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a stretto treatment (at one minim’s distance) of the first line. Already Wesley has shown admirable contrapuntal facility, both in the scholastic disciplines of close imitation and stretto, and in the even more important skill of inventing seamless, flowing lines—but there is more to come. The next event is a maggiore section which presents a curious variant of the theme, leaping not from 1 to 5, but from (lower) 5 to 3. After this highly recognisable head-motive the maggiore tune follows its own course; it is a miniature rondo form in itself, thus: A :|| B A' C A" The last cadence in E major is not quite allowed to arrive, however, and the music is unceremoniously whisked back to E minor and its environs (b.139). Further imitation and free development soon announce the contrapuntal climax of the piece: the first part of the tune is presented as a cantus firmus in minims, against which the melody proceeds at twice the speed (there is an additional canonic entry in b.168). This will not work for the second half of the tune, so Wesley contents himself with a canon at half a bar’s distance (Ex.2.31). This leaves him with something of a problem at this point. Strict canonic writing does not (as Clementi also found) lend itself to ‘effective’ keyboard writing. Wesley has arrived with a pause at the end of the melody, and at his tonic, in the most undemonstrative manner possible (b.178). It can’t be the end of the piece, but how is he going to get from here to the usual brillante conclusion? He doesn’t, of course. Instead he gently reanimates the music with a reflective coda, piu lento rather than piu mosso. Without actually making much reference to the tune it seems to round the movement off perfectly. The last line enters twice, and the piece finishes like a chorale prelude with a tierce de Picardie. 182
A treatment for piano of this melody in strict neo-Baroque counterpoint throughout would have been nothing more than a historical curiosity. What makes this piece special—as with the D major Presto described above—is its skilful negotiation between Baroque and Classical idioms, and the way in which Wesley’s technical skill is leavened by his engaging melodic sensibility. There was no recent precedent in England for such elaborate contrapuntal treatment of popular melodies. Far more typical of its age is the so-called ‘Swiss Air’ in Clementi’s sonatina op.36/3, moving from a ‘murky’ pedal point to Alberti bass and back again (one example of many thousands, but one of the very few to be still readily available). Ten years later, Samuel Wesley was to be granted permission to explore and copy manuscripts from the Fitzwilliam Library with a view to publication: ‘P.S. I 183
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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
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of thinking over long spans.’ 44
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W. F. Bach and Krebs have always en
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the equitable distribution of his e
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slender volumes, including many pie
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In style (there is no particular th
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and it is the least comfortable bit
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voices inverted, and serve the purp
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each line in a polyphonic texture a
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If its general type is old, however
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thematic material. The subject coul
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Karl Geiringer makes an almost emba
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prolix F minor fugue, the expressiv
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Kittel, and Krebs himself. 76 Inevi
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[that] a keyboard composer can and
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Ex.1.12b shows the start of a fugue
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Egypt) did not prevent him from bei
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The very slow harmonic rhythm, howe
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If not inimitably characteristic, t
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As we saw in the first part of this
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subject is also expansive; it too c
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to expand and elaborate the surface
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The significance of this sort of st
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By the time the halfway point is re
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‘originality’—of historical p
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to follow in his father’s footste
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CHAPTER 2 J. S. BACH IN LONDON: CON
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of the mark. 4 Handel’s influence
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that would perpetuate his oratorios
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—also remained strongly Handelian
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118
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in the Overture to Alcina (1735). A
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Root-movement is quite unpredictabl
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124
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Superficially they have much in com
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situations; but his influence outla
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130
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
Page 158 and 159: Throughout the nineteenth century t
Page 160 and 161: Here, however (especially once the
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Page 164 and 165: published separately over the next
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Page 168 and 169: Likewise does the fugue subject of
Page 170 and 171: A little more Bach can be seen, per
Page 172 and 173: attitudes were representative, or e
Page 174 and 175: consciously parodying his Methodist
Page 176 and 177: his nature to be exclusive about an
Page 178 and 179: elieve) in German, the compleatly w
Page 180 and 181: no other way one could hear operas,
Page 184 and 185: have had a rich Treat in chewing th
Page 186 and 187: admirable Musick might be played in
Page 188 and 189: At this point one might have expect
Page 190 and 191: This is soon accompanied by quaver
Page 192 and 193: The C minor entry in b.50 destabili
Page 194 and 195: WESLEY’S LAST YEARS During this p
Page 196 and 197: Wilhelm Friedemann (see chapter 1).
Page 198 and 199: describes it well: ‘The concertan
Page 200 and 201: with sixteen-part orchestra’ (Car
Page 202 and 203: would be of interest to a budding c
Page 204 and 205: wrestling with the problem of integ
Page 206 and 207: Clearly, Haydn is letting fugal thi
Page 208 and 209: By contrast, the fugue which closes
Page 210 and 211: unknown in any other Haydn fugue (a
Page 212 and 213: around b.54, homophonic quaver figu
Page 214 and 215: very little to it, which is of cour
Page 216 and 217: When Haydn wrote string quartets, t
Page 218 and 219: place, socially and musically; and
Page 220 and 221: of the minuet, both here and in man
Page 222 and 223: The distinction that Kirkendale dre
Page 224 and 225: variety of keys as well: not just I
Page 226 and 227: detail. As far as the tastes of Pri
Page 228 and 229: constructed in an entirely new mann
Page 230 and 231: 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
Page 434 and 435:
______ ‘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
Page 448 and 449:
______ Double counterpoint and cano
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Routh, Francis, Early English organ
Page 452 and 453:
Schwarz, John I. jr, ‘Samuel and
Page 454 and 455:
______ ‘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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