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

ecause of its less exacting approach to the integrity of the part-writing. Perhaps the
greatest representative of this tradition was G. F. Handel, with his massive but loose
fugues (although the richness of texture—one of the reasons for his pre-eminence—
may be the product of his north German training), but many other composers also
followed in the footsteps of Pasquini and Pachelbel. An early but representative
example of this style can be seen in Pasquini’s Sonata 7 a primo tuono (Ex.4.5): 46
The exposition suggests a fugue in four voices, and very occasionally all four voices
are actually present (bb.9, 15, 42-4); but the number and identity of the voices is not an
important aspect of this movement. What keeps the piece going is continuous motivic
activity, mostly but not always derived from the subject, passing freely from voice to
voice. A clear distinction can be made between what might be called ‘active’ and
46 Full text online at: http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Pasquini.html (accessed 30
September 2006). I have chosen this example partly because of its ready availability, partly to
demonstrate that such a relaxed approach to counterpoint is not a sign of post-Baroque decadence
but a long-standing part of the tradition (a contemporary of Corelli, Bernardo Pasquini lived from
1637 to 1710). There is no suggestion here that Mozart was directly influenced by Pasquini himself,
merely that he was part of the same tradition.
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