Introduction
“Über dieser Fuge…”
Structure of The Art of Fugue
The “unfinished” fugue
About the realization
How to listen to The Art of Fugue
About the narratives
The Art of Fugue
Simple Fugues
Contrapunctus I
Contrapunctus II
Contrapunctus III
Contrapunctus IV
Stretto Fugues
Contrapunctus V
Contrapunctus VI
Contrapunctus VII
Double and Triple Fugues
Contrapunctus VIII
Contrapunctus IX
Contrapunctus X
Contrapunctus XI
Mirror Fugues
Contrapunctus XII + inversus
Contrapunctus XIII + inversus
Quadruple Fugue
Contrapunctus XIV
Welcome to my realization of The Art of Fugue. This grand cycle blends logic, symmetry, and beauty into an 80-minute musical span of endless rewards. From 2008 through 2020, I served this realization from my former music site flagmusic.com, and I am now reworking it into these new pages.
Use the table of contents to listen to the work part by part and learn more about it through each part’s accompanying notes. The AOF Home Page link will return you here. The Introduction contains pages about the work and the realization. For a primer about fugues, you can find a description in the page “The Unfinished Fugue.” Finally, in the listing under The Art of Fugue, you’ll find the complete program, with links to the individual parts. Each of these pages has notes to guide you as the counterpoint develops from the relatively simple Contrapunctus I to the apocalyptic quadruple fugue.
A project involving a 2400 bar MIDI sequence benefits greatly from external advice, and I thank Dr. Tim Smith, professor emeritus of music theory at Northern Arizona University, for his patience with my pestering about all things Bach and for his encouragement with this project. I also am grateful to Zoltán Göncz and Carus-Verlag music publishers for their permission to serve the realization of the completion of Contrapunctus XIV. I encourage all listeners to support Carus-Verlag’s enlightened position regarding music on the Internet with your interest and business.
I hope you enjoy my synthesized rendering of this magnificent work and find a few things here that please the ear. Soli Deo gloria!
