Random Music

T. Pinnock (Archiv)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hggo-uuk5oE
I Concerti dell'Addio - The Farewell Concertos
Concerto for violin, strings &  basso continuo in E
minor, RV273 , A. Vivaldi   Fabio Biondi
Europa Galante [on period instruments]

BWV 54 - Widerstehe doch der Sünde


Leonhardt-Consort 1976

Contrapunctus XIV breaks off abruptly in the middle of the third section at the 239th measure. The autograph carries a note in the handwriting of Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach saying “Über dieser Fuge, wo der Nahme B A C H im Contrasubject angebracht worden, ist der Verfasser gestorben.” (“At the point where the composer introduces the name BACH in the countersubject to this fugue, the composer died.”) However, modern scholarship disputes this version, in particular because the musical notes are indisputably in Bach's own hand, written in a time before his deteriorating vision led to erratic handwriting, probably 1748–1749. See e.g. the discussion in Johann Sebastian Bach, the Learned Musician by Christoph Wolff, ISBN 0-393-04825-X.

Many scholars, including Gustav Nottebohm (1881), Wolff and Davitt Moroney, have argued that the piece was intended to be a quadruple fugue, with the opening theme of Contrapunctus I to be introduced as the fourth subject. The title Fuga a 3 soggetti, in Italian rather than Latin, was not given by the composer but by CPE Bach, and Bach's Obituary actually makes mention of “a draft for a fugue that was to contain four themes in four voices”. The combination of all four themes would bring the entire work to a fitting climax. Wolff also suspected that Bach may have finished the fugue on a lost page, called “fragment X” by him, on which the composer attempted to work out the counterpoint between the four subjects.

The permutation matrix

In 1991 an astonishing discovery was published by Zoltán Göncz answering the question with fairly great certainty how Bach planned the appearance of the fourth subject, the main subject of the cycle:

In the course of the exposition of the first three subjects (first subject: mm. 1–21, second subject: mm. 114–141, third subject: mm. 193–207), Bach applied a serial sequence of voice entries decided in advance, by which he determined the space and time parameters of the subject entries. The superimposition of the three exposition matrices foreshadows and develops as a negative the sequence of the voice entries of the fourth subject. The copying of the four subjects onto each other displays a characteristic construction of Bach’s oeuvre occurring mainly in the vocal fugues: that of the permutation fugue.



However paradoxical, it follows from the logic of composing a quadruple fugue that the combinations joining all four subjects and rendered the latest when performing the work were already completed in the very first stage of composition because the possibility of overlapping the four subjects (1+2+3+4) is the sine qua non of writing a quadruple fugue.

One of the striking features of Contrapunctus XIV is that in this movement Bach applied the stretto of whole expositions. In the exposition of the first three subjects he “programmed” the later permutation stretti, then applied the expositions as “programs”, “algorithms”. The permutation matrix, apart from originating authentically with Bach, can be proved to have been ready at the time of the genesis of the work (that is, earlier than the surviving section).

The discovery of the permutation matrix was one of the most essential conditions to achieve that the reconstruction of Contrapunctus XIV could come near to the original form planned by Bach. (Göncz, Z.: Reconstruction of the Final Contrapunctus of The Art of Fugue, in: International Journal of Musicology Vol. 5, pp. 25–93. 1997 ISBN 3-631-49809-8; Vol. 6, pp. 103–119. 1998 ISBN 3-631-33413-3) Score published by Carus-Verlag [CV 18.018]

Bach - Contrapunctus 14 - reconstruction - part 1
Bach - Contrapunctus 14 - reconstruction - part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJJW0dE5GF0

Diana Damrau , Der Hölle Rache .. , Die Zauberflöte .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8FSKZ6eXnU

Lucia Popp: "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen", La flauta mágica *

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Piano Quintet in G Minor, op. 57.
Played by Dmitri Shostakovich and the Beethoven Quartet in 1940. First recording

1. Scriabin plays Scriabin Sonata No.3
2. Alexander Scriabin plays Scriabin Desir op 57 no 1

J.S.Bach: French Suite No.5 in g major BWV 816 32. Gigue

J.S.Bach: French Suite No.5 in g major BWV 816 26. Allemande



812-817 PlayLiszt