How are Bach Preludes and Fugues related?

[musicluvr49]

I've been wondering this for some time now. Besides the key signature, are there ways that the Preludes and Fugues are related.
Sometimes I think I may have found the same motive in both pieces, but then... I'm not sure.

Any ideas?

[51072]

Besides the key signature, they are not. Tovey suggests in one of his commentaries that one pair in the first book is related (I don't remember exactly how; I believe he was only emphasizing the importance of playing both pieces together).

Glenn Gould also famously stated that "a lot of the fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier are better off without their preludes, and vice versa."

I personally agree with this, and I'm sure many others that have learned and performed these pieces will. Some of the pairs are simply too contrasting to be played together, despite their shared key signature.

[brogers70]

I personally agree with this, and I'm sure many others that have learned and performed these pieces will. Some of the pairs are simply too contrasting to be played together, despite their shared key signature.

Actually, I love the contrast between the Eb major prelude from Book I and its little fugue, even though that's one of the pairs that some say don't work well.

[richard black]

Busoni combined the D major Prelude and ditto Fugue from Book One ('Preludio, Fuga e Fuga Figurata) and commented as he did so that he didn't see any way it could be done with any of the others.

[iumonito]

Besides the key signature, they are not. Tovey suggests in one of his commentaries that one pair in the first book is related (I don't remember exactly how; I believe he was only emphasizing the importance of playing both pieces together).

Glenn Gould also famously stated that "a lot of the fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier are better off without their preludes, and vice versa."

I personally agree with this, and I'm sure many others that have learned and performed these pieces will. Some of the pairs are simply too contrasting to be played together, despite their shared key signature.

Given that in 1739 Bach published the exceedingly well organized and multi-layered Clavier-Ubung III, and then in 1741 the also exceedingly well organized and multi-layered Clavier-Ubung variations (the Goldberg, as we all know them now), it seems entirely implausible to me that when in 1742 Bach finished compiling WTC Book II and revising the then-20-year-old WTC Book I, that he would do so so that "besides the key signature, [the preludes and fugues of the well-tempered clavier] are not [related to each other]."

Quaerendo invenietis.

[sashaco]

I am working on the b minor P&F in Book I, and there is no doubt that the prelude foreshadows many of the series of suspensions and even specific figures in the Fugue.  I would be surprised if there weren't other ways in which the preludes set up the fugues on close examination. Sometimes they might be hard to hear, but Bach was notorious for the subtlety he was capable of.  I recall in my theory classes 30 years ago professors showing us hidden connections in Bach's music that none of us would have spotted.  These may well have been in jokes for Bach- and they may take a lot of theory and a great ear to detect.  I'll go with iumonito on this one; it just doesn't seem plausible Bach would put pieces together without any connection.

Cheers, Sasha

[Derek]

I wonder if it was related to a mental phenomenon with contrapuntal improvisation. I've found from my own humble baroque experiments that playing something of simpler texture for a while tends to get the "contrapuntal clockwork" going. Then it is easier to proceed to something more dense. Perhaps Bach put these together more as examples or training exercises in improvisation than as pieces that necessarily belonged together except being in the same key. On the other hand, there may have been certain "essences" that spilled over from one to the other, producing a subtle (as pointed out) relation in some cases. I'm not sure if it'd be valuable to analyze it more than that...not for me anyway.

[musicluvr49]

Thanks everyone. You've given me a lot to think about.

[ramseytheii]

Given that in 1739 Bach published the exceedingly well organized and multi-layered Clavier-Ubung III, and then in 1741 the also exceedingly well organized and multi-layered Clavier-Ubung variations (the Goldberg, as we all know them now), it seems entirely implausible to me that when in 1742 Bach finished compiling WTC Book II and revising the then-20-year-old WTC Book I, that he would do so so that "besides the key signature, [the preludes and fugues of the well-tempered clavier] are not [related to each other]."

Quaerendo invenietis.

Isn't it true though that the WTC was compiled, in other words, unlike the Variations, or the later Art of Fugue, or those big, encyclopaedic collections, he didn't write it all at once?

I think it is rather fair to view the Preludes as character pieces, and if they do reflect the contour or structure of the following fugue, it is either accidental, or confined to that pairing alone.

Just thinking about book II, what does the fugue of g# minor have in common with the prelude, or f minor? 

I do have a larger point, and that is that I think that "connectivity" in terms of hidden thematic material or what not is a slightly perverted fetish.  In that sense I agree with you when you say, "Quaerendo invenietis" because any such thing can just be invented by hoping that it is there.  I remember going to a lecture by a well-known music critic for a major newspaper, who was asked by an audience member what the movements of a Haydn or Mozart symphony had in common.  He couldn't answer, and the answer seemed to me to be obvious: nothing.  They are just contrasts in character, and probably for half of the Classical symphonies, you could replace one finale with another, or one slow movement with another, and you wouldn't lose anything as a listener.

Walter Ramsey

[kevinr]

Maybe the idea that each fugue should be performed only after its associated prelude is a reletively recent one.

I have Hubert Parry's book on Bach, which I guess must have been written a century or more ago (I don't have it to hand so can't look it up).

He describes each piece in turn: but first each prelude one by one, then each fugue one by one.

The fugue he describes as the most perfect as a work of art is E major, Book 2.