The day after a tough breakup, having lost the person who had become my purpose in life, I remember spending hours at the piano learning this fugue. The uplifting emotional beauty and structural perfection were able to ground me and remind me that there were other things worth living for. This fugue literally helped me rebuild my will to live from the ground up and it will always be a deeply moving piece of music for me. Thank you for illustrating the concrete reasons why it is so brilliant and effective.
I sometimes write, compose music. I’m just a bit frustrated with this because I’ve never before heard a fugue so exquisitely made. Thank you for showing us this, it’s profound how good Bach really was.
Deceptive cadence at 4:49 features brief, entirely unexpected chord progression that chromatically slides to a shockingly distant F major chord (VIb of V!) Whoa!
I am loathe to let a day pass without listening to Bach's music. My auditory window to the Universe. Music of the spheres? Thank you indeed for giving me the pleasure of this analysis with your painstaking work. Post on, give me excess of it.....Harry Joseph
I think what makes this all the more remarkable is that such rich complexity does not harm the utter beauty and charm of this piece. Being contrapuntally advanced is one thing, but making it sound so wonderful? This is why Bach remains relevant today.
That was really interesting. The piece reminds me a little of the first movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, not just because of the obvious similarity in main thematic material, but also because both pieces are built up based on repeated use of the same very limited set of themes.
The first thing I've noticed is that these two motives are literally the most common fugal phrases taught in school. The three repeated notes are often used as the head of the countersubject, whereas the second one is usually the tail if the subject has a perfect cadence at the end. I've written countless fugal exercises with these two bad boys and here Bach shows us how to use them like a master.
Maybe the sound quality isn't up to scratch? Maybe the scholarly research is out of date? I can think of many reasons to click "dislike". Maybe those who click "like" are ignorant and not up-to-date on the latest musical interpretations? Ignorance might be bliss, and we all want to be happy and chilled out - but at the end of the day, it's still ignorance!!
Great, I have played this so many times and listened to Gould play it even more. I never thought of it this way. I am also reminded of your other video about repeated notes, but for the tail of the subject to also be the countersubject is amazing. And then to stretto the countersubject and the subject at the same time. Just proves how great Bach is. I have just discovered your channel and I am really enjoying it. This stuff is up my alley.
Very nice and concise video. For me as a mathematician, this piece seems so intrinsic and logical like a proof. The complexity is really amazing, and I like the warm and lovely qualities of the recording. RU-vid has so many amazing videos like your channel! (People putting work into things for free because the are interested and enjoying topics)
I sometimes do that in some of my videos, but since there are a lot of resources out there already for learning harmony, I don't focus that much on it.
I am so thankful for this! Your clear commentary and well-conceived visuals really make it easy to see the technical inner workings of one of my favorite pieces of music.
What thehell this justblows my mind how is he able to fit in all the same melody strings like 50 times and play around with them and make is sound so effortless and perfect. Was he an alien or something?
It was a common practice of the time. Bach was particularly good at this, but players/composers were able to improvise fugues, similiar to how jazz musicians improvise on standards. It's incredible what people can achieve when they put they're mind into it, practice and explore.
@@pilcaroo wow that is incredible. Peoples minds were so different back then. Even the way they spoke and expressed their self was so metaphorical and such. I wish I could go back in time and tell bach that he still rules to this day
@@ViRrOorR I was trying to say peoples mind haven't changed, just the style. But I see we have a different perspective on that. I share your appreciation of Bach's talent.
I was unaware of this uncanny astounding architectural jewel. I'd been listening to the Bb minor wtc2 because Gould called it a harmonic masterpiece. Thanx for this post.
I am able with your video study musical composition without attending a conservatory course. Well explained with complete illustration. Thank you so much. I agree ...more Bach but also other composers too. Thank you..
Thanks so much for this fine study and the notation in progress ....I wish more scholars would take the time to do narratives like this, In my brief time in film score composition I have chosen 4 to 8 note themes and repeated them ,reversed them and overlapped / counterpointed the lay out in editing program where the score is displayed as you have shown. Some effective work looks so simple until the variations and layers are developed. I noticed a brief rest at the end of one or two phrases ..I will check to see if I am imagining that...THANKS AGAIN !
This fugue was sung by the Swingle Singers on one of their albums, and sung so well and liltingly melancholic, that I decided it would be perfect to represent me at my funeral - should it ever arise! Thank you for it.
What's your interpretation of the chord in measure 12, beat 2? When I first heard it I thought Edward Aldwell might have hit a clunker, but Glenn Gould plays it too, though it is less noticeable with his version. The chord is so crunchy and dissonant - I love it when Bach includes these. G#, A#, B, and C# all being played simultaneously.
Yes, it's definitely one of those moments where the counterpoint is easier to discern visually rather than aurally. I've always wanted to hear it with 4 instruments that vary in timbre.
@@Richard.Atkinson, so glad that my first acquaintance of this exclusive composition was by the vocal performance of the swingle singers, a few years after 1963, just eight singers and a double bass. knew not anything about structure and analysis, but totally enjoyed the beauty of it.
but although i've never been counting, i always heard that 111th main motif, which wasn't yet colored green. it appears in bar 19, the alto answering to the bass in stretto. even sir Andras in his amazing recording seems to have overlooked it. could it be because of the half tone down, a-g#? anyway, as always: Every day is a Bach day. in my language, Bach mag, iedere dag! (Bay may, every day)
I actually composed a similar kind of fugue that has 33 main subjects and 128 countersubjects, as well as an other one similar to the C# major fugue, but there is not a single note in the entire fugue that wouldn't belong to any theme. As a suggestion for future videos I'd recommend analyzing the fugue part of the Bach's first orchestral suite's overture.
interesting! mind if i ask if you wrote it all down first, then listen to the result after? i have been watching these videos on fugues. and it is looking to me that there are rules or similar, and that once you know them, you can sit down and just jot down the notes. but i could be wrong...
Wow! What amazing counterpoint. Thank you for this. I only wish that you had highlighted the entire subject in one color, and then whenever its "tail" came on its own, that it had a different color- just so that one can follow the complete subject in its entries, separate from its fragmentation.
I thought about having a separate outline for the full subjects when I was making this video, but I had a lot less practice making these videos back then!
I keep coming back to Bach's Art of Fugue (Die Kunst der Fuge). I'm currently in a state listening to different recordings of Contrapunctus XI. I would like an analysis. The harmonies are so divine. Thanks!
In bars 20 to 21, in the bass F#-B and then 22-23 G#-C#, both times antecipating the soprano, can be heard as a "false entry" or "half entry", something like that. At least I did :) we can always overanalyse :)
Great job! The video has helped me a lot and this piece has inspired me a lot in my compositions. You explain the content clearly and understandably, and colouring the themes helps keeping track on them. Just a little remark; I think you missed one "green theme" on the alto voice in bars 18 and 19 beginning with the last quaver of the bar 18 :)
Yes, you are right! The sad thing about RU-vid is that you can't post a corrected version of a video without losing all the views/comments/links. Oh well... but thanks for the correction!
One rare fugue played in a relaxed tempo to give us time to appreciate it is saying the same thing over and over but the context is changing to challenge we are adroit to listen. I believe peace through complex times may well be the ultimate goal of this remarkable J S BACH composition.
Thanks for making the Fuggenanalyse in your free time instead of playing Brawl Stars, We are from the Kantonsschule Solothurn and our music teacher Ms. Inäbnit has given us an ehrenlose task, but this helps us really
Edit: You Huhrensohn, our fat teacher ms Inäbnit has said that evereverything is false and that the fugge is always dreistimmig and not 2stimmig like you did
what a testament it is to the genius of Bach that I can look at something like this or the C-sharp minor fugue from the same book and have no doubt in my mind it's one of the greatest things ever written, but I'm nowhere near confident saying it's the best thing in the well-tempered clavier
I love what you did here- nicely done! Just one suggestion- use a better recording! It's very under tempo and should be on harpsichord. But bravo for the clarity of your analysis. It is a remarkable composition.
That’s a strange feeling when listening to a Bach fugue and all the accompanying kaleidoscopic modulations that go with it. What is the point of these modulations? What is the perspective of the listener or the creator to use tonality in a more flexible way than later styles? I can’t say I’m sure.
Yes, I noticed that after the video had already been posted (it's noticeable on certain speakers/headphones, but less so on others). Sadly, RU-vid doesn't allow me to replace the video while keeping the same URL, so it's not always worth the effort to fix things like that.
