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to follow in his father’s footsteps turned out more successfully. Developing the latent galant tendencies of J. S. Bach’s style one step further, Friedemann imbued his own fugues with a melodic attractiveness and individuality comparable to much of the WTC. On at least one occasion he demonstrated a large-scale mastery of contrapuntal resource equal to all but the most expansive of his father’s fugues (cf pp.78-80). The fugues of the next generation would have other qualities, but this sort of textural sophistication and thematic distinctiveness became increasingly rare. If, as seems likely, neither the Prelude and Fugue in F minor BWV 534 nor the Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 are by J. S. Bach but merely from his circle of students and admirers, we can trace in them two kinds of response to his example. BWV 534 is modelled so closely on Bach that its authenticity remained unquestioned for 140 years, and is not yet utterly disproved. The number of those, even among Bach’s students, who could have written thus is small indeed; and it is in fact the two composers we have just discussed, J. L. Krebs and W. F. Bach, who head the list. Certainly there are few others who showed both the capacity and the desire to get so close to the heart of their teacher’s style. The D minor Toccata and Fugue is a different kind of creature altogether. It seems likely that the discrepancies between it and Bach’s style are the result of technical deficiencies—incompetence, to put it bluntly 100 —but, as the analysis on pp.78-80 has argued, this does not prevent it from being a wonderfully effective piece of musical rhetoric: from becoming, indeed, ‘the most famous piece of organ music ever written.’ 101 During the following chapters we shall see many examples of both approaches. All the composers we discuss at length: Wesley, Haydn, Mozart, Clementi, and 100 It would be rash to read into these peculiarities a ‘conscious attempt’ to make a new sort of fugue, as Peter Williams does with regard to BWV 543 (p.48 above), an attempt such as Reicha clearly made with his 36 Fugues of 1803, or Schumann did in his ‘Fughetta’, op.32/4. 101 P. Williams, ‘BWV 565’, 330. 108
Beethoven, took great pains to achieve mastery within their own fugal tradition, adhering closely to the example of Bach, Handel, or Fux, as the case may be. On the whole, however, their fugal writing would be at its most memorable and characteristic when, by accident or design, it parted company from these models and was reshaped according to their own creative purposes. 109
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WRESTLING WITH THE GERMAN DEVIL: FI
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ABSTRACT ‘After’ can be taken b
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many peo
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INTRODUCTION ‘Every hearer enjoys
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esponse was: ‘the fugue is no lon
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instrumental fugues of Joseph Haydn
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world of their own. The study concl
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facts and the ‘soft technology’
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DEFINING FUGUE But what are they? W
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elow). For how many voices or parts
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indeed a complete counter-expositio
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on two pitches throughout, tonic an
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already become the historicising na
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Catholic tradition, but Albrechtsbe
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the texture as a whole coincides in
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kind experimentalism of Samuel Wesl
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The clearest sign of things to come
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Perhaps a clue can be found in the
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CHAPTER 1 THE CIRCLE OF J. S. BACH
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FINE DISTINCTIONS (1): MISATTRIBUTE
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sounding object, nothing has change
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Mendelssohn, Schumann, Spitta, Wido
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pieces are known from a single copy
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very good; and the ends of both mov
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ever, could have written it?’ 23
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incorrectly prepared suspended four
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has a number of doubtful features.
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einforces them. Its texture is impo
Page 57 and 58: of thinking over long spans.’ 44
Page 59 and 60: W. F. Bach and Krebs have always en
Page 61 and 62: the equitable distribution of his e
Page 63 and 64: slender volumes, including many pie
Page 65 and 66: In style (there is no particular th
Page 67 and 68: and it is the least comfortable bit
Page 69 and 70: voices inverted, and serve the purp
Page 71 and 72: each line in a polyphonic texture a
Page 73 and 74: If its general type is old, however
Page 75 and 76: thematic material. The subject coul
Page 77 and 78: Karl Geiringer makes an almost emba
Page 79 and 80: prolix F minor fugue, the expressiv
Page 81 and 82: Kittel, and Krebs himself. 76 Inevi
Page 83 and 84: [that] a keyboard composer can and
Page 85: Ex.1.12b shows the start of a fugue
Page 88: Egypt) did not prevent him from bei
Page 92 and 93: The very slow harmonic rhythm, howe
Page 94 and 95: If not inimitably characteristic, t
Page 96 and 97: As we saw in the first part of this
Page 98 and 99: subject is also expansive; it too c
Page 100 and 101: to expand and elaborate the surface
Page 102 and 103: The significance of this sort of st
Page 104 and 105: By the time the halfway point is re
Page 106 and 107: ‘originality’—of historical p
Page 110 and 111: CHAPTER 2 J. S. BACH IN LONDON: CON
Page 112 and 113: of the mark. 4 Handel’s influence
Page 114 and 115: that would perpetuate his oratorios
Page 116 and 117: —also remained strongly Handelian
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Page 120 and 121: in the Overture to Alcina (1735). A
Page 122 and 123: Root-movement is quite unpredictabl
Page 124 and 125: 124
Page 126 and 127: Superficially they have much in com
Page 128 and 129: situations; but his influence outla
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Page 132 and 133: ounded too closely by early Methodi
Page 134 and 135: At first the real focus of attentio
Page 136 and 137: surprisingly grammatical, confirmin
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Page 140 and 141: the subject (where again he seems n
Page 142 and 143: in Bath) recommended that Charles
Page 144 and 145: have, to a head-injury sustained in
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Page 148 and 149: The ending is rather curious: he re
Page 150 and 151: hectic week, he could choose betwee
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Page 154 and 155: even have had an informal agreement
Page 156 and 157: Unlike Handel, however, there no tu
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Throughout the nineteenth century t
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Here, however (especially once the
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162
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published separately over the next
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166
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Likewise does the fugue subject of
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A little more Bach can be seen, per
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attitudes were representative, or e
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consciously parodying his Methodist
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his nature to be exclusive about an
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elieve) in German, the compleatly w
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no other way one could hear operas,
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a stretto treatment (at one minim
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have had a rich Treat in chewing th
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admirable Musick might be played in
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At this point one might have expect
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This is soon accompanied by quaver
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The C minor entry in b.50 destabili
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WESLEY’S LAST YEARS During this p
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Wilhelm Friedemann (see chapter 1).
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describes it well: ‘The concertan
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with sixteen-part orchestra’ (Car
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would be of interest to a budding c
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wrestling with the problem of integ
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Clearly, Haydn is letting fugal thi
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By contrast, the fugue which closes
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unknown in any other Haydn fugue (a
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around b.54, homophonic quaver figu
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very little to it, which is of cour
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When Haydn wrote string quartets, t
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place, socially and musically; and
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of the minuet, both here and in man
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The distinction that Kirkendale dre
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variety of keys as well: not just I
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detail. As far as the tastes of Pri
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constructed in an entirely new mann
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Note the extent to which Haydn’s
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A clear example of this can be seen
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Haydn would write only one more fug
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At any rate, the effect of later ei
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appears not wholly to satisfy Kirke
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Junker and others were neither part
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sentimental’ (c.1814?), Haydn’s
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intensity of the debate? This is ho
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is an almost perfect instrument for
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CHAPTER 4 MOZART, FINISHED AND UNFI
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as such—at times even creating th
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thought and practice until very rec
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sonata movement sets up certain exp
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organ music: from the death of J. S
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(to us) the direct influence of J.
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and back without a sign that anythi
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is not necessarily at variance with
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conclusion is not perfectly in acco
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there can be no doubt that Mozart,
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to enclose your letter to me?’ 35
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The Dean was in a state of great ex
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‘passive’ voices; Ex.4.5 shows
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274
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276
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against itself, augmented and inver
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Andante also found favour, but part
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enewed application to this task. Wh
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for a child of twelve. The subject
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These masses mark the two poles of
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After this exposition the cadential
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is a much less dramatic tale, of ca
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happened, on October 26 1783 at Ben
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the voices. There is a single expos
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ascending, descending (or both), st
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298
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(apart from particella for wind and
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up to Mozart’s standard, the melo
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weight than Süssmayr’s say-so. B
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crisis [Lebenskrise] from which, in
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all, please few with counterpoint a
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of much that was excellent’. 3 In
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continually surpass his own creativ
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This ethical approach to music, so
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Like Mozart, Beethoven was a great
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There are a few reasonably complete
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It is, in part, a question of autho
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voice ‘Parthie’, an oboe concer
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although it is in a different key;
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which had such a similar subject (E
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328
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his early life is there a single re
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‘Metaphorically, Beethoven was al
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On the other hand, whilst there is
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of a sort that has if anything tend
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To thus posit ‘lateness’ about
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historical development; 61 all thes
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These critics were not necessarily
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could anyone have expected that Bee
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hear it more often. Well, once more
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development came the flood of ‘mu
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Sometimes, it is just noise, in the
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At times, so eccentric are his text
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eighteenth century; and however muc
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Carpani; from the time he entered E
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His opp.1bis, 5, and 6, however, (p
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360
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nineteenth century—the style of H
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364
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movement. There is no danger of irr
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time, whereas the glory of many a B
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On the other hand, the tonal range
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It is with some surprise that we he
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A canon at the fourth below, ‘we
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Clementi. In this respect the issue
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turns out to be none other than our
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None of these, in any case, remotel
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traditional form.’ 125 Weber expr
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Arioso into the rest of the movemen
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eturned by b.248. On the other hand
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grise, it nevertheless exerts consi
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century fugal writing more satisfac
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CONCLUSION ‘Like most other disci
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from Fux to Haydn to Bruckner was n
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were written for the organ. 7 While
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prelude/fugue pair. Perhaps rather
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practice is less concerned with the
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Baroque, but did so subtly, without
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periodicity and its fluctuating ton
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eauty with ‘an excess of art.’
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(op.35/1) is a model of textural co
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410
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inhospitable to fugue.’ 30 To the
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W. F. Bach, Fugue in F minor BRA 88
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Exx.2.11-13 S. Wesley, ‘4 Fugues
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Chapter 4 Mozart, finished and unfi
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ed. Joseph Joachim and Andreas Mose
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [anon.] ‘The organ r
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Beethoven, Ludwig van, The letters
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Brown, Clive, ‘Perspectives on Be
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______ Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford Un
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zu Köln 1998, 315-321. ______ and
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Fisk, Josiah, ‘Classical music an
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______ ‘The “Grosse Fuge”: an
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1967). Horowitz, Joseph, ‘Mozart
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______ Fugue and fugato in Rococo a
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und ihrer frühen Rezeption’, Arc
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(1991). MacArdle, Donald W., ‘Bee
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contrappunto sopra il canto fermo (
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Nicolosi, Robert, T. S. Eliot and m
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______ Double counterpoint and cano
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Routh, Francis, Early English organ
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Schwarz, John I. jr, ‘Samuel and
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______ ‘Beethoven’s ninth symph
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Record, 90 (1960), 163-74. ______
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and Baroque’, Church, stage, and
Page 460 and 461:
Winter, Robert S., ‘Of realizatio
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