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Stephen Barber’s bald statement that the Art of Fugue was Bach’s last work (review 25 March) requires some modification: the Mass in B minor has an equal claim to ‘last work’ status; it is even possible that the ‘incarnatus est’ post dates the last ,unfinished, fugue. Apropos this last fugue Stephen Barber seems to be suggesting that to play what Bach actually wrote is “frustrating, I artistic and unnecessary”; he prefers listening to attempts to second-guess the great contrapuntalist’s intentions. Wilfrid Mellers long ago declared that “any continuation of the fugue by an ordinary mortal is bound to be an anti-climax”. Glen Wilson(Early Music May 2014) lists eight reasons why Nottebohm’s proposal is “the single most salient error still current in Bach scholarship”. The one person who might have had the skill, knowledge and motivation to attempt the task was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach but he passed the manuscript on without tinkering with the fugue. Mellers and others have wondered whether it was Bach’s intention to finish in mid-air in bar 239: N.B. 2+3+9=14=BACH(2+1+3+8)…this can’t be accidental(which is what Nottebohm said about his proposal).
Message Thread The Art of Fugue - Garry Broughton April 5, 2025, 11:34 am
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