of the subject in the tenor in m. 27
 * 7) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Statement of the subject in the soprano in m. 40
 * 8) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Statement of the subject in the bass in m. 56
 * 9) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Statement of the subject in the tenor in m. 63
 * 10) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Statement of the subject in the bass in m. 79
 * 11) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Statement of the subject in the tenor in m. 94

**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enhanced Listening Excerpt ** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Score with commentary