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

subject is also expansive; it too could fit the head-motive/sequence/cadence
description, but the effect is here quite different. Instead of Bach’s headlong drive to
the cadence, it has the periodic tunefulness of a galant Singspiel melody; the ascending
Rosalia in bb.2-3 is quite different in function from Bach’s typically descending
Fortspinnung. The third bar of the subject is conceived harmonically rather than
linearly, to the extent that it is surprisingly difficult to sing the transition between these
two bars accurately. Even with two voices, the progression takes one by suprise (b.6);
only with three voices does its meaning become clear.
Both subjects have a real answer. In Bach’s case this makes good sense as the
subject never leaves the tonic. Krebs’s subject, however, modulates to the dominant,
getting there by way of its dominant. When his answer does the same, it necessitates a
rather graceless recovery in bb.8-9, sliding back down by fifths from the supertonic—
almost an object lesson in the value of the tonal answer. If he had answered the a'-a
octave leap in b.1 conventionally with d"-d' (rather than e"-e' as he actually did), an
early detour to the subdominant would have neutralised the dominant shift, and
brought the answer neatly back to the tonic (Ex.1.25):
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