Fantasia über ein rondo, for keyboard in C minor, BWV 918 The most interesting of the three C-minor pieces mentioned above is the “Fantasia upon a Rondo” BWV 918. Its source situation is more precarious than for BWV 961, as it survives complete only in the undependable Leipzig manuscript that also includes the latter. Yet BWV 918 is one of the more imaginative of Bach’s smaller works. Although it could never be a crowd-pleaser, it demonstrates how a popular galant genre could be turned into an austere fantasia comparable in its rigorous counterpoint to the canons of the Art of Fugue. In two equal parts throughout, it can be played as a duet on two matched keyboards. The title and key call to mind the rondeaux movement of the C-minor Partita. Perhaps Bach drafted BWV 918 as a possible movement for the partita, even an opening one (as in BWV 823). But apart from the two-part texture the pieces have little in common. The title as given in the Leipzig manuscript implies that Bach based the piece on the theme of a French pièce de clavecin in rondo form, but there is no assurance that the title is Bach’s. h e rhythm at the opening, which consists of an upbeat of five eighth-notes in 3/4 meter, is indeed very French. But otherwise the quirky little theme seems more characteristic of Bach than anyone else. The piece remains a sort of rondeau, the main theme returning three times in the tonic: at mm. 28, 80, and at the end (m. 120). Between these refrains come polyphonic couplets in which motivic ideas more or less closely related to the theme are worked out in two-part imitative counterpoint. h e distinction between theme and couplet becomes blurred when fragments of the theme are developed in inverted counterpoint during the couplets (as at m. 36), and later when the second restatement of the theme is expanded through the canonic treatment of its first two phrases youtube/watch?v=7lSIrrtyZig
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 13:04:27 +0000
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