# Art of fugue - for organ?



## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

Does the fact the lowest voice sometimes rises to the top invalidate the organ as the instrument bach intended for the art of fugue (assuming he did intend one)? The reasoning being it would never sound 'right' to have a high voice played by the organ pedal which has a distinctly lower resonance...

I believe this was Leonhardt's reasoning for the conclusion the harpsichord was Bach's intended instrument for AOF.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RogerWaters said:


> I believe this was Leonhardt's reasoning for the conclusion the harpsichord was Bach's intended instrument for AOF.


I have never found Leonhardt's argument for thinking it is a harpsichord piece and not an organ piece, if indeed he has one. I have a translation of his monograph but I couldn't find it in there. I could well have just missed it, it's the sort of thing I do!

Maybe it's in the essay he wrote for the CD, which I don't have. Any reference you have would be much appreciated.


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I have never found Leonhardt's argument for thinking it is a harpsichord piece and not an organ piece, if indeed he has one. I have a translation of his monograph but I couldn't find it in there. I could well have just missed it, it's the sort of thing I do!
> 
> Maybe it's in the essay he wrote for the CD, which I don't have. Any reference you have would be much appreciated.


Leonhardt, Gustav (July 1953). "The Art of Fugue - Bach's Last Harpsichord Work: An Argument". The Musical Times. 39 (3): 463-466. JSTOR 740009.

Summarised here


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Ah thanks, I don't see that point 4 in the monograph, and I'd never consulted wiki. In my copy, which is a translation into French, the crucial chapter is called _Indices pour une execution au clavier_ (=keyboard) and yet in the final summary he says _Nous avons prouve dans l'augumentation que precede que l'AdF avait ete ecrit pour clavecin_ (=harpsichord.)

Sorry -- no accents!


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Ah thanks, I don't see that point 4 in the monograph, and I'd never consulted wiki. In my copy, which is a translation into French, the crucial chapter is called _Indices pour une execution au clavier_ (=keyboard) and yet in the final summary he says _Nous avons prouve dans l'augumentation que precede que l'AdF avait ete ecrit pour clavecin_ (=harpsichord.)
> 
> Sorry -- no accents!


Any thoughts on the argument, whether or not it was Leonhardt's?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

No, I don't know the score or the instruments well enough to comment.


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## ManateeFL (Mar 9, 2017)

I'm no kind of musicologist and have very limited knowledge and don't hold an opinion on the subject myself, but I've read that contrapuncti 12 and 13 are impossible to play with two hands on a single keyboard and that players either need to add an additional keyboardist or use over-dubbing in the studio. Is this true? And if so, wouldn't the impossibility of being able to realize the music as written on a harpsichord be an argument against the music being composed for that instrument?


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

ManateeFL said:


> I'm no kind of musicologist and have very limited knowledge and don't hold an opinion on the subject myself, but I've read that contrapuncti 12 and 13 are impossible to play with two hands on a single keyboard and that players either need to add an additional keyboardist or use over-dubbing in the studio. Is this true? And if so, wouldn't the impossibility of being able to realize the music as written on a harpsichord be an argument against the music being composed for that instrument?


Bach frequently wrote impossible music. some of the WTC is, strictly speaking, impossible to play on the harpsichord even though we know the harpsichord to be the intended instrument. In my opinion, it is most likely Bach intended the AoF to be placed on a keyboard instrument of the performers choosing. This was common practice in the early Baroque (to write music for a general keyboard instrument) and the use of the word contrapuncti, the style of counterpoint, and even the use of the Latin fuga in the original title suggest Bach was, in a sense, harkening back. This is in addition to the fact, of course, that he never specified one or the other in any known writings or instructions.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

The great German harpsichordist and organist, Helmut Walcha, fancied the organ for the Art of Fugue asserting that "the execution of the _Art of Fugue_ on the organ responds best to the intimate nature of this composition." He explained further: "Since Bach was very interested in this instrument during the later years of his life, we can conclude that while writing his _Art of Fugue_, he was thinking in terms of the sonorous universe of the organ; we know that after the _Art of Fugue_, Bach completed the work of his lifetime in composing the eighteen great Chorals for organ." For Walcha, compared to other keyboard instruments, the organ has an "incomparably richer variety of tone-colours [that is] more suitable for interpreting the large number of similar fugal compositions in plastic relief" and it "can hardly be surpassed in the realization of the work when notes have to be sustained with consistent intensity."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

BachIsBest said:


> Bach frequently wrote impossible music. some of the WTC is, strictly speaking, impossible to play on the harpsichord even though we know the harpsichord to be the intended instrument. In my opinion, it is most likely Bach intended the AoF to be placed on a keyboard instrument of the performers choosing. This was common practice in the early Baroque (to write music for a general keyboard instrument) and the use of the word contrapuncti, the style of counterpoint, and even the use of the Latin fuga in the original title suggest Bach was, in a sense, harkening back. This is in addition to the fact, of course, that he never specified one or the other in any known writings or instructions.


This is my opinion too, which is why I'm curious about why Leonhardt should have asserted that it is a harpsichord piece so confidently.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> This is my opinion too, which is why I'm curious about why Leonhardt should have asserted that it is a harpsichord piece so confidently.


The mirror fugues were probably meant to be played on two harpsichords, recall the two-harpsichord arrangement of the three part mirror fugue.

Harpsichord contra organ? Probably harpsichord or organ manualiter. If one wants to use the pedal just play with pedal coupler without any of the pedalboards stops drawn.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Quote from Wiki (part of Leonhardt's arguments):

_Finally, since the bass voice in The Art of Fugue occasionally rises above the tenor, and the tenor becomes the "real" bass, Leonhardt deduces that the bass part was not meant to be doubled at 16-foot pitch, thus eliminating the pipe organ as the intended instrument, leaving the harpsichord as the most logical choice._

I don't think this is the best way to put it, because one can leave out 16' stops in the pedal or restrict the use of 16' stops in the pedal to when 16' stops are drawn in the in the manual(s) too. But the problem is, that it is difficult to balance the pedal part properly against the manual(s) with pedal stops, if we want all parts to be equally balanced. This is the reason why the use of manuals alone results in better internal balance of the parts. But all the same I don't see, why the work can't be meant for organ manualiter just as well as for harpsichord.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

premont said:


> Quote from Wiki (part of Leonhardt's arguments):
> 
> _Finally, since the bass voice in The Art of Fugue occasionally rises above the tenor, and the tenor becomes the "real" bass, Leonhardt deduces that the bass part was not meant to be doubled at 16-foot pitch, thus eliminating the pipe organ as the intended instrument, leaving the harpsichord as the most logical choice._
> 
> I don't think this is the best way to put it, because one can leave out 16' stops in the pedal or restrict the use of 16' stops in the pedal to when 16' stops are drawn in the in the manual(s) too. But the problem is, that it is difficult to balance the pedal part properly against the manual(s) with pedal stops, if we want all parts to be equally balanced. This is the reason why the use of manuals alone results in better internal balance of the parts. But all the same I don't see, why the work can't be meant for organ manualiter just as well as for harpsichord.


Yet he is so clear in my French translation of the monograph, the word he uses is _clavecin_. I guess he wrote it in Dutch, maybe it's a mistranslation.

He recorded it on harpsichord, hence I wonder whether there's some additional argument that goes with the recording, an apologia for the choice of instrument.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Yet he is so clear in my French translation of the monograph, the word he uses is _clavecin_. I guess he wrote it in Dutch, maybe it's a mistranslation.
> 
> He recorded it on harpsichord, hence I wonder whether there's some additional argument that goes with the recording, an apologia for the choice of instrument.


I have not kept the booklet, but as far as I recall, it just contained a summary of his treatise.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I usually prefer to hear this work played by the string quartet


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Regarding the instrument Bach may have had in mind, I am of the opinion that it is entirely a conceptual exercise, a time capsule for the style of composition that was fading away and which Bach wanted to preserve for posterity. If he would have had more time, he may have brushed up the score so it would work better on harpsichord/clavichord/organ/whatever, but in the state he left it I say no instrument or combination of instruments is off limits.

That said I think I like it on organ better than any other. I love the Walcha for the stoic German seriousness that contributes to an overwhelming celestial final product. Are there any other good organ versions out there?


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> That said I think I like it on organ better than any other. I love the Walcha for the stoic German seriousness that contributes to an overwhelming celestial final product. Are there any other good organ versions out there?


I think Walcha is unsurpassed even if he uses the pedal to the full.

Of the ca. fifty versions I know, some of my faves are:

*Håkan Wikman*

https://www.amazon.de/Bach-Fugue-Ku...ds=Håkan+wikman&qid=1599865481&s=music&sr=1-2

*Lionel Rogg*

https://www.amazon.de/Die-Kunst-Fug...=1&keywords=Lionel+rogg&qid=1599865681&sr=8-6

*Joan Lippincott*

https://www.amazon.de/Kunst-Fuge-Jo...incott&qid=1599865734&s=digital-skills&sr=1-5

*Bengt Tribukait*

https://www.amazon.de/Kunst-Fuge-Ba...d=1&keywords=tribukait&qid=1599865809&sr=8-10


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Regarding the instrument Bach may have had in mind, I am of the opinion that it is entirely a conceptual exercise, a time capsule for the style of composition that was fading away and which Bach wanted to preserve for posterity. If he would have had more time, he may have brushed up the score so it would work better on harpsichord/clavichord/organ/whatever, but in the state he left it I say no instrument or combination of instruments is off limits.


Bach was a practical musician who didn't compose theoretical music. And there is no convincing evidence indicating that the AoF wasn't conceived as a keyboard work in the first hand.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

premont said:


> Bach was a practical musician who didn't compose theoretical music. And there is no convincing evidence indicating that the AoF wasn't conceived as a keyboard work in the first hand.


Yes, he was certainly a practical musician. Yet the Mass in B Minor is very idealistic - there is no way that he could find an outlet for it to be performed in his Lutheran surroundings, its extensive demands on singers were unprecedented, and it was far too long to be used in a church setting. My highly subjective theory is that he wrote it as a personal summation of his beliefs - musically and religiously. In the same way I think the AoF is a summation of his beliefs about the style of composition which he believed to be highest and most worthy. They are both groundbreaking valedictory essays that weren't primarily concerned with practicality. I think that once he stopped having to write cantatas so often for his job he reveled in being able to write what he wanted regardless of whether it would "work." But I definitely understand and respect the idea that the AoF was written for keyboard and indeed find it hard to dispute that, at the very least, Bach composed it with a keyboard instrument (most likely harpsichord or more than one) in mind.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Yet the Mass in B Minor is very idealistic - there is no way that he could find an outlet for it to be performed in his Lutheran surroundings, its extensive demands on singers were unprecedented, and it was far too long to be used in a church setting. My highly subjective theory is that he wrote it as a personal summation of his beliefs - musically and religiously. In the same way I think the AoF is a summation of his beliefs about the style of composition which he believed to be highest and most worthy. They are both groundbreaking valedictory essays that weren't primarily concerned with practicality.


I agree with much of what you are saying here, and I think it is beyond 'highly subjective'. It makes some sense. There are still questions as to Bach's intent and I feel that is why it is not widely accepted that AoF is strictly a keyboard work.

I think that AoF is a cutting edge work and was being created with the intention of expanding the concept of a fugue. We can't know precisely where Bach's mind was going with this, particularly since the work is incomplete. In my view it is not beyond the realm of possibility Bach was toying with the idea of adding some dynamics, obviously I don't know this for sure, but it is a possible reason for the lack of a specific instrumentation for this work.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> My highly subjective theory is that he wrote it as a personal summation of his beliefs - musically and religiously.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_B_minor#Background_and_context

"On 1 February 1733, Augustus II the Strong, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Elector of Saxony, died. Five months of mourning followed, during which all public music-making was suspended. Bach used the opportunity to work on the composition of a Missa, a portion of the liturgy sung in Latin and common to both the Lutheran and Roman Catholic rites. His aim was to dedicate the work to the new sovereign Augustus III, a convert to Catholicism, with the hope of obtaining the title "Electoral Saxon Court Composer". Upon its completion, Bach visited Augustus III in Dresden and presented him with a copy of the Kyrie-Gloria Mass BWV 232 I (early version), together with a petition to be given a court title, dated July 27, 1733; in the accompanying inscription on the wrapper of the mass he complains that he had "innocently suffered one injury or another" in Leipzig. The petition did not meet with immediate success, but Bach eventually got his title: he was made court composer to Augustus III in 1736.

In the last years of his life, Bach expanded the Missa into a complete setting of the Latin Ordinary. It is not known what prompted this creative effort. Wolfgang Osthoff and other scholars have suggested that Bach intended the completed Mass in B minor for performance at the dedication of the new Hofkirche in Dresden, a Catholic cathedral dedicated to the Holy Trinity, which was begun in 1738 and was nearing completion by the late 1740s. However, the building was not completed until 1751 and Bach's death in July 1750 prevented his Mass from being submitted for use at the dedication. Instead, Johann Adolph Hasse's Mass in D minor was performed, a work with many similarities to Bach's Mass (the Credo movements in both works feature chant over a walking bass line, for example). In 2013, Michael Maul published research suggesting the possibility that instead, Bach compiled it for performance in Vienna at St. Stephen's Cathedral (which was Roman Catholic) on St. Cecilia's Day in 1749, as a result of his association with Count Johann Adam von Questenberg. Other explanations are less event-specific, involving Bach's interest in 'encyclopedic' projects (like The Art of Fugue) that display a wide range of styles, and Bach's desire to preserve some of his best vocal music in a format with wider potential future use than the church cantatas they originated in (see "Movements and their sources" below)."


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

premont said:


> Quote from Wiki (part of Leonhardt's arguments):
> 
> _Finally, since the bass voice in The Art of Fugue occasionally rises above the tenor, and the tenor becomes the "real" bass, Leonhardt deduces that the bass part was not meant to be doubled at 16-foot pitch, thus eliminating the pipe organ as the intended instrument, leaving the harpsichord as the most logical choice._
> 
> I don't think this is the best way to put it, because one can leave out 16' stops in the pedal or restrict the use of 16' stops in the pedal to when 16' stops are drawn in the in the manual(s) too. But the problem is, that it is difficult to balance the pedal part properly against the manual(s) with pedal stops, if we want all parts to be equally balanced. This is the reason why the use of manuals alone results in better internal balance of the parts. But all the same I don't see, why the work can't be meant for organ manualiter just as well as for harpsichord.


Thanks for your response. So use of the pedal might be 'inauthentic'?


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

RogerWaters said:


> Thanks for your response. So use of the pedal might be *'inauthentic'*?


I have never thought of it in that way. Rather i would think of it as an arrangement of the work for organ. Different organists of our time make different arrangements of the AoF for their own use. Bach himself made several arrangements of his own music for other instruments, so I think Bach would have approved a tasteful arrangement of the AoF for organ.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

tdc said:


> We can't know precisely where Bach's mind was going with this, particularly since the work is incomplete.


We do not even know if the work was considered incomplete by its composer. The unfinished fugue, which by itself is a great work, was added to the AoF by CPE Bach, and it is very questionable if it belongs to the work. CPE Bach also added other movements which surely not would have been included by JS Bach himself.

I think, that our idea of the incompleteness of the AoF is heavily affected by our modern idea of a sequential performance of the entire work. But each contrapunctus represents its own way of contrapuntal technique (and is complete in itself), and the AoF may be seen just as a manual for composers with the contrapuncti grouped according to increasing compositional complexity. The sequence of the movements in the first printed edition doesn't constitute a performing sequence, even if JS Bach himself supervised the order of the first eleven contrapuncti.

And when is a work complete at all? Bach reworked many of his works during his lifetime and added musical substance. His works were not static entities, and this is also true of the AoF.


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

premont said:


> I have never thought of it in that way. Rather i would think of it as an arrangement of the work for organ. Different organists of our time make different arrangements of the AoF for their own use. Bach himself made several arrangements of his own music for other instruments, so I think Bach would have approved a tasteful arrangement of the AoF for organ.


Sorry, I meant then that, as Leonhardt says, Bach probably did not write it for the Organ as opposed to the harpsichord?


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

RogerWaters said:


> Sorry, I meant then that, as Leonhardt says, Bach probably did not write it for the Organ as opposed to the harpsichord?


Well, my quibble with Leonhardt is that he excludes the organ on the basis of the pedal. For many reasons I think Bach had keyboard manualiter in mind and that the performer was free to choose harpsichord or organ manualiter. If the performer chooses organ *with* pedal I tend to call the result an arrangement, but many organists have made fine organ arrangements of the work, as we know. However I think it works better when played without pedal, as Håkan Wikman shows in his recording.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

I personally love organ performances of _Die Kunst der Fuge_, and I would like to add another 2-manual organ performance, by Bram Beekman, played on the Garrels organ of the Grote Kerk in Maassluis (Netherlands), starting at 48:27 here:


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

ManateeFL said:


> I'm no kind of musicologist and have very limited knowledge and don't hold an opinion on the subject myself, but I've read that contrapuncti 12 and 13 are impossible to play with two hands on a single keyboard and that players either need to add an additional keyboardist or use over-dubbing in the studio. Is this true? And if so, wouldn't the impossibility of being able to realize the music as written on a harpsichord be an argument against the music being composed for that instrument?


On Leonhardt's 1969 harpsichord recording of _die Kunst der Fuge_ on Harmonia Mundi (my preferred version), he got Bob van Asperen to play the second harpsichord for Contrapunti 12a, 12b, 18a, and 18b. Problem solved!

In Leonhardt's booklet accompanying the recording, he does argue that the harpsichord should be considered to occupy the first place ("an erster Stelle steht") among keyboard instruments for performing KdF, before organ and clavichord. Basically, he notes the lack of organ pedal indications in the score as evidence the work wasn't written for organ, and notes that at the time of his death, Bach owned several harpsichords but not a single clavichord.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Simplicissimus said:


> he notes the lack of organ pedal indications in the score as evidence the work wasn't written for organ, and notes that at the time of his death, Bach owned several harpsichords but not a single clavichord.


But it would be very strange to argue that the absence of pedal indications implies harpsichord music, as if no music was written for organs without pedals.

You could say the same about the manualiter preludes of Clavier Ubung III. They are indeed sometimes played on a harpsichord.

Much more interesting would be to point to internal evidence in the music itself -- are there any cpt which really demand the fast changing character of a harpsichord?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's Peter Ella with a canon -- he clearly thinks it has a church significance, calling it an elevation toccata. I wonder what that's about


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> But it would be very strange to argue that the absence of pedal indications implies harpsichord music, as if no music was written for organs without pedals.
> 
> You could say the same about the manualiter preludes of Clavier Ubung III. They are indeed sometimes played on a harpsichord.
> 
> Much more interesting would be to point to internal evidence in the music itself -- are there any cpt which really demand the fast changing character of a harpsichord?


Leonhardt does make this kind of argument: _Der ziemlich dichte Satz von tiefem Tenor und Bass ist für die Orgel ungewöhnlich, für Cembalo aber normal._ 'The rather dense setting of deep tenor and bass parts is unusual writing for the organ, quite normal for the harpsichord.'

I am not a player or scholar of keyboard instruments and I am not trying to support Leonhardt here, just citing what he wrote. I am actually interested in finding an organ performance of KdF that works for me. Walcha is too heavy and portentous for my sensibility. There are many delicate passages that seem to satisfy me only on harpsichord.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Simplicissimus said:


> Leonhardt does make this kind of argument: _Der ziemlich dichte Satz von tiefem Tenor und Bass ist für die Orgel ungewöhnlich, für Cembalo aber normal._ 'The rather dense setting of deep tenor and bass parts is unusual writing for the organ, quite normal for the harpsichord.'
> 
> I am not a player or scholar of keyboard instruments and I am not trying to support Leonhardt here, just citing what he wrote. I am actually interested in finding an organ performance of KdF that works for me. Walcha is too heavy and portentous for my sensibility. There are many delicate passages that seem to satisfy me only on harpsichord.


I wonder if you'd like Rubsam's first recording, not the Naxos, but the Philips.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Simplicissimus said:


> Leonhardt does make this kind of argument: _Der ziemlich dichte Satz von tiefem Tenor und Bass ist für die Orgel ungewöhnlich, für Cembalo aber normal._ '*The rather dense setting of deep tenor and bass parts is unusual writing for the organ,* quite normal for the harpsichord.'


This would be more unusual if the bass voice was meant to be played pedaliter.

Maybe Bach had the harpsichord in mind for some of the contrapuncti and the organ manualiter for others. E.g. organ for cpt. I - XI and harpsichord for the others - every combination may be possible. But in the end I am convinced, that he left the choice to the players discretion. And this is also why I think that a discussion of harpsichord contra organ (incl. Leonhardt's treatise) never will result in any valid conclusion.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

No comment on whether DKdF is "supposed" to be played on harpsichord vs organ as I don't know (or care) anything about the scholarship involved, but I did want to note that it has a completely different feel on the different instruments. Maybe it's just me, but this work comes off as extremely dark and severe on a harpsichord, especially the Leonhardt DHM recording. Leonhardt truly sounds like he's plumbing the depths of despair on that recording, it's so intense. By comparison, on organ it sounds a lot more measured and cerebral, but also more warm and homey. But I could be wrong; maybe it's just the individual recordings I'm listening to. 

Anyway, I was once told that you haven't heard the Art of Fugue until you've heard it played by saxophone quartet, so I'll refrain from commenting further as I've never heard that ensemble take on the work.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

flamencosketches said:


> No comment on whether DKdF is "supposed" to be played on harpsichord vs organ as I don't know (or care) anything about the scholarship involved, but I did want to note that it has a completely different feel on the different instruments. Maybe it's just me, but this work comes off as extremely dark and severe on a harpsichord, especially the Leonhardt DHM recording. Leonhardt truly sounds like he's plumbing the depths of despair on that recording, it's so intense. By comparison, on organ it sounds a lot more measured and cerebral, but also more warm and homey. But I could be wrong; maybe it's just the individual recordings I'm listening to.


Severe? Intense? Leonhardt? Like this?









I think there's quite a lot of different moods in Leonhardt. I can understand what you say about "dark" in the way he plays some of the fugues at the start, less so when you get further into the performance.

There are some very intense organ performances on record. Try Gerhard Weinberger for example.

But what you wrote reminds me of something I found on YouTube last night, a concert performance by Peter Ella where he calls it a "Requiem" Strange to me, but Ella is a serious musician and there'll be some thinking involved in the idea.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Severe? Intense? Leonhardt? Like this?
> View attachment 142994


I know this guy





Anyway, I think, more than most other works of Bach, the work sounds "grindy" on the harpsichord or the organ.



hammeredklavier said:


> I usually prefer to hear this work played by the string quartet


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Here's Peter Ella with a canon -- he clearly thinks it has a church significance, calling it an elevation toccata. I wonder what that's about


Johann Sebastian Bach 
Die Kunst Der Fuge BWV 1080 The Art of Fugue
Arrangement for Requiem Mass
Harpsichord : Peter Ella
0:00:00 Contrapunctus 1 Toccata avanti la Messa in Requiem
0:04:02 Contrapunctus 2 Introitus Requiem Aeternam
0:08:16 Contrapunctus 3 Kyrie Eleison
0:12:13 Contrapunctus 4 Christe Eleison 
0:18:52 Contrapunctus 5 Kyrie Eleison 
0:23:25 Contrapunctus 6 a 4 in stile francese Dies Irae 
0:27:35 Contrapunctus 7 a 4 per augmentationem et diminutionem Rex Tremendae 
0:31:25 Canon alla ottava Confutatis Maledictis 
0:37:58 Contrapunctus 8 a 3 Lacrimosa Pie Jesu Domine 
0:47:14 Contrapunctus 9 a 4 alla duodecima Domine Jesu Christe 
0:53:04 Canon alla duodecima Quam Olim Abraham 
0:59:16 Contrapunctus 10 a 4 alla decima Hostias 
1:05:19 Canon alla decima Fac Eas Domine 
1:10:44 Contrapunctus 11 a 4 Sanctus et Benedictus 
1:20:32 Canon per augmentationem in contrario motu Toccata per l'Elevatione

I think it's the DVD he released about 15 years ago on Supraphon. The music and the film were recorded at two different venues, the film being after-synchronised to the music.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> Severe? Intense? Leonhardt? Like this?
> 
> View attachment 142994
> 
> ...


Yes, exactly like that. :lol: It's possible that he does lighten up toward the later fugues. You know how memory works, you remember the first few and then the last one, and the rest become a blur. I'll have to give the whole thing a listen again soon.

I'll check out the Weinberger, that sounds awesome! Maybe it's just that Walcha that I'd been listening to intended to deliver an exercise in warmth and coziness.

Speaking of Leonhardt, does anyone know his earlier Bach Guild recording? I am curious about it. I think this is a work that he "owns", as far as the harpsichordists are concerned, though I am also curious about his student Bob van Asperen's recording and then Pieter-Jan Belder's recent recording for Brilliant.


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