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

for a child of twelve. The subject of the first fugue is particularly striking, presenting
an exposed tritone as its first interval, and then oscillating between F sharp and F
natural (Ex.4.10): unfortunately both of these elements disappear with the—perfectly
correct—tonal answer):
Apart from two rather square episodes and a loose stretto toward the end,
entries occur every three bars throughout the fugue with almost maddening
consistency. Although certainly open to J. LaRue’s criticism of excessive regularity
(pp.230-1 above), the cause is probably less to do with the influence of Classical habits
of phrase-rhythm than the fact that it has simply not occurred to Mozart to do anything
else with the subject. Fortunately the ‘et vitam venturi’ fugue is less regular in this
respect; its five bar distance of imitation would have made such repetition less obvious
in any case. It, too, shows unusual tonal features. A double fugue, the two subjects
engineer a modulation to the supertonic in the third bar (to the submediant in the
answer); repetition of this a tone lower brings it back into the usual tonic/dominant
orbit (Ex.4.11):
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