Johann Sebastian Bach was a member of a family that had
for generations been occupied in music. His sons were
to continue the tradition, providing the foundation of
a new style of music that prevailed in the later part
of the eighteenth century. Johann Sebastian Bach
himself represented the end of an age, the culmination
of the Baroque in a magnificent synthesis of Italian
melodic invention, French rhythmic dance forms and
German contrapuntal mastery.
Born in Eisenach in 1685, Bach was ...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach was a member of a family that had
for generations been occupied in music. His sons were
to continue the tradition, providing the foundation of
a new style of music that prevailed in the later part
of the eighteenth century. Johann Sebastian Bach
himself represented the end of an age, the culmination
of the Baroque in a magnificent synthesis of Italian
melodic invention, French rhythmic dance forms and
German contrapuntal mastery.
Born in Eisenach in 1685, Bach was educated largely by
his eldest brother, after the early death of his
parents. At the age of eighteen he embarked on his
career as a musician, serving first as a court musician
at Weimar, before appointment as organist at Arnstadt.
Four years later he moved to Mühlhausen as organist
and the following year became organist and chamber
musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar. Securing his
release with difficulty, in 1717 he was appointed
Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen and
remained at Cöthen until 1723, when he moved to
Leipzig as Cantor at the School of St.Thomas, with
responsibility for the music of the five principal city
churches. Bach was to remain in Leipzig until his death
in 1750.
J.S. Bach was one of the most renowned keyboardists of
his day, and he left a rich legacy of music for
harpsichord originally intended for instruction and
‘spiritual refreshment’. This recording of mostly
lesser-known works includes several early examples
which afford fascinating insights into the young
composer’s experimentation with counterpoint, harmony
and form. They are all compelling, emotionally powerful
works in their own right, with virtuoso content and an
expressive range that easily matches that of Bach’s
more famous keyboard pieces.
Much of J.S. Bach's keyboard music has, over the course
of the last several decades, been transplanted from its
nineteenth century home in the piano repertoire back to
the care of harpsichordists, its original interpreters.
There are really just a few Bach keyboard works that
are still widely and actively performed by the world's
pianists: the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg
Variations, certainly, and the English and French
Suites -- and the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D
minor, BWV 903, a work of such color and vitality that
it would be foolish to ever expect pianists to
completely let it go (even if that nature of the
writing, especially in the Fantasia portion, makes for
a piece that works better on a plucked keyboard
instrument such as the harpsichord).
The Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue survives in several
slightly different versions. BWV 903a dates from some
time before 1720; the version we know as BWV 903 dates
from about 1720, when Bach was living and working in
Cöthen; and around 1730, after having moved to
Leipzig, Bach revised the piece again. The work's name
is not a random one: there is indeed chromaticism in
profusion throughout both the wild, flowing
arpeggiations and rich recitative-like passagework of
the Fantasia and the comparatively lean counterpoint of
the following fugue, whose subject is built around a
sequential chromatic ascent. The work is a sizable one
-- 79 measures for the Fantasia, 161 for the Fugue --
and one that takes strong, dexterous fingers to
articulate clearly.
PARTITION