J. S. Bach - Prelude and Fugue in G major BWV 541

Welcome to this GORGEOUS piece written by the top G of music, J. S. Bach It's believed that Bach wrote it for his son Wilhelm Friedemann to perform at an audition in Dresden Imagine the faces of the jury when they heard the crazy harmonies toward the end BUT DON'T SKIP AHEAD! This piece has many hidden goodies that I will comment on Like the hemiola just now and the 4:3 polyrhythm (this means something cool happened with time) Anyway, we're at the first tutti. It is like an exuberant concerto! T

he bass is the prelude in A-flat from WTC 1 upside down with a measure stuck in the middle This part is the 1700s equivalent of a riser and a bass drop in EDM The bass notes have been rising this whole time... The soprano as well... SO MUCH HYPE HERE WE GOOOOOO AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *breathes in* I'm literally crying right now 😭 That was amazing! Thank you Bach! Now we have a "perfect" cadence to D major. This

is used to divide the piece into sections Here's another solo but the melodies from before are shifted in time I'll say where Bach got these rhythmical tricks from (it may shock you), but first, listen to the bassline In the 1st tutti it went from "g" to "d" (a fifth). Here it goes from "d#" to "a#" (a fifth) This is a clever way of modulating to b minor while maintaining structural integrity These slow "structural melodies" are like pillars holding up the piece After these perfect cadences we'l

l hear the "fonte" sequence Joseph Riepel, a Baroque music theorist, defined the progressions "fonte" "monte" and "ponte" Fonte goes down, monte goes up and ponte connects by staying on the dominant His definitions are actually more restrictive and useful. I'd recommend doing some reading on them If you speak German, German music theory Wikipedia is full of nerds and usually very thorough Anyway, about those rhythmical tricks I said I would get back to... Bach learned them when he travelled to A

frica and was captured by a cannibal tribe He heard the complex rhythms in their ritualistic music as they were about to cook him alive But then he showed them how to play two-part inventions on a marimba made out of human bones and they let him go This is a 100% true story The left hand now plays the buildup to the "bass drop" part from before but transformed in a very elegant way! Now we'll hear the very first melody of this piece but upside down There it was. Pretty cool, right? I hadn't noti

ced until I started editing this video After this we have a quiescenza and 2 perfect cadences for good measure The cadences are from completely different parts in the prelude and just stuck one after the other. They go really well together though The fugue is coming up. In some pieces, like BWV 542, some scholars are uncertain if each part actually belongs together This is not the case here. Both pieces have many commonalities In fact, I would argue that these codified "V" shapes are references

to the first musical gesture of the prelude It is clearer near the end, where this "V" shape appears upside down Or maybe it is supposed to say "W. F" as in "Wilhelm Friedemann"? 🤔 Anyway, this is such a cheerful fugue The thing about Bach fugues is that almost everything is either a sequence or an entrance of the theme The pedal has scales going down here. It will have them going up later And here the fast alternating pattern from before Listed to the alto: "a, d, c, b". It's a reference to t

he prelude! That's why I played it longer Here's an ascending 5ths sequence that's like a double canon This part with the high "f" in the soprano is one of my favorites. The pedal sounds so decisive It is imitated by the alto here Now we have a cute sequence that will be repeated later with the bass subtly changed Shortly the alto will have the theme like in beginning but now with other voices accompanying it And here's the classic move of tying the 7th scale degree in an otherwise perfect caden

ce to go to the relative minor There it was This man is obnoxiously creative. How does he think of all these cool ideas? Here's a really cool symmetrical thing Bach did: First the tenor had the theme on "d", now on "e": almost at the same pitch However, the bass will have had the theme on "g" then a 4th lower on "d"; the soprano on "d" then a 5th higher on "a", respectively So the middle voices stay almost the same and the extremities are pushed away This means it's SYMMETRICAL ⅃AƆIЯTƎMMYƧ ƨ'ti

ƨnɒɘm ƨiʜT Another symmetry: there are 6 theme entrances before and after this big manual solo Not counting the free stretto entrances later, which are more of a trick BTW, you are listening to 10 consecutive measures of Quintfallsequenz It's not boring because Bach varies the harmonic rhythm (how often there's a new chord) We're at the genius part where the bass gets faster and faster until it matches the theme! Bach is a rigorous craftsman AND writes these funny things. Both are possible It's

crazy to think that AI might be able to compose better than he one day ... Anyone else has the urge to get as far away from civilization as possible and learn about metallurgy in a farm? Making organ pipes and having some chickens... Nice Now the theme's in the soprano with the highest note of the organs at the time This piece actually fits the "Bach range" perfectly: up to c''' in the manuals; C to d' in the pedal Try writing a piece with all sorts of symmetries AND that fully utilizes the orga

n range without apparent compromises Here's another cool sequence I tried to take some time when the pedal reaches the top. Could've been even more Here's the most dramatic part of the piece. G minor instead of major Imagine the jury in W. F. Bach's audition listening to this It gets insane from here... Neapolitan chord ✅ Dominant minor ninth chord ✅ Minor chord in second inversion ✅ WTF (+1 Sesquialtera) Aaaaand we're back Here's the 1st stretto (overlapping theme entrances) The 2nd will have t

he opposite configuration: upper voice first, than lower ...and both stretti are at different intervals! It is already unusual that a theme harmonizes itself in one way, let alone two! The writing for pedal is really cool here Now Bach starts adding voices. By the end we'll be at 6 instead of 4 At this point I am freaking out not wanting to mess up the recording Smash like so I can buy a tripod that doesn't shake Also subscribe or next video will be a Rheinberger sonata💀 Oh and BTW, Bach's son

got the job in Dresden where he supposedly performed this :) Thank you for watching! See you next time!