Kunst der Fuge

It’s a paradox that Bach’s thorough, intellectually and emotionally gripping exploration of fugal possibilities should present more questions than answers. What instrumentation—if any—did Bach have in mind, having written it in open score? Is it music for the eye or the ear? And what of the magnificent unfinished final “Contrapunctus XVIII” which builds inexorably to a point where Bach’s name is about to be incorporated, the musical cypher B.A.C.H. crowning its contrapuntal edifice (in German, B equates to B-flat, and “H” is the note B-natural)? In the posthumous 1751 publication, the fugue simply ends abruptly, and an organ chorale prelude supposedly dictated from Bach’s deathbed is fancifully added. But was “Contrapunctus XVIII” intended for BWV 1080 at all? Scholars point out that the The Art of Fugue isn’t quite the swan song it was once believed to be. An early version was copied out some five years before Bach’s death, and the project likely began life in the late 1730s. Eloquent in its poised simplicity, the four-bar subject which opens “Contrapunctus I” is the catalyst for everything that follows as Bach, Paul Klee-like, takes his line for a walk that will turn it upside down, reimagine it backwards, combine it with a new theme to create a double fugue, and speed it up or slow it down in dialogue with itself. An essay in contrapuntal ingenuity, compositional craftsmanship and spiritual refreshment, BWV 1080 doesn’t just lay bare the cut and thrust of Bach’s encyclopaedic ambition: it’s music that radiates drama and feeling, majesty and contemplative restraint.