Bach Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor

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The first time I heard the Passacaglia and Fugue performed in a live recital was while attending an “Organ Week for High School Students” directed by Joan Lippincott. It was one of several summer workshops offered by Westminster Choir College, and took place at the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, California. One of the pieces in her organ recital was Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue. I cannot remember whether I learned this piece before or after I heard her play it in recital, but it had already become my favorite organ piece. Last year, deciding that it was time to start playing it again, I found myself eagerly awaiting James Kibbie’s recording on a historic organ in Germany. In 2007, Dr. James Kibbie, an organ recitalist and organ professor at the University of Michigan, began a project of recording all of Bach’s organ music on original baroque organs in Germany. On the website he includes photos and stop lists of each organ, as well as his registration for each piece, and in the case of the Passacaglia, for each variation.

http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/organs/waltershausen.htm

Here is the link to his recording

http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/detail.php?ID=BWV0582

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Here is some background on the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor  BWV  582

The original manuscript was lost, so the date of composition is unknown. In one of the extant scores there is an annotation, cembalo ossia organo, which indicated that Bach may have intended the Passacaglia for either pedal harpsichord or organ. Also there is a manuscript of the first 49 measures that is based on a copy once owned by Bach’s son C.P.E Bach. The heavy ornamentation is common in much of the harpsichord music of the time. However, during Bach’s time organists often practiced their music on pedal harpsichords, as it was easier to practice at home rather than in unheated churches with organs that required an assistant to pump the air. Like much of Bach’s music, this piece does well in transcription, and has been transcribed for various types of instrumental groups, from two piano to brass, strings, and orchestra. The first half of the Passacaglia ground is thought to have been borrowed from the French composer André Raison. The piece shows the influence of Bach’s teacher Detrich Buxtehude.   

Summary of the Fugue

Unlike most of the fugues that Bach wrote for keyboard instruments, The Fugue in C minor that follows Bach’s Passacaglia is unusual, both in and of itself, as well as the fact that it is so deeply integrated with the Passacaglia. There is grandeur in the Passacaglia, and what makes it unique is an expansion of the common use of the form in Bach’s day. With a slightly different ending, the  Passacaglia could have stood by itself one of Bach’s great works, but he took it a step further by adding a fugue. One thing that many enjoy about the Passacaglia and Fugue is the terrific momentum. Just as you feel like you have finally climbed to the top of the mountain, the fugue begins, taking you to even greater heights.

This works because of the unique integration of the Passacaglia and Fugue. In general, Bach’s keyboard fugues are paired with preludes, toccatas, or fantasies, and the only thing they have in common with each other is that they are in the same key. Not so with this particular fugue. Bach begins by sneaking in the first note of the fugue by hiding it in the middle of the eight-note chord that ends the Passacaglia. He then takes the 15 note melody (ground) that is the underpinning of the Passacaglia, and uses it for both the subject and counter subject: the subject using the first 8 notes of the ground, and the countersubject using the rest of the ground, but inverted and with more and quicker notes. And, to make things even more interesting, he uses both subject and counter subject at the same time, from the beginning to the final statement, and adds a second counter subject that catches up to the other subjects around the sixth bar, staying with them throughout the next eleven statements.   

But Bach did not stop here. He made it more complicated by making it a “permutation fugue”. This type of fugue is related to the canon, in that each voice enters with the same order of notes. For example, the first subject (#1) the one that sounds exactly like the first few notes of the passacaglia, starts out in the alto. The alto continues with the counter subject (#2) and then on to the second counter subject (#3) and then finally with free counterpoint (#4). One at a time, each of the other voices follow the same pattern. The bass, which is played by the feet on the pedals, is the last to enter. The exposition is over after the pedal plays counter subject 2. The next part of the fugue consists of “development episodes” where the material is developed in all sorts of interesting ways, including seven more statements of the three subjects, modulations to other keys, and episodes of free counterpoint that grow longer as the fugue progresses.  The fugue ends with an improvisatory coda.

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For more information click on the link below where you can listen to the Passacaglia and Fugue while watching an analysis of the score.

http://bach.nau.edu/BWV582/BWV582b.html

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Further analysis

Key

1=subject (from first half of Passacaglia ground)

2=counter subject (based on an inversion of the second half of the Passacaglia ground)

3=second counter subject 

4=free counterpoint.

Bass=Pedal

m=minor

M=major

 

Vocabulary

Statement: Each time the subject and countersubjects are played they are making a “statement”.  

Tonic: The first note of the scale of a particular key. The tonic in the key of C is C.

Dominant: The fifth degree in the scale of a particular key. The tonic of C is G.

Subdominant: The fourth degree in the scale of a particular key. The subdominant in C is F.

Modulation: the working from one key to another.  

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Bach composed this in the key of C minor, which in his time would have been indicated by two flats rather than the three that came into use later. The first part of the fugue is called an exposition, during which each voice (SATB) takes a turn playing the subject, counter subject, and second counter subject.  The entrances of the subjects shift back and forth from the tonic to the dominant. The development goes father afield, modulating into the relative major, (E-flat major) and then the dominant of the relative major (B-flat major). Later there is a modulation into the subdominant (F minor). Below is the list of keys of the 12 statements that the subjects travel through. The changing keys are the ones most closely related to the original key of C minor.
 

Exposition: Cm, Gm, Cm, Gm, Cm

Development: EbM, BbM, Gm, Cm, Gm, Fm, Cm

 

 

Structure

 

The first numbers indicates the  number of each statement, and the numbers below indicate the subject, counter subject, second counter subject, and free counterpoint, in that order.    

 

1) (Cm)

1 Alto

2 Tenor

 

2) (Gm)

1 Soprano

2 Alto

3 Tenor

 

3) (Cm)

1 Bass 

2 Soprano

3 Alto

4 Tenor

 

4) (Gm)

1. Tenor

2. Bass

3. Soprano

4. Alto

 

5) (Cm)

1. Alto

2. Tenor

3. Bass

4. Soprano

Exposition ends with cadence modulating to Eb major

 

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6).  Development episode #1 Eb major modulating to Bb major

1. Tenor

2. Alto

3. Soprano

 

7) Development episode #2 Bb major

1. Alto

2. Soprano

3. Tenor

 

Rising sequence, Falling sequence

 

8) (Gm) Development episode #3

1. Bass

2. Alto

3. Soprano

4. Tenor

 

Falling sequence

 

9) (Cm) Development episode #4

1. Tenor

2. Bass

3. Soprano

Cadence in Eb evaded

 

Development episode #5

Rising sequence followed by inverted forms  

10) (Gm)

1. Soprano

2. Tenor

3. Bass

4. Alto

 

Rising sequence, falling sequence, cadence

 

Development episode #6 modulating to F minor

11) (Fm)

1. Pedal

2. Alto

3. Tenor

4. Soprano

 

Development episode #7

12) (Cm)

1. Soprano

2. Alto

3. Bass

4. Tenor

Improvisatory Coda C minor

 

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