Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue

Structure

Because of its characteristics the piece became known as Chromatic, a term that did not originate with Bach.

Fantasia

The chromatic fantasia begins as a toccata with fast, up and down surging runs in thirty-second notes (demisemiquavers) and broken chords in sixteenth-note (semiquaver) triplets, which are often diminished seventh chords lined up in semitones. The second part is a series of very clear and remotely modulating soft leading chords that are written in the oldest copies as "Arpeggio", i.e. they require a spread chord. The third part is entitled Recitative and includes a variety of ornamented, enriched, highly expressive melodies. This part contains several enharmonic equivalents. The recitative finishes with passages that are chromatically sinking diminished seventh chords over above the pedal point on D.

Fugue

The theme of the fugue consists of an ascending half-step line from A to C, here from the third to the fifth of D minor to the relative major key of F major.

Reception and interpretation

The virtuosic and improvisational toccata style of the fantasy, in which both hands alternate rapidly, the key of D minor and the expressive, tonally experimental character put the work alongside the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565. Both works are exceptional and therefore particularly popular compositions in Bach's keyboard music. This assessment was shared by Bach contemporaries. His son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who was himself an excellent improviser, said the work "remains beautiful in all saecula". The first biographer of Bach, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, wrote: "I have given much effort to find another piece of this type by Bach. But it was in vain. This fantasy is unique and has never been second to none."

The work was a prime example of romantic Bach interpretation in the 19th century. Felix Mendelssohn, the founder of the Bach revival, played this fantasy in February 1840 and 1841 in a series of concerts at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and thus delighted the audience. He attributed this effect to its free interpretation of the arpeggios of the fantasy. He used the sound effects of the former grand piano through a differentiated dynamics, highlighting high notes, the excessive use of sound and doubled pedal bass notes. This interpretation became the model for the second movement (Adagio) of Mendelssohn's second sonata for cello and Piano (Op. 58, which was written from 1841 to 1843): This work gives the top notes of the notated piano argeggios a chorale melody while the cello plays an extended recitative resembling the recitative of Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and quotes its final passage.

This romantic interpretation had a formative impact, since many famous pianists and composers, including Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms, used the work as a demonstration of virtuosity and expressiveness in their concert repertoire. It was reprinted in many editions with interpretive additions and scale instructions. The romantic Bach interpreter Ferruccio Busoni talked about the differences between his collected works and the final passage as Coda in the recitative. Max Reger reworked this work for the romantic organ. Even after the rise of the historically informed performance movement, it remains one of the most popular concert pieces and most embodied recordings of the works by Bach.

There are romantic interpretations by Edwin Fischer, Wilhelm Kempff and Samuil Feinberg, sometimes even Alfred Brendel on the grand piano and Wanda Landowska on the harpsichord. A deromanticised brilliant-sounding interpretation with idiosyncratic surprising accents without the use of the piano pedal was presented by Glenn Gould, influencing many more recent pianists such as Andras Schiff and Alexis Weissenberg. The pianist Agi Jambor combined romantic sonorities and colors with clear voice guidance and emphasized the work's structural relations. In 1940 Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji composed a virtuosic paraphrase of the Fantasie as the 99th of his Études transcendantes.

Transcriptions

The work has been transcribed for viola solo by Zoltán Kodály in 1950. There is a transcription for classical guitar by Philip Hii, and Busoni made two transcriptions for both solo piano and cello and piano, which are catalogued as BV B 31 and 38, respectively. Jaco Pastorius played the opening parts on electric bass on his 1981 album Word of Mouth, and a transcription for solo cello was made by cellist Johann Sebastian Paetsch in 2015 and published by the Hofmeister Musikverlag in Leipzig.

Literature

Urtext edition

Musical analysis