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

The difficulty of this contrapuntal procedure results in a few unusual
progressions, recalling those that arise under similar circumstances in the D sharp
minor fugue from WTC II (which Wesley at this stage could not have known). The
clearly articulated half-close that follows ushers in a final section in which the two
subjects appear once again, this time rather abruptly and unexpectedly in diminution
(b.226). Although, after an obsessive—even manic—concentration upon the
diminished head motive in bb.237-51, the more relaxed movement of the opening
returns, this motive is diminished yet further in the last three bars of the piece. In other
words, this six-note motive is presented at no fewer than five rhythmic levels (the
countersubject is present at four). In its learning and its scale—if not, perhaps, its
musical significance—this fugue dwarfs the one it took its subject from. Olleson
ascribes its genesis in a general way to Wesley’s ‘intense interest in fugue at this time’;
but perhaps we could suggest a more specific reason for its existence? 70 If, as we have
speculated, the advent of Haydn’s Creation was part of the reason that Wesley’s
Confitebor never got a hearing, the composition of such a fugue on a subject from this
work may have been a gesture not just of homage, but of creative self-assertion as
well: plumbing the depths of contrapuntal artifice where the greater composer had
merely scratched the surface.
ORGAN MUSIC
It was soon after this that he began to publish the series of voluntaries, op.6,
that probably remain his best-known works. Although together they make up a round
dozen (a typical number for such a set) and share the same opus number, they were
70 Olleson, Wesley, 292.
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