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Sun 19 Jan, Milton Court Milton Concert Jan, Hall 19 Sun Bach: A Beautiful Mind Sat 18 & Sun 19 Jan Milton Court Concert Hall Part of Barbican Presents 2019–20 Bach: A Beautiful Mind 1 Important information When does the I’m running late! Please… Sun 19 Jan, Milton Court Milton Concert Jan, Hall 19 Sun concert start Latecomers will be Switch any watch and finish? admitted if there is a alarms and mobile The first concert begins suitable break in the phones to silent during at 2pm. performance. the performance. The second concert begins at 7.30pm. Please don’t… Use a hearing aid? Need a break? Take photos or Please use our induction You can leave at any recordings during the loop – just switch your time and be readmitted if performance – save it hearing aid to T setting there is a suitable break for the curtain call. on entering the hall. in the performance, or during the interval. Looking for Looking for Carrying bags refreshment? the toilets? and coats? Bars are located on The nearest toilets, Drop them off at our free Levels 1 and 2. Pre-order including accessible cloak room on Level -1. interval drinks to beat the toilets, are located on the queues. Drinks are not Ground Floor and Level Bach: A Beautiful Mind allowed in the hall. 2. There are accessible toilets on every level. 2 Welcome to today’s performances Today sees the concluding part of Accademia Bizantina under its director Bach: A Beautiful Mind, our weekend Ottavio Dantone. exploring the multi-faceted genius of The final concert celebrates Bach’s J S Bach, curated by Mahan Esfahani. unmatched contribution to sacred music, There’s no doubt that The Art of Fugue is brought to life by the mellifluous baritone of Sun 19 Jan, Milton Court Milton Concert Jan, Hall 19 Sun one of the most extraordinary works, even Benjamin Appl together with the Academy in Bach’s output. He compiled it late in life of Ancient Music directed by Masato Suzuki and it was left unfinished at his death. In it, and featuring oboist Leo Duarte. We he creates a vast kind of musical jigsaw- range from the well-known – the great solo puzzle in which he takes a single theme and cantata Es is genug and excerpts from the endlessly reworks it. The Art of Fugue is a St Matthew Passion – to more unusual but no piece full of mystery too – we don’t even less compelling cantatas, such as the richly know precisely for what forces the composer lyrical Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen. intended it. It’s often played on a single It promises to be a wonderful day: I hope keyboard instrument but today it is clothed you enjoy it. in a coat of many colours by the wonderfully vibrant period-instrument ensemble Huw Humphreys Head of Music Programme produced by Harriet Smith All information correct at time of printing Bach: A Beautiful Mind Advertising by Cabbell (tel 020 3603 7930) 3 Bach the Craftsman: The Art of Fugue Sun 19 Jan 2pm Milton Court Concert Hall Sun 19 Jan, Milton Court Milton Concert Jan, Hall 19 Sun J S Bach The Art of Fugue Accademia Bizantina Ottavio Dantone director Part of Barbican Presents 2019–20 Bach: A Beautiful Mind 4 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) The Art of Fugue, BWV1080 (compiled 1740s) 1 Contrapunctus 1 2 Contrapunctus 2 What is a fugue? 3 Contrapunctus 3 A fugue takes a theme (the ‘subject’), 4 Contrapunctus 4 often short, which is first heard in one part 5 Contrapunctus 5 (known as a ‘voice’ even in instrumental 6 Contrapunctus 6 ‘in stylo Francese’ fugues) and is then taken up at a different 7 Contrapunctus 7 ‘per augmentationem et Court Milton Concert Jan, Hall 19 Sun pitch by each other part in turn. The diminutionem’ ‘subject’ dominates the entire fugue and 8 Contrapunctus 8 it’s a very strict form of writing, which 9 Contrapunctus 9 ‘alla duodecima’ makes it tricky for the composer. 10 Contrapunctus 10 ‘alla decima’ Bach excelled at writing fugues 11 Contrapunctus 11 and made them sound natural 12 Contrapunctus 12a Rectus and musical – no mean feat! Contrapunctus 12b Inversus 13 Contrapunctus 13a Rectus Contrapunctus 13b Inversus 14 Canon per augmentationem in contrario Glossary motu Contrapunctus Another word for 15 Canon alla ottava a fugue, used by Bach in The Art of 16 Canon alla decima in contrapunto alla terza Fugue. Its plural is contrapuncti. 17 Canon alla duodecima in contrapunto alla quinta Canon Like the fugue, another strict form 18 Contrapunctus 14 (Fuga a 3 soggetti) of writing, in which the theme is precisely copied by the other parts, each of which In the last decade of his life Johann Sebastian enters after the same period of time. A Bach began putting together pieces as if good example is the song Frère Jacques. ordering his achievement for posterity – works Cantata A work that can set either sacred that weren’t for a specifically identifiable or secular texts in several movements occasion. These included the B minor Mass, The generally featuring one or more solo Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue. The last singers plus chorus and orchestra. Bach of these was left unfinished at his death, which wrote over 200 sacred cantatas for has led to much confusion, misapprehension and the services at St Thomas’s Church in misinformation. For a start, no specific instrument Leipzig. But he found time to write secular is indicated, making it fair game for all sorts cantatas, too, celebrating everything from of arrangements – from a single keyboard via weddings to the joys of coffee drinking. saxophone quartet to orchestra, as we hear it today. What is astounding is how comfortably it Galant A style of music that sits in these new environments. celebrated a new simplicity after the The title itself wasn’t Bach’s own and he may complexities of the Baroque era. well not have liked it as he himself uses the term ‘contrapunctus’ rather than fugue for the pieces within it. And though we have the autograph score, it actually clarifies little because he died while it was being engraved. The edition that Bach: A Beautiful Mind was completed by his elder sons, published a year after his death, contained no fewer than 5 17 fugues and four canons, due to various Contrapuncti 8–10 then form a sequence of replications and the addition of a chorale ‘counter-fugues’, in which the original subject is prelude (Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein) combined with new subjects. No 8, a three-part which jars completely, being in G major rather fugue, features no fewer than three subjects that than the D minor key of the remainder. The fact Bach first presents separately and then together. that the last Contrapunctus is incomplete posed The four-part No 9 (‘alla Duodecima’) poses Sun 19 Jan, Milton Court Milton Concert Jan, Hall 19 Sun various problems, though frequently today quite a challenge to the performer, with an performers play it exactly as it is – a poignant energetic new subject that is then combined with work-in-progress. the original subject, now elongated into a cantus The concept behind The Art of Fugue – a firmus, to create textures of the utmost liveliness. sequence of fugues on a single theme – might The ‘alla Duodecima’, incidentally, refers to the seem didactic on paper, but that is to reckon presentation of the counter-subject a 12th above without Bach’s genius and the brilliance and the main subject. In the 10th (‘alla Decima’) Bach ebullience that he brings to this kind of musical uses the same contrapuntal device, but this time problem-solving. As a concept it was without at the interval of a 10th. The fugue itself, like the precedent in terms of scale: there are earlier preceding one, is in four parts and combines examples from Johann Joseph Fux and the original subject (in both stretto and inversion) Johann Mattheson, but musically there’s no with a new one. Through all 10 Contrapuncti comparison. What’s also striking is that by this there’s a sense of an emotional intensification as point, the Baroque was giving way to a galant the music becomes ever more complex. style, yet Bach makes little concession to this No 11 is, like No 8, a triple fugue, though that (understandable, you might think, for a man description gives little sense of its extraordinary comfortably into his sixth decade). impact, with Bach piling on almost unimaginably Contrapuncti 1–4 are all four-part fugues, the dissonant counterpoint in the closing bars. third and fourth inverting the fugue subject (ie Next, he introduces something new within the turning it upside-down). These four pieces are work: mirror fugues. As the name suggests, linked in a number of ways, each one beginning these pieces (Nos 12a and 12b, in four parts, with the subject in a different ‘voice’, in the order and Nos 13a and 13b, in three) can be turned alto, bass, tenor, soprano. These are followed upside-down and still work musically, hence by three stretto fugues (Nos 5–7) in which the the ‘rectus’ and ‘inversus’ versions. Strikingly, presentations of the subject overlap. No 5 is in Bach’s manuscript, the two forms of each based on the subject in its original and inverted fugue were placed one on top of the other, so form, while Contrapunctus 6 is marked ‘in stile the mirror relationship was immediately clear. francese’, a reference to its dotted rhythms, Quite apart from the mental challenge, these characteristic of the French ouverture.

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