Bach’s Testament: On the Philosophical and Theological Background of The Art of Fugue

195 Pages·2012·14.731 MB·English

by  Zoltán Göncz

Contextual Bach Studies
A series of monographs exploring the contexts
of Johann Sebastian Bach's life and music,
with a particular emphasis on theology and liturgy.
Series Editor: Robin A. Leaver
Music has its own distinctive characteristics-melody, harmony,
rhythm, form, etc.-that have to be fully appreciated if it is to be effec­
tively understood. But a detailed comprehension of all these musical
elements cannot reveal the significance of all the compositional choices
made by a composer. "What?" and "how?" questions need to be sup­
plemented by appropriate "why?" and "when?" questions. Study of the
original score and parts, as well as the different manifestations of a par­
ticular work, have to be undertaken. But if such study is regarded as an
end rather than a beginning, then the music itself will not necessarily be
fully understood. One must go further. There are various contexts that
impinge upon a composer's choices. Music is conditioned by time,
place, and culture and therefore is influenced by particular historical,
geographical, and social contexts; music written in fulfillment of a con­
tractual agreement has an economic context; and so forth.
The music of Johann Sebastian Bach has been the object of intensive
study and analysis, but in the past many of these studies have been
somewhat narrow in focus. For example, the received view of Bach's
music was to some degree incomplete because it was largely discussed
on its own terms without being fully set within the contextual perspec­
tive of the musician's predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. It
is only in fairly recent times that the music of these other composers has
become accessible, allowing us to appreciate the nature and stature of
their accomplishments, and at the same time giving us new perspectives
from which to view a more rounded picture of Bach's genius.
The monographs in this series explore such contextual areas. Since
much of Bach's music was composed for Lutheran worship, a primary
concern of these monographs is the liturgical and theological contexts
of the music. But Bach's music was not exclusively confined to these
specific religious concerns. German culture of the time had more gen­
eral religious dimensions that permeated "secular" society. Therefore,
in addition to specific studies of the liturgical and theological contexts
of Bach's music, this series also includes explorations of social, politi­
cal, and cultural religious contexts in which his music was composed
and first heard.
I. Cameron, Jasmin Melissa. The Crucifixion in Music: An Ana­
lytical Survey ofS ettings of the Crucifixus between 1680 and
1800,2006.
2. van Elferen, Isabella. Mystical Love in the German Baroque:
Theology, Poetry, Music, 2009.
3. Leahy, Anne, edited by Robin A. Leaver. J. S. Bach's "Leip­
zig" Chorale Preludes: Music, Text, Theology, 2011.
4. Goncz, Zoltan, translated by Peter Laki and Erzsebet Meszaros.
Bach's Testament: On the Philosophical and Theological Back­
ground ofThe Art of Fugue, 201 3.
Bach's Testament
On the Philosophical and Theological
The of Fugue
Background of Art
Zoltan Goncz
Translated by
Peter Laki
Erzsebet�eszaros
Contextual Bach Studies, No. 4
j
THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Lanham Toronto Plymouth, UK
• •
2013
Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
450I Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
I 0 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2013 by Zoltan G�ncz
The translation of this book was made possible by a publication grant from the
National Cultural Fund of Hungary and the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship
Nafion<ll
Cultural Fund
ofHungmy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
GOncz, Zoltan.
[Bach testamentuma. English]
Bach's testament: on the philosophical and theological background of The art
of fugue I Zoltan GOncz ; translated by Peter Laki and Erzsebet Meszaros.
p. em.- (Contextual Bach studies; no. 4)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8108-8447-2 (cloth: alk. paper)-ISBN 978-0-8108-8448-9
( ebook) I. Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750. Kunst der Fuge. Fuga (No. 19)
I. Laki, Peter. II. Title.
ML410.BI3G6713 2013
787 .4183092-dc23 201 2030824
eTK The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSJ/NISO 239.48-1992. Printed in the United
States of America.
To the memory of my father

Contents
Series Editor's Foreword
IX
Introduction xiii
Part I On the Philosophical and Theological Background
of The Art of Fugue
I Permutations 3
The Book of Creation 3
Llull 's Ars Magna 8
Baroque Combinatorial Poetry 14
Leibniz: Dissertatio de arte combinatoria 20
A Special Type of Permutation Fugue in Bach 25
The Music 26
The Text 29
2 The Algorithms of Perfection 37
The Bach Literature and Leibniz 37
Leibniz's Metaphysics and Bach 38
Toward Simplicity 40
Toward Complexity 47
3 Recursive Symmetries 59
The Structure of Genesis and Revelation 59
Punctus Contra Punctum 62
The Foundation 66
An encoded error 66
Trias harmonica naturalis 67
AandQ 68
vii
viii Contents
Bibliography 75
Primary Sources 75
Secondary Literature 77
Part II Reconstruction of the Final Contrapunctus
of The Art of Fugue
Introduction to the Reconstruction 85
The Analysis 89
The First Section 89
The Second Section 92
The Third Section 96
2 General Issues of Continuation 99
The Size 99
The Form Design of Modulation 100
Interchanges of Voices 100
The Spacing 101
3 The Reconstruction of the Third Section 103
The Combinations of the Three Subjects 103
The Combination Passage of the Third Section 108
4 The Reconstruction of the Fourth Section 113
The Combinations of the Four Subjects 113
The Permutation Matrix 129
The Inversion Matrix 133
5 Analysis of the Reconstructed Fugue 145
The Relationships of the Combinations 145
Numerology 146
Symmetries 149
Graphic Charts 151
Summary of the Reconstruction 153
Acknowledgments 155
Index 156
About the Author 178
Series Editor's Foreword
Bach's Art of Fugue (BWV I 080) stands at the pinnacle of the contrapuntal
art, valued for its astonishingly diverse treatment of the same thematic mate­
rial in fugues and canons. But it is a composite work that raises many ques­
tions. The composer died before it could be published and therefore a number
of issues surrounding it remain unresolved.
First, the gestation period of its composition was much longer than was
once thought. Evidence suggests Bach began work on it as early as the late
1730s rather than in the last year or so of his life.' Second, questions arise
concerning the different sequence of the movements in the manuscript (P200)
compared to those of the engraved plates that were nearly completed at Bach's
death and published the following year.2 But last and most enigmatic and de­
manding of attention is Contrapunctus 14, the quadruple fugue that Bach left
incomplete soon after he had introduced the third subject. Surely the master
of fugue was not confounded by the complexity of his projected counterpoint?
An obvious answer is that this was as far as the composer had proceeded in the
composition when he died. Indeed this is the suggestion of C. P. E. Bach, who
wrote in the manuscript at the place where his father had last lifted his pen:
"NB While working on this fugue, in which the Name BACH appears in the
countersubject, the author died." C. P. E. Bach and Johann Friedrich Agricola
3
also wrote something similar in the obituary: "His last illness prevented him
from completing his project of bringing the next-to-last fugue to completion
and working out the last one, which was to contain four themes and to have
been afterward inverted note for note in all four voices."4 But does this mean
that Bach had not finished composing the fugue and was still working out how
the four themes were to be contrapuntally intertwined?
It seems clear that anyone intending to construct a quadruple fugue would
have at least planned ahead how to combine the four subjects. While it is
ix