excerpts from "My Journey through Bach" - Fugues

Although I will be explaining each individual fugue in detail in the following chapters, I believe there is a need to address the subject generally, as fugues are the most difficult kind of music to master on the violin. A fugue, as we all know, is a musical form. It can be found in chamber works, symphonies, and of course in the keyboard repertoire (especially for the organ). But the violin is, in essence, a melodic instrument, and we struggle to fulfill the role usually given to several players, or to the keyboard.



A fugue is not a creation of beauty in the classic/romantic sense of the word; it does not carry a beautiful melodic tune, like the theme of Beethoven’s Spring Sonata or Chausson’s Poeme, or even in other movements of the solo sonatas and partitas. In other words, you probably never found yourself humming a fugue theme while in the shower...

The interest, and the beauty, arise from the construction of the form; we marvel at the complexity of Bach’s creation, and as performers, struggle to achieve technical and musical mastery of such ‘un-violinstic’ pieces, which are almost alien to the instrument’s ideal of a single singing voice.



I always ask myself how a violin fugue sounds from the listener’s chair (and I mean the ‘ticket-paying’ chair, not the ‘fellow-musician’ chair.). I suspect the audience often hears a very different piece to what we think we play.



Your main aim in presenting a fugue should be that the audience will understand the form without needing to have it explained to them in printed word or in a pre-recital lecture. To achieve this, you should present the theme in a clear, precise way and show, with timing and bow control, how it travels between the voices. This is the single most important musical element to highlight, and your audience should register (consciously or unconsciously) every time the theme returns. I can not stress enough how careful you should be to play the theme in the same way every time, unless you find a good reason for the change (such as an harmonic change from the original theme). This is more easily said than done, since the fugal-road is full of musical potholes and traps.



Take for example the G minor fugue’s theme. The last note of the theme (Bb) is the resolution and thus a point of less energy. The second time the theme appears, the last note is a double stop (from bottom to top – Eb and D), and you must decide whether to imitate the theme in the same way or show the harmonic surprise by increasing energy (volume and intensity). The third time the theme is played, the last note (double stop from top -Eb and G) is a clear resolution again, and must be played with diminished strength, yet it is easy to let enthusiasm or sheer mounting pressure take over, and whack the last double stop. You must be very careful (always, but especially in the fugues) not to let technical difficulties dictate the musical line.



A very good exercise in musical understanding is to mark in the music each time the theme appears. You will soon be struggling with the concept of what exactly a ‘theme’ means theme’ and whether what you play is the original line, or a development of thematic material.

Does a change of one note affect whether it counts as the theme? What about a change of two or three notes? These sort of questions used to keep me awake at night, so now I take sleeping tablets and count separately the number of times the ‘pure theme’ appears and the times the ‘altered theme’ (up to two notes changed) makes an appearance. When you add these together, you get the number of times your audience should register ‘theme’ during the fugue. Whether you want to highlight the difference between ‘pure’ and ‘altered’ depends on individual cases and personal taste. There is always a risk of overstating your ideas but the usual, most common mistake, is oversight.



Just remember: Theme Rules.