JS Bach’s last set of works, collectively titled The Art of Fugue, was published shortly after his death. It was not a big hit. Dense counterpoint was deeply unfashionable at that time, as Western European aristocratic tastes shifted toward singable melodies over block chords. The first published edition of The Art of Fugue only sold about thirty copies, and it wasn’t performed in its entirety until 1922.
Eventually the classical music audience did come to admire Bach’s final fugue collection, but it took almost 100 years after it was written. The fugues still aren’t the easiest listening experience. They were meant to be didactic, to be played and studied rather than to be listened to–though of course you are free to listen to and enjoy them. I’m finding that my own enjoyment is much enhanced by opening up the structure through visualization, so that’s what I’ve done with Angela Hewitt’s recording of Contrapunctus I using Ableton Live.
The main thing to listen (and watch) for here is the subject, the little melody that each voice plays as it enters. After the subject, the voices wander off to play other intertwining parts, occasionally returning to the subject as they go. In the subsequent Art of Fugue pieces, Bach does all kinds of twisting and warping of the subject, writing it upside down, backwards, twice as fast, half as fast, overlaid on top of itself, and so on. In Contrapunctus I, however, he doesn’t do any of these formal games. It sounds more like he’s just riffing around the subject. It’s almost casual, at least by his standards.
