Die Kunst der Fuga
di Sig. o Joh. Seb. Bach

Information about the work

The work is a collection of compositions on a certain theme, whose possibilities are systematically worked out. Johann Friedrich Agricola [Bach’s student and later court composer of Friedrich II. (Frederick the Great)]: “The Art of Fugue. This is the last work of the author, which contains all kinds of counterpoints and canons, on a single main theme.”

It comprises fourteen three- and four-voice fugues and four two-voice canons and the first prints also contain a revision of the choral prelude “Before the throne I stand,” which is the last of the “Eighteen Choral Preludes” and was probably included by C. P. E. Bach as an addition to the incomplete fugue under the title Choral. Wenn wir in hoechsten Noethen Canto Fermo in Canto (translated as Choral. When we are in the deepest need Canto fermo in Canto).

According to Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, the work is intended to clearly convey, “what can possibly be made upon a theme for a fugue. The variations, which are all complete fugues upon the same theme, are here called counterpoints.”

In 1731, Bach published the six partitas for the harpsichord as his Opus 1, although the first partita had already been published in 1726 by Balthasar Schmid. This was followed in 1735 by the printing of the second part of the Clavier Ubung by the publisher Christoph Weigel Junioris and in 1739 by the printing of the third part.

In 1741, the Aria with diverse variations was first published by Balthasar Schmid. A few years later, Johann Georg Schübler published the original Musical Offering and the six Schübler Chorales, as they are known.

Bach clearly wanted to reach mainly a smaller circle of specialists; the publications therefore almost entirely contain music for keyboard instruments (except for the Trio Sonata in the Musical Offering). This series of major publications for keyboard instruments also contains The Art of Fugue, which only appeared after Bach’s death.

Bach worked on this composition in his final years, but there is evidence that he was working on it as early as 1740. It is assumed that the print was intended as an annual gift for the Correspondierende Societät der Musicalischen Wissenschaften, which Bach had joined in 1747 in the month of Iunius (at that time the Julian calendar was still in use) and whose members, according to the regulations, had to present a “scientific work” in print every June up to their 65th birthdays.

On joining the society in 1747, he contributed the Canonic Variations on Martin Luther’s Christmas hymn [Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her (From Heaven Above to Earth I Come)]. The title of the autograph clean copy is: Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her. per Canones. à 2 Clav: et Pedal. di J. S. Bach.

One year later, the Musical Offering was probably chosen for submission. The timely completion of The Art of Fugue by June 1749 was in all probability prevented by his increasing blindness and two unsuccessful operations carried out by the British surgeon John Taylor. Taylor also operated on Handel’s eyes without success.

Contrapunctus XIV is unfinished; it is generally accepted that this piece would have completed the fugue series. A starting point for this is the number symbolism used by Bach: B – A – C – H is numerically represented by 2 + 1 + 3 + 8 = 14.

The complexity of the fourteenth fugue strongly corroborates this theory. Bach’s work also covers fourteen canons with the title Diverse canons on the first eight foundation notes of the preceding Aria. The incomplete Contrapunctus XIV is noted not in a musical score but in a “keyboard system” (two staves per grand staff) on five individual pages.

The piece breaks off in the middle of page 5; this is followed by a hand-written note by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: “At the point where the composer introduces the name BACH (for which the English notation would be B–A–C–B,) in the countersubject to this fugue, the composer died.”

In the first edition of probably 1751, the following text precedes the score: “News. The late author of this work was prevented by his disease of the eyes and by his death, which followed shortly upon it, from bringing the last fugue, in which at the entrance of the third subject he mentions himself by name, to conclusion; accordingly, it was wished to compensate the friends of his muse by including the four-part church chorale added at the end, which the deceased man in his blindness dictated on the spur of the moment to the pen of a friend.”

Forkel wrote in his biography of Bach in 1802 (first English translation in 1820):

“To make up for what is wanting to the last fugue, there is added to the end of the work the four-part choral: “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sind.” Bach dictated it a few days before his death to his son-in-law, Altnikol.

Of the art displayed in this choral, I will say nothing; it was so familiar to the author, that he could exercise it even in his illness. But the expression of pious resignation, and devotion in it, have always affected me whenever I have played it; so that I can hardly say which I would rather miss—this choral, or the end of the last fugue.”