Features a historical survey of writings on the fugue from the Renaissance to the present as well as four 18th-century studies: works by J. J. Fux, F. W. Marpurg, and more. Includes introductions, commentary, and 255 musical examples.

This edition of Volume I of Bach's highly influential keyboard work features Sir Donald Francis Tovey's classic analyses of 24 preludes and 24 fugues, including suggestions for performance. A scholarly reference by a world-famous musicologist and Bach expert, this legendary, long-out-of-print version also contains Harold Samuel's fingerings for all pieces.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s new open access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Fugue for J. S. Bach was a natural language; he wrote fugues in organ toccatas and voluntaries, in masses and motets, in orchestral and chamber music, and even in his sonatas for violin solo. The more intimate fugues he wrote for keyboard are among the greatest, most influential, and best-loved works in all of Western music. They have long been the foundation of the keyboard repertory, played by beginning students and world-famous virtuosi alike. In a series of elegantly written essays, eminent musicologist Joseph Kerman discusses his favorite Bach keyboard fugues—some of them among the best-known fugues and others much less familiar. Kerman skillfully, at times playfully, reveals the inner workings of these pieces, linking the form of the fugues with their many different characters and expressive qualities, and illuminating what makes them particularly beautiful, powerful, and moving. These witty, insightful pieces, addressed to musical amateurs as well as to specialists and students, are beautifully augmented by performances made specially for this volume: Karen Rosenak, piano, playing two preludes and fugues fromTheWell-Tempered Clavier—C Major, book 1; and B Major, book 2--and Davitt Moroney playing the Fughetta in C Major, BWV 952, on clavichord; the Fugue on "Jesus Christus unser Heiland," BWV 689, on organ; and the Fantasy and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 904, on harpsichord.

A monument in the history of Western music, The Well-Tempered Clavier represents not only the culmination of J. S. Bach's own maturation process but also the impetus for the emerging style and structure of modern keyboard music. Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin were influenced by its polyphonic richness and depth of harmony, and Schumann counseled young musicians to "make The Well-Tempered Clavier your daily bread." Modern pianists can follow Schumann's advice with this new edition of an authoritative and long-out-of-print score that offers illuminating perspectives from a pair of eminent musical interpreters. Book II of this two-volume set features Sir Donald Francis Tovey's analyses of 24 preludes and fugues, including suggestions for performance. In addition to commentaries by Tovey, a lauded Bach scholar and world-famous musicologist, the pieces are complemented by fingerings devised by Harold Samuel, a major Bach interpreter. Students, teachers, and professionals will appreciate this finely engraved and modestly priced version of Bach's enduring works.

This book teaches Baroque compositional techniques through writing and improvisation exercises and analysis of repertoire examples. It provides readers with a historical outlook by focusing largely on principles taught in treatises from the period 1680–1780. This expanded edition includes new sections with keyboard exercises that provide training in Partimento performance as it was practiced at the time, helping students master Baroque style from the inside. While the focus of the book is on fugue, it also treats chorale preludes, stylized dances, inventions, and trio sonatas. The volume is divided into two parts—basic and advanced— which could be taught in a two-semester sequence. There are various options to introduce material from Part II into Part I for a one-semester course.

A lucid and strikingly beautiful new collection which looks at the face of mortality, love, and aging, to explore the personal as well as universal questions that face each human being.

In addition to several compositions by J. S. Bach, this collection features pieces by Frescobaldi, Scarlatti, Giambattista, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms, and Saint-Saëns.

Different musicians perform various parts of Bach's "Forthy-Eight Preludes And Fugues", part of the 1962 Adelaide Festival of Arts, musicians listed are: Ronald Farren Price, Max Cooke and Mack Jost.

Bach's Well-tempered Clavier (or the 48 Preludes and Fugues) stands at the core of baroque keyboard music and has been a model and inspiration for performers and composers ever since it was written. This invaluable guide to the 96 pieces explains Bach's various purposes in compiling the music, describes the rich traditions on which he drew, and provides commentaries for each prelude and fugue. In his text, David Ledbetter addresses the main focal points mentioned by Bach in his original 1722 title page. Drawing on Bach literature over the past three hundred years, he explores German traditions of composition types and Bach's novel expansion of them; explains Bach's instruments and innovations in keyboard technique in the general context of early eighteenth-century developments; reviews instructive and theoretical literature relating to keyboard temperaments from 1680 to 1750; and discusses Bach's pedagogical intent when composing the Well-tempered Clavier. Ledbetter's commentaries on individual preludes and fugues equip readers with the concepts necessary to make their own assessment and include information about the sources when details of notation, ornaments, and fingerings have a bearing on performance.

Tanya Irene Schwartz narrates her hilarious and conflicting desires through the musical and psychological structure of the fugue. Jewish law, world records, 9/11, Barbies, Viagra, sex, and sisters: these are the surprising sites of Tanya's transformation from girl to woman. These short, intertwined stories explore religion, sex, and school, capturing the cadences and rhythms that mark our journey from adolescence to adulthood. Tanya's vivid, humorous voice grants us a rare but strangely familiar view of what happens when we almost touch the divine.