The Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542, is an
organ prelude and fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach. It
acquired that name to distinguish it from the earlier
Little Fugue in G minor, which is shorter. This piece
is not to be confused with the Prelude and Fugue in A
minor, which is also for organ and also sometimes
called "the Great".
It was transcribed for piano by Franz Liszt as S.463.
Modern arrangers have orchestrated the work.
Evidence suggests that J.S. Bach completed...(+)
The Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542, is an
organ prelude and fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach. It
acquired that name to distinguish it from the earlier
Little Fugue in G minor, which is shorter. This piece
is not to be confused with the Prelude and Fugue in A
minor, which is also for organ and also sometimes
called "the Great".
It was transcribed for piano by Franz Liszt as S.463.
Modern arrangers have orchestrated the work.
Evidence suggests that J.S. Bach completed and revised
the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor for organ, BWV 542,
as an audition for an organist position in Hamburg in
1720. Bach didn't get the job, but, happily enough,
posterity did get the piece; generations of organists
since then have considered it one of their repertoire's
crown jewels. The two parts of BWV 542 (the fantasia --
sometimes titled Prelude instead -- and the fugue) are
thought to have been composed separately: the fugue is
assigned Bach's Weimar years (1708-1717) and the
fantasia to his time in Cöthen (1717-1723, but, if the
audition theory is correct, not later than 1720).
The fantasia opens spaciously and in recitative-like
style, but as it unfolds Bach finds room for dense
passages in upper-voice imitation. There are five more
or less balanced sections to this fantasy; intensely
dramatic sections are interwoven with quieter, more
even passages. The wide tonal scope of the fantasia has
been a subject of fascination for two centuries of
musicians: just when some kind of harmonic stability
seems to arrive, Bach shoots off on a mock-improvised
cadenza that jolts the music into a whole new pitch
realm. Thus the fantasia both lives up to its name and
contains quite a bit of contrapuntal rigor, and then,
on top of that, more than one worthy mind has deemed
the fugue to be Bach's ultimate accomplishment in the
field of organ counterpoint. The task of selecting a
king from that noble crowd, however, is not an enviable
one. Though it provides the sense of a stable answer to
the fantasia in its predominantly even sixteenth note
rhythms, it is similarly ambitious harmonically: Bach
makes two revolutions through the entire circle of
fifths. The fugue makes a fine contrast with the later
music of the fantasia while nevertheless seeming of a
piece with it.
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