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Re: GG: Bach's Fugue in e-major (878), WTK II



On Friday, October 19, 2001 J. Scheuvens wrote:

 

>One of my really favourite gouldian pieces is Bach: Fugue in e-major (878), WTK II

>Who could help me to find out the recording-date and -place of the following recording

>which is totally different to the well-known Sony GG-Edition release of the WTK II...

 

This is a piece GG recorded often, with no fewer than four different studio versions (two for album

release, two for video) being recorded.? The version to which you are referring was recorded at the

CBS 30th Street Studio between July 29 and August 1, 1957 and was included, along with the F-sharp

minor fugue (BWV 883), as filler on Gould’s recording of the fifth and sixth Partitas (ML 5186).

 

Given that Gould chose to record and isolate the E-major fugue as far back as 1957, in only his third

recording for CBS, is testament to the passion Gould felt for this piece.? In fact, in 1979 GG used the

E-major fugue as the centerpiece to his Monsaingeon video collaboration “An Art of Fugue” to illustrate

the pinnacle of Bach’s fugue writing, including an extremely detailed harmonic analysis (for a film), and

delivers a stunning, spiritual performance that is almost three times slower than his WTC II recording

of 1969!? For those who haven’t seen the video can read a verbatim transaction of Gould’s analysis in

Otto Friedrich’s bio “GG:? A Life and Variations”...

 

Curiously enough, BWV 878 is not wholly Bach, since the fugue subject was borrowed from JKF Fischer's

"Ariadne Musica".? However, Fischer’s subject was, for Bach, merely the foundation to what Gould called

a “magnificent Baroque edifice”.? And that’s about the best description I could think of for this fugue.

 

 

Hope this helps,

 

Dominic