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

Krebs’s other preludes and fugues aspire to many of the expressive qualities of J. S.
Bach, but are vitiated by these tiny misjudgements.
If not quite so patent as some of the other Bach/Krebs relationships outlined
above, the Prelude and Fugue in D nonetheless shows a certain kinship with BWV 532
in the same key. BWV 532 is a fascinatingly transitional work, still showing the
influence of Buxtehude but well on the way to a recognisably Bachian style. The
prelude is sectional, but its limbs are much longer than was normal in Buxtehude’s
Praeludia, approaching the continuous forms of Bach’s maturity. The fugue begins
with one of Bach’s nearest approximations to a repercussive subject (Ex.1.23):
Although an accepted resource for Pachelbel and Buxtehude, it would appear that
Bach thought it old-fashioned—there are very few examples in his oeuvre. In line
with this stylistic orientation, the part-writing is much more lax than would have been
the case later in his career. On the other hand the fugue has an energy and rhythmic
drive that is new in Bach’s music. Its harmonic range is also wider than that of the
previous generation, with entries as far afield as C sharp minor.
Krebs’s fugue shows what happens when the seventeenth-century language of
Bach’s subject is updated to that of the mid eighteenth century (Ex.1.24). The earlier
subject is a typically expansive Spielfuge, complete with head-motive, sequential
continuation, cadence, and (if it be considered a part of the subject) codetta. Krebs’s
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