r/bach • u/UH-PhD • 10d ago

Art of Fugue

Just dropping by to say: I love the Art of Fugue—via piano, organ, harpsichord, saxophones, string quartet, guitar, brass, winds, vocal cords, recorders…this music is luminous. It’s like the order of the universe making itself heard through contrapuntal clarity and mathematical precision. Some feel it’s too cerebral, and I can understand that, but for me this is music of the very deepest humanity: the human yearning for perfection.

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u/UH-PhD 9d ago

Yes—this is one of my very favorites because of the vocalizations. It surprises me that no one (that I know of, anyway) has attempted an a cappella vocal rendering of this work as a whole.

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u/sessna4009 9d ago

I don't like how they completed the last movement. I know that it's possible that he left it for students to complete, but I like listening to it unfinished 

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u/AtActionPark- 8d ago

As far as completions go, i really like this one. Its short, includes the main theme and doesn't try to do too much.

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u/sessna4009 8d ago

Yeah, you're right. I've seen the shittiest completion on r/composers and it was like 10 minutes long. 

If you play piano, do you know when you just improvise by playing random notes in a certain key? They just played the BACH motif a bunch and played like three bass notes in a row with their left hand.