Reflections

A bright, brass-like, proud processional, this fugue marches regally upward from bass to soprano in crowning terraces of one, two, three and four voices. As with trumpet fanfares, the texture occasionally pairs two voices (especially the eighth note figures) with harmonies in major thirds proclaiming a happy, royal beneficence. Two voices, paired but staggered in stretto make a coronation of the second section of the fugue, echoed by another pair, an episode, and then a brilliant brass imbroglio with all four voices in stretto. This fugue is joy, victory, peace and the graciousness of well-being.

It would seem that the basic design of the fugue is straightforward. First, take a subject, a basic countersubject and build a standard exposition in four parts. Add a brief episode. Now, let the subject enter again, but increase the complexity and heighten the tension using stretto. First, use stretto with two voices, do it twice to repeat the pattern and enable all four voices to participate. Introduce another episode for contrast. Now, use the subject with stretto one more time, pulling out all the stops: let all voices participate and set if you can get at least three of them to run simultaneously. Cool down with a final episode for a coda.

Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty. Great works of art often seem clear and even simple, after someone has had the creativity to bring them into existence. This is much hard than it looks. Don't try this at home unless you are a trained professional. This after-the-fact blow-by-blow commentary is the easy part. Let's review that description again, this time listing exactly those achievements that might in fact require more than a modicum of skill, artistry and ingenuity:

This makes the problem more clear, rather, that the problem is quite more of a problem than it might first appear. Now, imagine the problem of composing of doing this again and again, 48 times. It goes without saying that each of the 48 ought to be unique and distinctive in personality, what to speak of meeting a minimal standard of excellence that has historically been beyond the grasp of most composers besides Bach. The problem is not only hard, it is nearly impossible.

Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier is brilliant art on many levels. But it is especially impressive to realize that, if for nothing else, it is celebrated for its unqualified success in merely the very first bullet in the daunting list above: invent a pleasingly musical subject. But once you have that, you are well on your way! Good luck.