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

Again the fugue is incomplete, finished by Stadler; we have no documentary
evidence as to how far Mozart got, but it is seems likely that the Stadler took up his
pen around b.50. In Ex.4.8 we can see how Mozart’s steady, perhaps rather
predictable quaver counterpoint is abruptly succeeded by awkward, fidgety semiquaver
material. Diminution is a difficult technique to handle at the best of times, but this is a
singularly graceless example. Its unarguable thematic logic does not, unfortunately,
help the abruptness of this transition.
The situation is different with two other fugues from around this time which
reached completion through the hand of Simon Sechter (1788-1867), doyen of
Viennese contrapuntists, teacher of fugue to Schubert and Bruckner. 52 K.154/385k (30
bars Mozart, 24 Sechter) is perhaps the less immediately appealing. An unusual
ascending version of the normally descending chromatic tetrachord, the subject is
rather dour, lacking the shapeliness and fluidity of K.401/375e; there is a strange
redundancy in the way the first bar is identical to the third. Furthermore, most of the
entries are separated by lengthy, bare, rather pointless sequences. Mozart’s torso does
have redeeming qualities: the syncopated cadence that emerges unexpectedly in bb.17-
19, then again in 24-26, has a peculiarly Mozartian pathos, and the texture gains in
interest as Mozart moves toward the subdominant which he reaches in b.31; but this is
the point at which Mozart left off and Sechter took over. It is perhaps no surprise that
Sechter, who is reputed to have written at least one fugue each day of his working life,
should prove to be a more fluent contrapuntist than Mozart was at this stage of his
career. Gone are the barren sequences, as Sechter’s counterpoint is much less
dependent upon the development of particular motives. Mozart’s one false stretto
(bb.28-29) is greatly surpassed by Sechter’s real stretto (second entry inverted) at
bb.41-44, and even more by bb.47-52 where the subject occurs twice (once inverted)
52 He also taught Vieuxtemps, Thalberg, Lachner, Nottebohm, and Marxsen.
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