Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
Performer: Brecon Baroque, Rachel Podger, Johannes Pramsohler, Jane Rogers, Alison McGillivray, Marcin Świątkiewicz
Audio CD
Number of Discs: 1
Format: DSD128 (dsf tracks)
Label: Channel Classics
Release: 2016
Size: 5.61 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Contrapunctus 1
02. Contrapunctus 3
03. Contrapunctus 2
04. Contrapunctus 4
05. Canon alla Ottava
06. Contrapunctus 9 – alla Duodecima
07. Contrapunctus 10 – alla Decima
08. Contrapunctus 5
09. Contrapunctus 6 – in Stylo Francese
10. Contrapunctus 7
11. Contrapunctus 8, a3
12. Contrapunctus 11, a4
13. Canon all duodecima
14. Contrapunctus 12, a4
15. Canon all Decima
16. Contrapunctus 13, a3
17. Canon per Augmentationem
18. Contrapunctus 14
Fugue and the art of counterpoint are often almost bywords for Bach the composer. Certainly, from the viewpoint of many later generations, he was the first composer to make fugue the basis for a whole and complete piece of music, one that often seemed to serve no purpose beyond the ‘purely musical’. In a sense, this must surely be right: while there are countless fugal compositions before Bach, very few share the same relentless, yet expressive, cohesion, and most that were written outside the keyboard sphere were associated with a text and liturgical function. There is something about Bach’s fugal composition that immediately places it at the service of composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Schoenberg. For them, earlier counterpoint in the Renaissance tradition provided more a model for refined technique than for an overriding nexus of musically cohering ideas.