Fugue in A minor (Subject from Bach's BWV 863b - WTC 1 Fugue in G-sharp minor).

In anticipation of tomorrow being Bach's 341st birthday according to the Julian calendar, I have decided to upload now the modified version of this fugue, which I initially intended to repost back on July 28th last year to commemorate the 275th anniversary of his passing, but couldn't due to circumstances which prevented me from publishing it in time.

As such, in order to better honor his unparalleled legacy and eternal spirit thriving within the vast reaches of his art, still echoing through Western musical history long after the world was graced by the timeless genius, unabating magnificence and unmatched brilliance of his divine compositions, I have chosen to once again mark this occasion by sharing the definitive revised edition of this humble work of mine, originally based on the subject of his G-sharp minor fugue from the 1st volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV863b), as a tribute to his insurmountable greatness and immortal spirit.

In roughly 10 days from now, his 2nd birthday according to the Gregorian calendar will also take place, so by then I may have hopefully finished another piece I'm currently working on in time to celebrate his actual birthday.

Note: the whole composition has been rendered in A = 415 tuning and 1/5th-comma meantone temperament, in order to better, more accurately capture the Baroque essence this piece strives to convey.

Scrolling video link (YouTube)

Fugue in A minor (Subject from BWV 863b).pdf

Edited March 21Mar 21 by Fugax Contrapunctus

Hello @Fugax Contrapunctus !

I’m a bit surprised and even disappointed that your fugue hasn’t received a single review over the last two weeks, and so I’ll try to be the first one. Perhaps the reason is that most of the members hesitate to write a „I-have-very-enjoyed-your-playful-piece-Thanks-for-sharing“ reply because of your reputation. I’m thinking of your razor-sharp introductions, packed with background knowledge and specialist terms as well as that counterpoint – fugues and even perpetual canons – is considered to be very hard and not everybody is experienced enough to give profound comments.

The choice of the subject for your fugue – I think I’ve already watched the video a year or so ago – from the G sharp minor fugue of the WTC1 has captivated me since that particular fugue is for me a distinctive one and one of my favorites (while there are many). The original key of G sharp minor has such a characteristic mystical and gloomy mood reminding me somewhat at Halloween – and interestingly your „Halloween-fugue“ which I have seen on YouTube, too, is consequently also in that key! And even your A minor version retains that pitch nearly exactly in the tuning (A=415) you’ve chosen!

Even if you use the subject from Bach’s fugue, your fugue is a completely different one – showing which incredible possibilities counterpuntal composition offers – always having material with which to compose. While Bach’s one has a more walking character, your one has a continuous flow due to the complementary rhythm created by the semiquavers in the counterpoint and the episodes. That made it not as easy for me to discover the subject entries, so that I took the time to look in the score thoroughly and annotate them; I think I’ve detected the following ones:

• Exposition: Bar 1 (bass, a minor), bar 3 (alto, e phrygian), bar 5 (soprano, a minor)

• as sole subject entry in the 1st episode: Bar 13 (tenor, b minor)

• 2nd Development: Bar 23 (alto, a minor), bar 27b (tenor, g minor), bar 29b (soprano, c minor)

• 3rd Development: Bar 35 (bass, d minor), bar 39 (tenor, a minor), bar 41 (alto, e minor)

• 4th Development: Bar 47 (bass, a minor), bar 49 (alto, e phrygian), bar 53 (soprano, a minor)

Now I feel comfortable enough voicing a few points of criticism, which—intended as suggestions— could bring the experience of the listener and the reader of your score to another level:

What prompted my “analysis” above was the fact that the subject entries are relatively difficult for the listener to perceive. You have – for example – omitted the staccatos on the last four notes of the subject in all recurring entries. Or to be more clearer, there are no articulation, phrasing, dynamics, pedaling and tempo marks (except the ritardando in the coda) at all. This might be completely intentional, since such annotations were unusual in the Baroque era, but - in my opinion – a human player would always apply that to express its interpretation, and I’m sure that was also the case during Bach’s time.

And for a recording from a „software“ it is essential to apply these things to achieve a – more or less – realistic impression and to avoid that the recording sounds too mechanical as it is inherently the case due to the „exactness“ of the midi output generated from the „pure“ score.

I have made the experience, that investing effort to articulation, phrasing, dynamics, pedaling and micro tempo changes brings a huge improvement of the realism of the recording and made a piece I nearly was going to throw away since I felt it boring worth to listen to.

Since then, I always maintain two scores. One as the „printing“ score to be used for playing from, and one solely for the purpose of recording in the software. I do so with all of my pieces, and the „recording“ score is full of exaggerated articulations, dynamic marks and even micro tempo changes to achieve a satisfying, more realistic recording result wherein I can express my ideas about the interpretation.

I must admit, that I have the temptation to take your fugue – if you don’t have anything against -, type it into my software (I use „lilypond“) and add the articulation, dynamics etc. according to my interpretation. I would be excited how it would sound like. (I can’t promise to do so, perhaps soon or in a year or never, regarding the time I find.)

A last comment on your score: When I’m looking at it at the first glance, there are some intervals that seem to be unplayable or uncomfortable to be played. I’m sure, that all of them are playable, but you have (while done otherwise) omitted to take over the note in the other hand.

This might be better for reading the score for analysis purposes (only). But when coming to playing and especially sight-reading and a note of an interval is written in the “wrong” staff, the recognition pattern that a sight-reader normally uses to identify that interval is inherently lost, forcing the player to identify a single note and add it to the chord/interval being played, which slows down the process. Consequently, such situations require practice and/or memorization, which contradicts the approach of sight-reading and playing the piece “without practice.”

Therefore, I very appreciate scores where the chords/intervals are notated as a complete pattern in that staff where it is to be played by the respective hand. I must admit, that such a score looks sometimes a bit „cluttered“ because of the „kneed beams“ and sometimes cross-staff note stems (producing sometimes problems for the collision resolving with dynamics, slurs etc), but if the player finally makes the respective annotations by hand in its score, the readability is reduced, too.

On 4/2/2026 at 11:43 PM, Wieland Handke said:

Hello @Fugax Contrapunctus !

I’m a bit surprised and even disappointed that your fugue hasn’t received a single review over the last two weeks, and so I’ll try to be the first one. Perhaps the reason is that most of the members hesitate to write a „I-have-very-enjoyed-your-playful-piece-Thanks-for-sharing“ reply because of your reputation. I’m thinking of your razor-sharp introductions, packed with background knowledge and specialist terms as well as that counterpoint – fugues and even perpetual canons – is considered to be very hard and not everybody is experienced enough to give profound comments.

[...]

Funnily enough, it's very telling of commenters who don't have much of substance to say about the overall quality of my work when they start pointing out the most banale, trivial nitpicks. Not your case by any means, but it's a relatively common occourrence in the comment sections of some my videos. Things like "this is supposed to be 3/4, not 6/8 meter" or "the panning of the background choir doesn't match that of the Cantāmus one".

I wouldn't say it's a matter of reputation. I also wouldn't write such replies unless I have any observations or criticsm of substance to offer, as I believe it's a waste both of my time and that of the composer whose work I'm reviewing. Besides, this composition is technically a revised version of and older work: a repost, if you will, so I wouldn't blame more seasoned members who frequently comment on my posts for merely withholding what has already been said before.

On 4/2/2026 at 11:43 PM, Wieland Handke said:

[...]
Now I feel comfortable enough voicing a few points of criticism, which—intended as suggestions— could bring the experience of the listener and the reader of your score to another level:

What prompted my “analysis” above was the fact that the subject entries are relatively difficult for the listener to perceive. You have – for example – omitted the staccatos on the last four notes of the subject in all recurring entries. Or to be more clearer, there are no articulation, phrasing, dynamics, pedaling and tempo marks (except the ritardando in the coda) at all. This might be completely intentional, since such annotations were unusual in the Baroque era, but - in my opinion – a human player would always apply that to express its interpretation, and I’m sure that was also the case during Bach’s time.

And for a recording from a „software“ it is essential to apply these things to achieve a – more or less – realistic impression and to avoid that the recording sounds too mechanical as it is inherently the case due to the „exactness“ of the midi output generated from the „pure“ score.

I have made the experience, that investing effort to articulation, phrasing, dynamics, pedaling and micro tempo changes brings a huge improvement of the realism of the recording and made a piece I nearly was going to throw away since I felt it boring worth to listen to.

Since then, I always maintain two scores. One as the „printing“ score to be used for playing from, and one solely for the purpose of recording in the software. I do so with all of my pieces, and the „recording“ score is full of exaggerated articulations, dynamic marks and even micro tempo changes to achieve a satisfying, more realistic recording result wherein I can express my ideas about the interpretation.
[...]

I had never tried this double-scoring method before, and I must admit it sounds as effective in rendering more human-like expression as much as it seems to pose a whole lot of work. The closest thing to this I usually do is manually inputting the exact tempo gradation values for the ritardandi at the end of each piece, since before MuseScore 4 came out there was no way to insert working rallentandi automatically into the score, or at the very least, not that I knew of. So in order to cover my tracks while still keeping those tempo markings functional, I manually alter the text format to make them invisible, even inside the program itself. Even that alone is an absurdly tedious process and I hate it. At the moment I doubt I could even imagine myself inputting all those rubatos and expression markings and then subjecting those to the same formatting process without cleaving my head open out of exasperation. Even if the improvements were marginally or even subtantially noticeable, I have much more valuable things to do with my time than attempt to "humanize" the recording manually. The mere thought of engaging in such a tiresome toil for a result that could far more accurately and naturally be replicated through MIDI input or a simple performance recording sends me quite aback.

On 4/2/2026 at 11:43 PM, Wieland Handke said:

[...]

I must admit, that I have the temptation to take your fugue – if you don’t have anything against -, type it into my software (I use „lilypond“) and add the articulation, dynamics etc. according to my interpretation. I would be excited how it would sound like. (I can’t promise to do so, perhaps soon or in a year or never, regarding the time I find.)

[...]

I've heard of this software before. A Discord user by the name of @grpnr1345 applied the software's protocol's to one of my earlier fugues under the same guise, and the results were mixed for me, because the sampling and reverb values were just deplorable, turning the overall timbral quality of the piece essentially into a downgrade, but the altered recording itself, as well as the intricacies of its transformation, felt rather convincing. For context, the audio file in question has been attached to this post.

Lastly, thank you kindly for your detailed review. As for the software you mentioned, you're free to apply the Lilypond protocol to my score whenever you feel like it or have time for it. It will most definitely be interesting to see how different users of the same software modify music in the same style, so you have my full permission and encouragement to "humanize" the recording as you see fit.

Fugue in G-sharp minor #17.pdf

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Fugax Contrapunctus