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

is clearly divided into four-bar segments, but Haydn makes no attempt to establish a
larger periodicity: the sense of movement remains comfortable rather than compelling.
It is not surprising that, with such an unwieldy subject constructed of such pregnant
materials (the opening drop of a fourth, and the upbeat entry in b.3), the subject tends
to fall to pieces during the working that follows. As in all of Haydn’s fugues, the
material is fully developed, but the subject appears in a reasonably complete form only
three times after the exposition, although false entries abound. There are attractive
details in the counterpoint; the way the countersubject fills in the gaps of the subject,
appearing to imitate without actually doing so, or the way a perfect cadence onto V is
converted into a plagal cadence onto I by an unexpected B flat (b.28). But the
movement as a whole, though never less than impeccably professional and competent,
seems not to have absorbed a great deal of Haydn’s creative energy.
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