On the Modal and Tonal Systems in J. S. Bach’s “Clavierübung III”
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Abstract
J. S. Bach’s “Clavierübung III” (1739) opens up a set of instrumental cycles created by the composer during the
last twenty years of his Leipzig period. Its conception has still not been sufficiently understood or evaluated. The article
brings forth a hypothesis on Bach’s reflection of the logic of the musical-historical development in the cycle.
The cycle consists of twenty-seven movements, twenty-one of which are arrangements for organ of old historical
chants written in old modes. Fugues (as the form of elaboration of musical material) – both as separate works and as
strata expounded in counterpoint with the cantus firmus, pertain to the tonal functional system of the Early Modern
Period, possess complex structures and comprise the pivot of through development in the cycle. As a result there arises
the natural laws of “contradiction” and “interaction” of two musical systems, and the process of inclusion of the “old”
into the new, unifying system begins. The given process is observed by the author of the article in the arrangement of
the historical Gregorian hymn (“Kyrie, fons bonitatis”), which during the years of the Reformation received a German
variant of the text. This source becomes within the cycle a type of “theme,” which predetermines its subsequent
intonational, structural, conceptual development, leading to the final triple fugue – the logical outcome, the apotheosis
of “the idea of the new.” Performance of the cycle with omissions or changes of the order of the respective movements,
as may be found in performance practice, is inadmissible: it infringes upon the composition’s dramaturgical logic and
distorts the composer’s conception.
Keywords: “Clavierübung III”, tonality, scale, modal system, tonal functional system, chorale arrangement, cycle,
fugue, variational principle.
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