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It is with some surprise that we hear the texture suddenly resolve itself into a clear Ic – V – I cadence such as one might find in any of his sonatas, all without any loss of thematic relevance for even a moment. This cadence on the dominant is answered by a similar one in the tonic later on; this and a strongly articulated dominant seventh chord in b.57-60 create a welcome sense of structural orientation and prevent us from feeling totally adrift upon a sea of continuous development. Much of the figuration is dissonant even by Clementi’s standards—bb.123-39 especially—and the persistent semitone ostinato near the end has an unnerving quality not unlike the obsessive trills of late Beethoven. It may have been this structural and textural originality which prevented Clementi from describing the piece as a fugue without further qualification. If his fugues have earned a certain amount of qualified esteem, Clementi’s canons have had a much harder critical reception. To be sure, Nägeli spoke of ‘elegant two-voice canons that pleasantly recall the period of the strict style,’ 103 but this appears to have remained a minority opinion. They ‘elicit more admiration than pleasure’ 104 according to Nicholas Temperley; in Leon Plantinga’s view they ‘remained for Clementi an Achilles heel. Throughout his late period he wrote them compulsively; they always sound “academic”, and usually they are downright tiresome.’ 105 Plantinga is admirably precise in analysing just why he finds Clementi’s canonic writing so unsatisfactory: ‘A consistent problem with these pieces is their unfulfilled harmonic ambitions; single voices effect or imply modulations that simply do not work out very well in combination with the other voice(s). The result is an unclear harmonic syntax —a kind of lurching and sliding from one indeterminate tonality to the next.’ 106 Presumably the sort of thing he is talking about can be seen in Ex.15.21. What, 103 Ibid., p.301 104 Temperley, Introduction, p.xvii 105 Plantinga, Clementi, p.274 106 Ibid., p.274 372
exactly, is the true identity of the accidental in bb.17-20? Is it a B sharp (leading note of C sharp minor) or a C natural (flat VI of E major)? This is not just a question of orthography: the two voices really seem to be in two different keys at this point. In this case the ambiguity is a direct result of the strictness of the canon; of Clementi’s insistence on writing ‘per intervalli giusti.’ He was not, however, the first to write apparently bitonal canons. J. S. Bach wrote a well known example, in the middle section of the Duetto in F, BWV 803 from Clavier-Übung III (Ex.5.22). 373
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WRESTLING WITH THE GERMAN DEVIL: FI
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ABSTRACT ‘After’ can be taken b
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many peo
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INTRODUCTION ‘Every hearer enjoys
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esponse was: ‘the fugue is no lon
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instrumental fugues of Joseph Haydn
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world of their own. The study concl
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facts and the ‘soft technology’
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DEFINING FUGUE But what are they? W
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elow). For how many voices or parts
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indeed a complete counter-expositio
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on two pitches throughout, tonic an
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already become the historicising na
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Catholic tradition, but Albrechtsbe
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the texture as a whole coincides in
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kind experimentalism of Samuel Wesl
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The clearest sign of things to come
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Perhaps a clue can be found in the
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CHAPTER 1 THE CIRCLE OF J. S. BACH
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FINE DISTINCTIONS (1): MISATTRIBUTE
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sounding object, nothing has change
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Mendelssohn, Schumann, Spitta, Wido
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pieces are known from a single copy
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very good; and the ends of both mov
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ever, could have written it?’ 23
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incorrectly prepared suspended four
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has a number of doubtful features.
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einforces them. Its texture is impo
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of thinking over long spans.’ 44
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W. F. Bach and Krebs have always en
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the equitable distribution of his e
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slender volumes, including many pie
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In style (there is no particular th
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and it is the least comfortable bit
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voices inverted, and serve the purp
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each line in a polyphonic texture a
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If its general type is old, however
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thematic material. The subject coul
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Karl Geiringer makes an almost emba
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prolix F minor fugue, the expressiv
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Kittel, and Krebs himself. 76 Inevi
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[that] a keyboard composer can and
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Ex.1.12b shows the start of a fugue
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Egypt) did not prevent him from bei
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The very slow harmonic rhythm, howe
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If not inimitably characteristic, t
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As we saw in the first part of this
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subject is also expansive; it too c
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to expand and elaborate the surface
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The significance of this sort of st
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By the time the halfway point is re
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‘originality’—of historical p
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to follow in his father’s footste
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CHAPTER 2 J. S. BACH IN LONDON: CON
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of the mark. 4 Handel’s influence
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that would perpetuate his oratorios
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—also remained strongly Handelian
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118
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in the Overture to Alcina (1735). A
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Root-movement is quite unpredictabl
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124
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Superficially they have much in com
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situations; but his influence outla
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130
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ounded too closely by early Methodi
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At first the real focus of attentio
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surprisingly grammatical, confirmin
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138
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the subject (where again he seems n
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in Bath) recommended that Charles
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have, to a head-injury sustained in
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146
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The ending is rather curious: he re
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hectic week, he could choose betwee
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152
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even have had an informal agreement
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Unlike Handel, however, there no tu
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Throughout the nineteenth century t
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Here, however (especially once the
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162
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published separately over the next
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166
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Likewise does the fugue subject of
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A little more Bach can be seen, per
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attitudes were representative, or e
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consciously parodying his Methodist
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his nature to be exclusive about an
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elieve) in German, the compleatly w
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no other way one could hear operas,
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a stretto treatment (at one minim
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have had a rich Treat in chewing th
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admirable Musick might be played in
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At this point one might have expect
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This is soon accompanied by quaver
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The C minor entry in b.50 destabili
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WESLEY’S LAST YEARS During this p
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Wilhelm Friedemann (see chapter 1).
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describes it well: ‘The concertan
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with sixteen-part orchestra’ (Car
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would be of interest to a budding c
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wrestling with the problem of integ
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Clearly, Haydn is letting fugal thi
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By contrast, the fugue which closes
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unknown in any other Haydn fugue (a
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around b.54, homophonic quaver figu
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very little to it, which is of cour
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When Haydn wrote string quartets, t
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place, socially and musically; and
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of the minuet, both here and in man
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The distinction that Kirkendale dre
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variety of keys as well: not just I
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detail. As far as the tastes of Pri
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constructed in an entirely new mann
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Note the extent to which Haydn’s
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A clear example of this can be seen
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Haydn would write only one more fug
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At any rate, the effect of later ei
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appears not wholly to satisfy Kirke
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Junker and others were neither part
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sentimental’ (c.1814?), Haydn’s
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intensity of the debate? This is ho
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is an almost perfect instrument for
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CHAPTER 4 MOZART, FINISHED AND UNFI
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as such—at times even creating th
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thought and practice until very rec
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sonata movement sets up certain exp
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organ music: from the death of J. S
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(to us) the direct influence of J.
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and back without a sign that anythi
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is not necessarily at variance with
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conclusion is not perfectly in acco
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there can be no doubt that Mozart,
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to enclose your letter to me?’ 35
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The Dean was in a state of great ex
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‘passive’ voices; Ex.4.5 shows
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274
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276
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against itself, augmented and inver
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Andante also found favour, but part
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enewed application to this task. Wh
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for a child of twelve. The subject
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These masses mark the two poles of
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After this exposition the cadential
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is a much less dramatic tale, of ca
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happened, on October 26 1783 at Ben
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the voices. There is a single expos
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ascending, descending (or both), st
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298
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(apart from particella for wind and
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up to Mozart’s standard, the melo
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weight than Süssmayr’s say-so. B
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crisis [Lebenskrise] from which, in
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all, please few with counterpoint a
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of much that was excellent’. 3 In
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continually surpass his own creativ
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This ethical approach to music, so
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Like Mozart, Beethoven was a great
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There are a few reasonably complete
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It is, in part, a question of autho
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Page 326 and 327: which had such a similar subject (E
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Page 330 and 331: his early life is there a single re
Page 332 and 333: ‘Metaphorically, Beethoven was al
Page 334 and 335: On the other hand, whilst there is
Page 336 and 337: of a sort that has if anything tend
Page 338 and 339: To thus posit ‘lateness’ about
Page 340 and 341: historical development; 61 all thes
Page 342 and 343: These critics were not necessarily
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Page 346 and 347: hear it more often. Well, once more
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Page 350 and 351: Sometimes, it is just noise, in the
Page 352 and 353: At times, so eccentric are his text
Page 354 and 355: eighteenth century; and however muc
Page 356 and 357: Carpani; from the time he entered E
Page 358 and 359: His opp.1bis, 5, and 6, however, (p
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Page 362 and 363: nineteenth century—the style of H
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Page 366 and 367: movement. There is no danger of irr
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Page 370 and 371: On the other hand, the tonal range
Page 374 and 375: A canon at the fourth below, ‘we
Page 376 and 377: Clementi. In this respect the issue
Page 378 and 379: turns out to be none other than our
Page 380 and 381: None of these, in any case, remotel
Page 382 and 383: traditional form.’ 125 Weber expr
Page 384 and 385: Arioso into the rest of the movemen
Page 386 and 387: eturned by b.248. On the other hand
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Page 390 and 391: century fugal writing more satisfac
Page 392 and 393: CONCLUSION ‘Like most other disci
Page 394 and 395: from Fux to Haydn to Bruckner was n
Page 396 and 397: were written for the organ. 7 While
Page 398 and 399: prelude/fugue pair. Perhaps rather
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Page 406 and 407: eauty with ‘an excess of art.’
Page 408 and 409: (op.35/1) is a model of textural co
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Page 412 and 413: inhospitable to fugue.’ 30 To the
Page 414 and 415: W. F. Bach, Fugue in F minor BRA 88
Page 416 and 417: Exx.2.11-13 S. Wesley, ‘4 Fugues
Page 418 and 419: Chapter 4 Mozart, finished and unfi
Page 420 and 421: ed. Joseph Joachim and Andreas Mose
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [anon.] ‘The organ r
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Beethoven, Ludwig van, The letters
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Brown, Clive, ‘Perspectives on Be
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______ Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford Un
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zu Köln 1998, 315-321. ______ and
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Fisk, Josiah, ‘Classical music an
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______ ‘The “Grosse Fuge”: an
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1967). Horowitz, Joseph, ‘Mozart
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______ Fugue and fugato in Rococo a
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und ihrer frühen Rezeption’, Arc
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(1991). MacArdle, Donald W., ‘Bee
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contrappunto sopra il canto fermo (
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Nicolosi, Robert, T. S. Eliot and m
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______ Double counterpoint and cano
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Routh, Francis, Early English organ
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Schwarz, John I. jr, ‘Samuel and
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______ ‘Beethoven’s ninth symph
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Record, 90 (1960), 163-74. ______
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and Baroque’, Church, stage, and
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Winter, Robert S., ‘Of realizatio
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