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

At this point one might have expected the fugue that follows to return to the
comforting orthodoxy of the Handelian style in which he was brought up (as do those
in contemporary sonatas by Pinto, Philip Cogan, and G. A. Kollmann), or perhaps an
exercise in strict Bachian counterpoint. Instead it represents one of his most ambitious
attempts to employ the rapidly growing range of early-Romantic devices and textures.
To be sure, there is little sign of this during the first quarter of the movement which, if
not quite preserving the integrity of the voices in an authentically Bachian manner
(neither was Handel usually overly concerned with this in his keyboard fugues), is
consistently and earnestly contrapuntal. A few strange dissonances (bb.22-23, 26-28,
34) suggest not so much J. S. Bach himself as Muzio Clementi’s attempts to imitate
him, 116 as does the unrelenting busyness of the counterpoint (see the comments above).
But these are only details, and the fugue sticks admirably to the point through seven
entries of the subject, going no further afield than the mediant (b.30) and the
subdominant (b.38). Things begin to take an unexpected turn around b.47 as
preparation is made for a sizeable cadence in the slightly unusual key of C major.
Everything is disrupted in b.50 by an entry in C minor, in octaves, completely
interrupting both normal tonal and contrapuntal procedures (Ex.2.32): Normality
returns as the music moves through F minor back to the more familiar regions of F and
B flat major (although F major predominates, there is no sense of ‘second subject’ or
secondary tonal area being established). Once interrupted, the contrapuntal texture is
harder to restore. Fragmentary entries in fairly consistent three- or four-part
counterpoint (bb.62-68, 76-82) alternate with sonata-like passage work (bb.69-75, 90-
95). At times, octave doubling reinforces important motives in a very un-Baroque
116 For more on Clementi’s fugues, see pp.367-72 below. Although he was an acquaintance of
Clementi, it is unlikely that Wesley had come across any of them before writing this piece. Some
had been published many years earlier in France (opp.5 and 6, 1781), but Clementi’s next
publication to include fugues was the first part of his Gradus ad Parnassum which did not appear
until 1827. There are a number of similarities in details of part-writing, but this is presumably
merely a consequence of both starting from a similar point and trying to achieve a similar end.
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