Bach: Prelude and Fugue in Eb Major, BWV 552

Prelude: 0:00
Fugue: 9:05

Performed by Christoph Albrecht

The Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, BWV 552 and often nicknamed St. Anne, was written by Johann Sebastian Bach and first published in 1739 in the third volume of the Clavier-Übung.

"The triple fugue is a symbol of the Trinity. The same theme recurs in three connected fugues, but each time with another personality. The first fugue is calm and majestic, with an absolutely uniform movement throughout; in the second the theme seems to be disguised, and is only occasionally recognisable in its true shape, as if to suggest the divine assumption of an earthly form; in the third, it is transformed into rushing semiquavers as if the Pentacostal wind were coming roaring from heaven."
— Albert Schweitzer, Jean-Sebastien Bach, le musicien-poête, 1905

The fugue in E♭ major BWV 552/2 that ends Clavier-Übung III has become known in English-speaking countries as the "St. Anne" because of the first subject's resemblance to a hymn tune of the same name by William Croft, a tune that was not likely known to Bach. A fugue in three sections of 36 bars, 45 bars and 36 bars, with each section a separate fugue on a different subject, it has been called a triple fugue. However, the second subject is not stated precisely within the third section, but only strongly suggested in bars 93, 99, 102-04, and 113-14.

The form of the fugue conforms to that of a 17th-century tripartite ricercar or canzona, such as those of Froberger and Frescobaldi: firstly in the way that themes become progressively faster in successive sections; and secondly in the way one theme transforms into the next. Bach can also be seen as continuing a Leipzig tradition for contrapuntal compositions in sections going back to the keyboard ricercars and fantasias of Nicolaus Adam Strungk and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. The tempo transitions between different sections are natural: the minims of the first and second sections correspond to the dotted crotchets of the third.

Many commentators have remarked on similarities between the first subject and fugal themes by other composers. As an example of stile antico, it is more probably a generic theme, typical of the fuga grave subjects of the time: a "quiet 4/2" time signature, rising fourths and a narrow melodic range. As Williams (2003) points out, the similarity to the subject of a fugue by Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch, which Bach himself published in 1734. Roger Wibberly has shown that the foundation of all three fugue subjects, as well as of certain passages in the Prelude, may be found in the first four phrases of the chorale "O Herzensangst, O Bangigkeit". The first two sections of BWV 552/2 share many affinities with the fugue in E♭ major BWV 876/2 in The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, written during the same period. Unlike true triple fugues, like the F♯ minor BWV 883 from the same book or some of the contrapuncti in The Art of the Fugue, Bach's intent with BWV 552/2 may not have been to combine all three subjects, although this would theoretically have been possible. Rather, as the work progresses, the first subject is heard singing out through the others: sometimes hidden; sometimes, as in the second section, quietly in the alto and tenor voices; and finally, in the last section, high in the treble and, as the climactic close approaches, quasi-ostinato in the pedal, thundering out beneath the two sets of upper voices. In the second section it is played against quavers; and in parts of the last, against running semiquaver passagework. As the fugue progresses, this creates what Williams has called the cumulative effect of a "mass choir". In later sections, to adapt to triple time, the first subject becomes rhythmically syncopated, resulting in what the music scholar Roger Bullivant has called "a degree of rhythmic complexity probably unparalleled in fugue of any period."

Видео Bach: Prelude and Fugue in Eb Major, BWV 552 канала Ben Callan