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

the next. But it is easy to tell by feel the difference between a texture conceived (like
Pasquini’s) through the fingers and one in which the fingers are merely tools,
presenting as best as they can a texture conceived independently of their convenience.
Very seldom in the Italian/south German fugal tradition do we find a motive or
subject-entry that has to be divided between the hands. The textural norm is one voice
in one hand, two (or less) in the other, with changes in this configuration happening
only at convenient intervals. Anyone who has played the simplest piece of J. S. Bach’s
will attest that he has not the slightest interest in these considerations, with even the
three-part Sinfonias continually shifting the middle voice from one hand to the other.
Looked at in this light, a passing remark from an account of Mozart’s playing comes
into focus: ‘He gave each voice its due when it repeated the theme in another key; this
was particularly admirable in the tenor. When the bass was too low and the tenor
couldn’t be played with the left hand, the right hand had to help out with a few notes
and fingers.’ 49
From his earliest youth Mozart’s profound musical gifts had enabled him to
achieve with relative ease feats that other musicians could manage only with great
labour and effort. He had been able to emulate his models and then surpass them
without difficulty. According to Dirst it was the fugues of Bach that first challenged
this comfortable sense of mastery. ‘Here is indeed something from which one can
learn!’ he is supposed to have said upon hearing a motet of Bach’s in Leipzig.
K.401/375e has shown us that even in 1773 he was no stranger to strict counterpoint in
a keyboard context. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that his exposure to the WTC in
1782 unleashed a flood of fugal experiments.
49 Letter of N. Lehmann to F. X. Niemetschek, May 1, 1818, describing a performance in Autumn
1787. Quoted in W. Kirkendale, Fugue and fugato in rococo and classical chamber music
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1979), p.160.
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