Originally Posted by Zetetic

You know you're clutching at straws if you use "But Gesualdo did it!" as an excuse for an unprepared dissonance. . . . . If it sounds fine to your ear, then that's OK. I was merely under the impression that since this composition was written after several weeks' baroque theory classes, it would attempt to reflect the idiom. It's still perfectly pleasant.

The Art of Fugue's more harmonically interesting than BWV54 in my opinion, but, so unlike Gesualdo, Bach's works demonstrate that the rules are broken most effectively when the composer in question has a detailed knowledge of their deployment.