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

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A clear example of this can be seen during the exposition of this very fugue.<br />

There is something very symmetrical and conclusive about the diminished fifth—<br />

major third cadence of the first two subjects, a symmetry emphasised by the<br />

slenderness of the texture (Ex.3.13). Although the fugue is in four parts, the<br />

proportion of its length when all four instruments are playing at once is small. Where<br />

Bach would have papered over the cracks with another voice, or by increasing the<br />

rhythmic activity of his existing voices, Haydn leaves the beginning and ending of<br />

each entry unobscured.<br />

The plainest example occurs at the start of the A major fugue (finale, op.20/6).<br />

Each voice is uncommonly punctual as it starts precisely four bars after its<br />

predecessor, and although there is no embarrassing hiatus between phrases (as with the<br />

fugue of Mozart’s Musical Joke), each is neatly set off from the following entry. This<br />

is particularly odd as the subject with its three anticipatory quavers—a very old type,<br />

going back to the sixteenth-century canzona—can start equally well after a strong beat<br />

or leading up to one. In actual fact, the ‘overlapping articulation’ that LaRue speaks of<br />

is not as difficult a thing to achieve as it might appear. One of the simplest means of<br />

achieving this result is by bringing the subject in during a cadence, rather than<br />

afterwards—a device for which this subject is tailor-made. It is therefore curious how<br />

consistently Haydn does not avail himself of this resource during the exposition. Once<br />

the exposition is over, however, the fugue is much less predictable in phrase rhythm,<br />

with ‘real’ (complete) entries showing a disconcerting tendency to emerge<br />

unexpectedly from dense thickets of incomplete ones.<br />

The F minor fugue (op.20/5) makes a point of systematically reducing the<br />

distance between entries. At first they occur at regular six-bar intervals, but even<br />

during the exposition this is reduced by half. For most of the piece entries tend to<br />

follow each other at two- or three-bar intervals (cf bb.36, 61, 103). Then, in b.112, a<br />

232

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