Thematic Analysis and Considerations on J.S. Bach’s Fugues From Das Wohltemperierte Klavier I & II: A Synthesis of Rhetoric From the 17th Through the 21st Centuries

Abstract

This dissertation aims to study and analyze the fugal themes (subjects) of Johann Sebastian Bach’s (1685-1750) Das Wohltemperierte Klavier I (1722) and II (1744). Many scholars have examined and studied the set through numerous ways (Engels, 2006; Groocock, 2003; Ledbetter 2002; Bruhn, 1993; Brook, 1907), however, no single work exists as a guide that has analyzed its themes in such an intricate manner using rhetoric and hermeneutics from different music theorists throughout the centuries. Both volumes are historical landmarks organized in a system that allowed one to play in twelve major and minor keys. Manuscripts show different stages of composition; some were composed much earlier than the whole set, and some were even later transposed to fit the key scheme. Its pedagogical use was perhaps the driving force for its coming together as a set, but ultimately bound as a culmination of an art that has defined baroque polyphony.

For this paper, thematic analysis of Bach’s fugues are done through the analysis and identification of the heads and tails, as proposed by Harrison (2008); the identification of the figurae as proposed by authors: Printz (1673), Praetorius (1619), Beyer (1703), Walther (1703), and Kürzinger (1763); the analysis and identification of rhythmic feet as explained by Williams (1892), while paying careful attention to Bach’s mensural notation according to Kilgore (1973) as evidence of Bach’s congruence to the Greek ideals of rhythm. 

Particularly, analysis of the subjects used in the fugues of the first and second volume include: identification of the motive; identification of the tails and heads of the subject; identification of subject figurae such as, groppo, suspirans, messanza, corta, accentus, tirata and circolo. Furthermore, analysis of rhythmic feet, namely, the trochee, dactyl, paeon, and the ionicus, as well as the identification of the placement of the anacrusis—which according to Aristoxenus (360 B.C.), gives it (subject) strength—All these as evidence that Bach was using rhythmic rhetoric in a way paralleling the Greek ideals.

The observations within these analyses show the apparent uniqueness of each subject, their absence of unity as a volume, their dispositions suggesting no intended relation to the sequence of the performance, and the apparent more complex subjects used later in the volume. More observations should arise upon the completion of the analyses, including the congruity or incongruity of the rhetoric as proposed by the theorists, and evidence that most Bach’s themes fit the rhetorical schemes.

This dissertation sheds new light to a better understanding of Bach’s musical ideas and prove to be an invaluable resource to music theorists, scholars, and performers as a reference to fresh performance practice, or theoretical works that may touch on its themes that is the heart of any fugal work.