Even though he was one of music's great conservatives,
it is often (and rightly) remarked that J.S. Bach was a
great cosmopolitan -- in his music, the north countries
meet southern Germany, France, and Italy in striking
ways previously almost unknown. In the Passacaglia and
Fugue in C minor, BWV 582, Bach joins together elements
from distinct nations and traditions in ways that may
be heard very close to the musical surface indeed. The
eight-bar ground bass upon which the Passacaglia is
based (a...(+)
Even though he was one of music's great conservatives,
it is often (and rightly) remarked that J.S. Bach was a
great cosmopolitan -- in his music, the north countries
meet southern Germany, France, and Italy in striking
ways previously almost unknown. In the Passacaglia and
Fugue in C minor, BWV 582, Bach joins together elements
from distinct nations and traditions in ways that may
be heard very close to the musical surface indeed. The
eight-bar ground bass upon which the Passacaglia is
based (and also the Fugue, which is actually not marked
by Bach as a distinct and separate piece, but rather as
just another use of the passacaglia ground bass, "Thema
fugatum") seems to have been extracted from a sacred
work by an obscure contemporary French composer named
Andre Raison. There are, leading up to the fugue
portion, 21 statements of the ground bass in all,
starting with the unharmonized bass solo at the very
opening and growing ever more active until at last a
full-blown frenzy of imitative sixteenth notes in the
upper voices leads the way to the fugue; during a few
of the middle variations, the ground bass moves up into
the soprano and then into the alto voice. The fugue
makes use only of the first four bars of the French
ground bass, transforming it into a subject upon which
Bach can, over the course of 124 bars, exercise the
full glory of his wholly northern-learned contrapuntal
genius. Since the fugue is not really separate in the
manner of, for example, Bach's preludes and fugues, the
work is sometimes known simply as the Passacaglia.
Although originally composed for Organ, I created this
modern interpretation of the Passacaglia & Fugue in C
Minor (BWV 582) for Woodwind Quartet (Flute, Oboe,
English Horn & Bassoon).
SHEET MUSIC