Bach - Completed Fugue in C minor BWV 562

Completed by Zoltán Göncz.
Virtual performance by James Pressler
http://www.virtuallybaroque.com
(Silbermann organ, Rötha).

The second movement of the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor (BWV 562), which was composed in 1747-48 (or earlier), survives in a fragmentary state. According to certain views the theme and its countersubject did not possess enough melodic and contrapuntal potentials and therefore Bach abandoned the composition altogether. Others suppose that the movement was originally a double fugue, the last pages of which got lost. For that matter, the characteristic proportions of the surviving section also bear evidence of this fact. The exposition of the fugue theme is already followed from bar 22 onwards by a stretto; a similarly concise solution can be found at the beginning of the Fugue in E flat major (St Anna) (BWV 552:2).

When Zoltán Göncz started complementing the fragment in 1990, it became evident that the work must originally have been a double fugue. At the same time the piece was a "preliminary study" to an ever greater challenge, the reconstruction of The Art of Fugue.

Because the fugue has remained unfinished, the fantasia is performed relatively seldom while the fugue surviving as a torso never, however promising and grandiose it begins.

The score can be downloaded from the website "bachorgan.com".
http://www.bachorgan.com/Comps/fugue562-2.pdf

There listeners will find it attached to the Fantasia:
http://www.virtuallybaroque.com/track710.htm

and by itself on a different organ using a later version of Hauptwerk
http://www.virtuallybaroque.com/trak2444.htm

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Bach
• Completed
• Fugue
• minor
• BWV
• 562
• Pressler
• Göncz
• Silbermann
• organ

[sailingforde04]

Probably one of the best bach completions that I have heared - the thing with many bach completions is you can hear where bach stopped writing and whoever completed the work took over - but with this it is a lot harder

Thanks for such a wonderful piece

[parquar]

Who would rate this anything but 5 stars??? Thank you so much for putting this stuff up

[arist006]

@koyunbaba73 that's awesome X"D

[koyunbaba73]

Awesome! I learned how to write a fugue. It's so freaking hard, just to write a 3 part fugue! Bach could improvise, IMPROVISE an 8 part fuge. According to Douglas Hofstadter, this is akin to playing 64 games of chess blindfolded and winning each one!

[somnynightin78]

I love the first appearance of the stretto, it's awesome.

[timothypjohnson]

Wow. This is spectacular. If anyone had told me Bach himself had written all this, and not just the first 90 seconds, I'd have had no difficulty whatsoever believing it.

[LJBSasha]

@qweuio:  you're welcome!

[qweuio]

@LJBSasha thanks for the tip!

[LJBSasha]

@qweuio: 1:31 is where JS Bach laid down his pen for this piece (just as the 2nd-half of that bar starts).

Beautiful completion, though perhaps the pedal-points in it - although connecting stylistically with the Fantasia - make it feel as matters are being simplified more than one might wish and/or expect. Still, I'll gladly take it; hopefully, somebody will post the Stockmeier completion so we can all compare. Perhaps somebody hearing the two may come up with an even lovelier result...

[Protenor]

I warmly recommend Wolfgang Stockmeier's completion of this piece even though I don't know where it can be found on the internet. While this completion seems to focus on contrapuntal finesse and pomp with the double fugue and all Stockmeier assumes an ABA structure similar to that found in BWV 548 thus conserving a maximum amount of Bach's own material. The middle part though is an exquisite development that focusses on the melodic qualities of the motives, making them sing throughout...

[thatwhichidesire]

i sense some Hungarian here :)

Bach király :)

[thegoddescomposer]

J.S. Bach is the last person who was sended by God to Earth