Bach recital at Ewell Trio Sonata in E flat and 'The Wedge" April 2023
🎞️ · 11.04.2023 · 17:58:36 ··· Dienstag ⭐ 0 🎬 0
📺 Jonathan Holmes
🎬 · 11.04.2023 · 17:58:36 ··· Dienstag
😎 · 03.07.2024 · 15:40:29 ··· MiTTwoch
Bach Organ Recital at St Mary’s Ewell Tuesday 11th April Trio Sonata 1 in E flat
First movement (No tempo indication)
Second Movement (Adagio)
Third Movement (Allegro)
The Sonata in E-flat major is part of a collection Bach put together for his son Wilhelm Friedemann. There was nobody for whom Bach composed and compiled more music – and music that was so personally tailored. He started before his son’s tenth birthday, when Wilhelm Friedemann was already showing great talent. When he was about twenty, his father compiled six organ trio sonatas for him.
Around 1727-1730, Bach introduced this new organ genre: the trio sonata. This type of sonata – with two melodic instruments and bass, or a soloist and keyboard – had long been a fixture in Baroque chamber music, but the three parts had never been heard before on one instrument. Through clever registration, it is possible to attain a wealth of sounds on the organ, but this is merely the beginning, as the six sonatas are regarded as extremely difficult. Schweitzer, for instance, says that “those who have practiced these sonatas thoroughly will not actually encounter any more problems in either the old or the modern organ literature. [...] He has achieved absolute precision in his playing – the ultimate condition of the true art of organ-playing. In this complicated trio piece, even the smallest irregularity can be heard with terrifying clarity”.
Biographer Forkel remarked that Bach wrote the collection (or transcribed it from earlier material) for the studies of Wilhelm Friedemann, whom he “thus trained to be the great organist he later became”. Maybe this context is also the reason he adds galant touches to the Italian concerto style here and there, inspired by the operas in Dresden of which Friedemann was apparently a great fan. The sonatas remained influential for a long time, also on the young Mendelssohn, for example. Notwithstanding its chamber music origins, this is out-and-out keyboard music, with a unique interaction between both hands. The almost endless variation of form makes the collection a world of its own.
Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548
Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548 dates sometime between 1727 and 1736, during his time in Leipzig. The work is sometimes called "The Wedge" due to the chromatic outward motion of the fugue theme. Unlike most other organ preludes and fugues of Bach, the autograph fair copy of the score survives, though the handwriting changes twenty two measures into the fugue to the hand of Johann Peter Kellner, a likely pupil and acquaintance of Bach who played an important role in the copying of his manuscripts. Because of the work's immense scope, it has been referred to as "a two-movement symphony" for the organ.
The autograph manuscript, along with that of the Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544, which is believed to have been written around the same time, share the same watermark and style of handwriting, which points to a composition period of 1727-1731. It has been suggested by Christoph Wolff that the work was composed for the organ at the University Church in Leipzig.
Prelude
The prelude's massive structure is considered to be one of the most intricate in the genre. It bears a concerto-ritornello style similar to other mature organ works, such as the BWV 544 and BWV 546 preludes, with the homophonic opening theme reoccurring between various polyphonic, episodic sequences.
Fugue
The subtitle of the work, commonly referred to as "The Wedge", refers to the first half of the fugue subject, which opens up as a sort of widening, chromatic wedge around the tonic point. The tradition of descending chromatic fourths in Bach's E minor fugue subjects include the BWV 914 harpsichord Toccata, the BWV 855 Prelude and Fugue from the Well-Tempered, Book 1, as well as the "Un poco Allegro" movement from the BWV 528 Organ Sonata. The fugue, at 231bars, is among Bach's longest and most elaborate organ fugues. The movement is unique in that it is in a three-part structure, with the third da capo section being a note-for-note reprise of the first. The second section suddenly thrusts the piece into an over-one-hundred bar episode of rapid, toccata-like passages of great virtuosity, with the cascading passagework occasionally giving way to the subject.
The fugue subject, by the shape of which the composition has acquired its name - "The Wedge"
Albert Schweitzer described both movements as being "so mighty in design, and have so much harshness blended with their power, that the hearer can only grasp them after several hearings." Philipp Spitta referred to the work as a "two-movement symphony", commenting on the work's "life energy" and the "extreme daring" nature of the fugue subject. Peter Williams attributed the work's "riveting power" to the "easily felt balance between the two movements."
· 11.04.2023 · 17:58:36 ··· Dienstag
U
U
L
L
T
* 1681228716
* 1681228716
X 0
Y 0
P
C 16383
B 7
V 76
* · 25.06.2022 · 00:00:00 ···
2 · 26.05.2023 · 08:07:33 ···
L · 03.07.2024 · 17:56:42 ···
C · 03.07.2024 · 17:56:47 ···
💘 🖱️ * · 01.01.1970 · 01:00:00 ···
* · 01.01.1970 · 01:00:00 ···
· 01.01.1970 · 01:00:00 ···
**##
*** · 01.01.1970 · 01:00:00 ··· ::
*2* · 01.01.1970 · 01:00:00 ··· ::
*L* · 01.01.1970 · 01:00:00 ··· ::
*C* · 01.01.1970 · 01:00:00 ··· ::
********
