Canon alla Decima – Jeffrey C. Hall

AOF home page

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

Canon alla Ottava

Stretto Fugues
Contrapunctus V
Contrapunctus VI
Contrapunctus VII

Canon alla Decima

Double and Triple Fugues
Contrapunctus VIII
Contrapunctus IX
Contrapunctus X
Contrapunctus XI

Canon alla Duodecima

Mirror Fugues
Contrapunctus XII + inversus
Contrapunctus XIII + inversus

Canon per Augmentationem

Quadruple Fugue
Contrapunctus XIV

In July 1994, a train of fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter, both a gorgeous and spectacular sight, and an unsettling reminder that such events have happened — and will happen again someday — here on Earth. The huge impacts left a ring of black marks in the clouds of Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. Image credit: Don Davis.

In this canon “at the tenth,” the leader and follower first appear at the interval of a tenth. You’ll hear this variant of the AOF subject in the leader:

But when the follower comes in, it is not an octave above the leader as in the Canon alla Ottava, but a tenth above, which puts it into an F major tonality above the D minor of the leader.

Halfway through, however, Bach pulls a lovely fast one; the canon is repeated, but now the leader and follower are separated by an octave. Listen for this change to begin with the re-entry of the canon at 2:08, with the follower at the octave at 2:21.) Thus Bach demonstrates a canon that works at two intervals, a ratcheting up of the technique of double counterpoint to a higher level of complexity.