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

ever, could have written it?’ 23
David Humphreys was not so sure. In a letter to Early Music (not primarily
about this piece) he suggested in passing that all might not be what it seemed with
BWV 534. 24 Then, in 1985, he formally raised the question: ‘Did J. S. Bach compose
the F-minor Prelude and Fugue BWV 534?’ 25 By comparison with Bullivant and
Williams his analysis is quite ruthless, arguing that ‘the flaws, weaknesses, and
stylistically uncharacteristic features of both movements raise grave doubts as to
Bach’s authorship’, pointing out ‘the awkward, clogged counterpoint and part-writing,
the badly thought-out tonal scheme, the profligate waste of material and the general
absence of control.’ 26 Freed of the obligation to reconcile the work with Bach’s
compositional practice, he has no inhibitions about criticising the composer’s formal
grasp (‘The whole exposition gives an inescapable impression of being composed
piecemeal; the composer never calculates for more than the immediate needs of the
situation and seems incapable of thinking over long spans’) and voice-leading
(‘constant thick doublings, awkward melodic movement and textural padding suggest
that the composer had difficulty with five-part writing.’ 27 )
Humphreys’ critique begins with the fugue’s subject (Ex.1.2).
23 ‘BWV 565: a toccata in D minor for organ by J. S. Bach?’ Early Music, 9/3 (July 1981), 331.
24 ‘The D minor toccata BWV 565’, Early Music 10/2 (April 1982) 216-17.
25 In Bach, Handel and Scarlatti: tercentenary essays, ed. Peter Williams, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985), pp.173-84.
26 Ibid., pp.173, 175.
27 Ibid., pp.177, 178.
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