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

Is this insensitivity to one of the basic principles of Baroque fugal writing
merely a sign of youthful inexperience? Or were some things forgotten as fugue
became increasingly separated from the centre of musical experience?
Perhaps the most startling thing about many of Krebs’s prelude/fugue pairs is
their enormous length. Krebs clearly had an outstanding pedal technique (especially in
comparison with the declining standards of his time), and he had no inhibitions about
showing it off to the best advantage. Apart from the (inauthentic) ‘Pedal-Exercitium’
BWV 598, the largest pedal solos in Bach’s organ works are those in the Toccata in F,
BWV 540, and that near the start of the Toccata in C, BWV 564—large enough, to be
sure, but for Krebs this is merely the starting point.
In effect, his Prelude in G is BWV 564 run drastically to seed. Where Bach’s
Toccata has a relatively concise tripartite arrangement (manual introduction—pedal
solo—main body of the movement), Krebs has not one but three lengthy pedal solos,
separated by manual passagework and freely contrapuntal sections analogous to those
in BWV 564. The effect could perhaps be compared to the way in which Hummel was
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