#bwv 865

[mozart-1053]

Prelude and Fugue in A minor (WTC Book 1), BWV 865 Louis Thiry, org

[wtcproject]

Yes, it took me 6 months to work up this 4-voice monster, the most challenging of the project by far. I even debated omitting it on the grounds that it's the one 'impossible' fugue of the 48. Impossible how? Well there's a merely improbable moment in the left hand at bar 74, but then there's the sustained pedal tone of the last 4.5 bars that cannot be played as notated on a manual keyboard instrument.

In the half-year struggle, my feelings evolved from self-resentment for procrastinating and leaving this beast to sour my attitude so near the end of the project--it is still far from my favorite fugue--to accepting that once again I was being taught an important lesson. Wherever its origin--scholars speculate that the fugue was originally written for organ and repurposed for the WTC--I'm fairly convinced Bach didn't pluck this fugue from some other existing repertoire just to fill the A minor fugue slot in the first book, but rather to add an additional dimension of challenge to the work. He put it there because it was impossible.

Speaking of the impossible… the page turns. No existing edition has managed to deal with them well because, quite simply, there aren't any good places for them. Except for 1 beat in bar 65, both hands are fully occupied throughout. Memorizing music this complex would have added another 6 months to the process at least, so I cheated and did the video in 3 cuts with 2 different camera angles. The microphone I use is attached to the camera, so apologies in advance for the subtle tempo change and not-so-subtle difference in the audio quality of the middle section.