Contrapunctus VII – 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

This image shows a beautiful “gravitational lens.” The bright yellow area is a massive galaxy. Light from distant galaxies behind it is bent by the massive galaxy’s gravity, in accordance with the canons of general relativity set forth by Albert Einstein. The galaxies hidden behind the main one appear bent into graceful arcs, some short, some quite long. You can see them in the picture forming a roughly circular pattern around the lensing galaxy. Image credit: Hubble Space Telescope / NASA.

We’ve seen how we can take the subject from Contrapunctus V:

and divide its note values by two to get a diminished copy of the subject in Contrapunctus VI:

If we can divide, why not multiply by 2, to get an augmented version of the subject? That’s just what Bach does here, to get this.

This is a 2X copy of the top subject, and 4X of the diminished subject, as you’d expect. And — incredibly — Bach manages to superpose all three of these and their inversions in a magnificent fugue in which the augmented subject marches inexorably upward through the voices. You’ll hear its long, sonorous notes singing forth at 0:10, 0:58, 1:29, and 2:07 in the bass, tenor, alto, and soprano, respectively, and by the time the alto entrance arrives, this formerly lighthearted fugue is rolling along like a juggernaut, leading to a splendid five-voice finale that wraps up the set of stretto fugues in fine style.