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

texture there is a certain amount of stretto and a good deal of free imitation, and while
one or other of the subjects occasionally appears per arsin et thesin (with accents
reversed: bb.43, 58-61, 66-70) their shape remains the same. At b.71, however, they
undergo their first transformation: both are inverted, and the first subject has to be
altered rhythmically to allow for the fact that appoggiaturas cannot resolve upwards in
the same way they do downwards (Ex.2.20).
After this combination (which does not, perhaps, work quite as well as the
original) has been presented in the all the voices, the subjects enter recte again (b.92),
and both forms interact freely during the next section of the fugue although there are
few complete entries. In b.150 both subjects enter in augmentation, accompanied by
fragments of themselves. For the first time the aggregate motion of crotchets and
quavers is largely abandoned, giving a welcome (though stylistically unusual) sense of
rhythmic relaxation. The subjects appear twice more in augmentation (b.159, 168)
then, after a brief episode in the tonic minor, the head motive of the subject appears in
double augmentation at b.197. Although the tail of the the subject never appears thus,
the second subject is likewise doubly augmented—in stretto—at b.208 (Ex.2.21).
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