![]() As if all that wasn’t enough, just listen to the lines full of half intervals that snake through the musical web. ![]() Each appear in their own exposition and in separate stretti, and they are later also used inversus – upside down. ![]() On the long journey to that climax, the path is cleared for both the theme and the countertheme. Suddenly, the movement is only half as busy, and along with the calmness you sense a restrained tension. The most striking stretto comes in the closing phase, when Bach pairs off the four parts and juxtaposes two against two. As this does not work for every fugue subject (usually such an overlap would lead to messy clashes), Bach puzzled out a theme-in-blocks, filled with intriguing leaps and tense pauses. The fugue explores all the variations of the stretto technique – whereby two or more parts do not politely wait their turn, but interrupt one another, as it were. Surprisingly enough, for once the soprano does not enter with the theme, but provides ornamentation, directly over the exposition in the alto. Above this root, the two upper parts exchange ideas to their heart’s content, particularly in the middle section. The supporting continuo part only gets to play the full five-bar theme twice. The prelude feels almost like a trio sonata, due to the role of the bass. It is even viewed by some as the highlight of the whole second Wohltemperirte Clavier: Bach’s most substantial three-part sinfonia as the prelude, followed by an overwhelming fugue on a productive theme. ![]() And this pair of works in B-flat minor, a ‘difficult’ key with five flats, digs very deep. Sometimes Bach keeps it light, but now and then he goes all out for heavy. ![]()
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