Info:
- Key: F# Major
- Style: Baroque
- Tempo suggestion: moderate – rather fast
Learning experience & will improve:
- voicing
- understanding fugue form
- articulation
- ornament
- interplay between hands
- balance of sounds
Playing and learning this fugue is always a joy. I found the piece is happy and playful to learn. My first attempt on this pice were just to play through a couple of times. After 2-3 times, I began to realise the structure of the piece, such as where the theme sounds in which voice (i called soprano, alto, bas for 3 voices fugue), the harmony changes, an interesting 16th note motive of episode. Here some insights I have found when I studied this piece.
Get the character right
I like to define the character of the subject. One suggestion that works for me is to define the character to anything that I can relate and understand. For me, the character of the fugue are:
- playful – for ex: like children playing & running happily in the playground
- light – like a whipped creme or a thin white cloud when i saw from the airplane.
- fresh – a feeling when you get a something new; new shoes, etc.
- spring – with beautiful day with perfect weather & sunshine. 🙂
The next step is get these character mood on each voice of the subject. On the soprano, alt and bass. The soprano tends te be easier to get the character right. Both alto and bass is more challenging. The rest between the subject theme is an important element, it separates the first half of the theme and the second half. The rest has a feeling like a “comma” in the sentence, yet we also need to carry out the melody as a one line.
2. Subject and Episode Theme
I remembered my former teacher in the conservatory says : ” The theme in Bach fugue in WK is either “sing” or “dance” “. What he meant was to encourage me to always play the subject theme in such convincing way that the other can feel it. I found the subject in this fugue is rather “sing” and the 16th note motive on the episode is “dance-like” melody.
3. Analysis structure of the fugue:
When I teach fugue, I asks my student to make analysis of the fugue. Understanding structure helps us to decide an interpretation and finding special moment in the piece. This is a summary of structure of the fugue F# Major WK 1:
- bar 1-2 (till bar 3 first beat): Subject Soprano in F# Major (Tonic). Introduction of the subject.
- bar 3-4 : Subject Alt in C# Major (Dominant). Countersubject Alt
- bar 5-6 : Subject Bass in F# Major (Tonic). Countersubject Alt
- bar 7-11: Episode 1: 16th note motive (S,B,A) and “question-answer” melody in Soprano & Alt
- bar 11-13: Subject Soprano F# Major (Tonic). Countersubject Alt
- bar 13-14: Episode 2: Canon on Soprano & Alt. Bass 16th-note motive
- bar 15-16 : Subject Alt C# Major (Dominant). Countersubject Bass.
- bar 17-19: Episode 3: 16th-note motive (Alt,Sop,Bas), “question-answer” melody in Sopraan & Alt. Modulation to minor
- bar 20-21: Subject Bass in d# minor (pararel minor key). Countersubject Alt.
- bar 23: cadence in d# minor. Very special because it makes for the first time the subject longer before the episode enters
- bar 24 -27: Episode 4. Longer episode. 16th-note motive in Bass, later Sopraan, while the other voice has a canonic, sequence melody
- bar 28-29: Subject Alt. B major (Sub-dominant). No countersubject.
- bar 30-31: Episode 5. 16th-note motive Bass. Canonic melody on S&A. Modulate to F# major
- bar 32-33: Subject on Soprano. F# Major (Tonic). Countersubject bass.
- bar 33-end: Episode 6 with cadence in F# Major.
4. Advice in playing
Some challenges which I spent lot’s of theme to get it right in my finger:
- Shaping the melody line. Includes knowing how to play my subject theme, 16th note motives, canonic motives.
- Right balance on each voices. Very challenge to get every voice to sounds clear, so we can always follow each theme. Play many times each voice separately.
- Articulation on 16th-note motive in episode. I tried to play staccato, slur in two notes, legato to find the right character. I found this motive is better play non-legato, i often played in slur of two notes.
- The harmonic color. Especially bring beautiful sound in the minor section in the middle part.
Note: I am going to add and refine this post more, since i am still playing it, so more discovery will be found.
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