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

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At this point there is an outburst of virtuoso octaves in the left hand, and the piece<br />

receives a wholly unexpected consummation in the form of a slow chorale in the tonic<br />

major, over the walking bass the left-hand octaves have became. A brief return to the<br />

smooth counterpoint of the opening rounds the movement off.<br />

It is of course completely anachronistic, a conflation of several different genres.<br />

No fugue of Bach ever had a chorale apotheosis like this: no chorale prelude of his was<br />

prefaced by an unrelated fugue. And yet the most remarkable thing about<br />

Mendelssohn’s achievement—to my mind at least as remarkable as the originality of<br />

his more obviously ‘radical’ contemporaries—is the extraordinary directness and<br />

naturalness with which he was able to exploit the musical resources of earlier<br />

generations, combining the techniques of the previous century and a half into a newly<br />

expressive synthesis.<br />

409

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