J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

Root-movement is quite unpredictable, almost haphazard, tending to avoid the
fifth-relations so beloved of most later eighteenth-century theorists and composers.
The use of the minor dominant as a bridge to unexpected tonal regions occurred in the
very first bar of the Larghetto, and is something of a feature in the fugue (bb.16, 20,
24, 34). This sort of harmonic colour is not the tonally-directed, secondary-dominant
derived chromaticism which dominated the eighteenth century; it is instead a legacy of
Handel’s seventeenth-century stylistic roots. So too is the systematic irregularity of
the figuration, which never gets the chance to settle down to an orderly plod through
the cycle of fifths, generating a curious, fitful brilliance.
Handelian influence had less competition in this field because on his arrival
there was almost no native tradition of fugal writing. It is important to remember that
large, self-contained, thematically unified and closely-worked fugues only emerged
during the last stages of the Baroque, with composers such as Caldara, Veracini,
Pepusch, Leclair, de Grigny, Zelenka, and of course Bach and Handel. In chamber,
choral, and organ music England had maintained strong contrapuntal traditions
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