Liszt: Fantasy and Fugue on B-A-C-H s. 529 (Ian Lindsey)

Fantasy and fugue on a theme of BACH:

It is almost impossible to fathom how the music of J.S. Bach faded into obscurity so quickly and so completely after his death. It wasn’t until Baron Von Swieten (a Viennese aristocrat who was also one of Mozart’s patrons) introduced Beethoven and a select few to some of Bach’s music, that an interest began to slowly develop. However, it was during the 19th century that Mendelssohn brought a large-scale attention to the music of J.S. Bach, by organizing performances of works, such as the Saint Matthew Passion, and publishing many of his organ works.
 
Suddenly, a fascination in Bach’s music began to work its way into the public conscious and more complex counterpoint began to emerge in the compositions by Chopin, Schumann and others. Liszt was not immune to this trend, and wrote several piano transcriptions of some of Bach’s organ works, as well as original works, including a large scale organ work – Prăludium und Fuge über das Motiv B-A-C-H (1855). It was eventually reworked in 1870 and given the title Fantasy und Fuge über das Thema B-A-C-H. The piano adaptation of the piece has some pronounced differences in terms of texture and melodic content from the organ version. Still, Liszt still manages to successfully recreate many of the striking organ sonorities on the piano - a technique that was copied later in the nineteenth century by composers, such as Busoni.
 
Though Liszt composed a piece that pays homage to Bach, it also looked towards to the future, and incorporated many experimental techniques of form. Liszt utilized the fugue subject of B-A-C-H that Bach himself used in his unfinished fugue from the art of the fugue. It consists of 4 notes B-flat, A, C and B-natural (in German musical nomenclature the note B natural is written as H and the B flat as B). However, the fantasy also derives from this very melodic pattern, which Liszt manages to weave into a convincing (albeit deliberately esoteric) structure.
Though notated in the key of B-flat Major, the home key instead resembles e-flat minor and relies so heavily on chromaticism throughout, that it often verges on atonality. In the style that is akin to one of Bach's own toccatas, the entire fantasy is often written as a series of seemingly disjointed musical gestures that have the tendency to focus less on melodic structure and more on wild harmonic progressions. The use of the motive is indescribably clever, often being hidden in the dizzying kaleidoscopic texture.Contrasting greatly from the seeming disorder of the Fantasy, the fugue begins in a fairly academic fashion, with a complete exposition - all four entrances of the subjects in each voice. The fugue subject consists of the B-A-C-H motive, followed by a tail comprised of a series of descending half steps that mirror the gesture of the motive. Though the four-part writing is quite strict, the chromaticism is so acute that the tonality is perhaps even more obscured than it was earlier in the fantasy. After the exposition of the fugue is complete, Liszt abandons the strict four-part writing and the structure of the piece seems to disintegrate into a free-form madness. The final section of the piece is marked “Maestoso” (majestic) and is in the key of B-flat Major. It is as if Liszt is redeeming or cleansing the cacophony that just erupted prior to this.