Tuesday, May 16, 2017

JMT series, introduction, part 2

In yesterday's introductory post to this series, I did not include a list of compositions analyzed by others and only mentioned in my 1987 JMT article. That list is actually quite short:
J. S. Bach, Prelude in C Major, BWV 924  (Schenker)
J. S. Bach, Prelude in F Major, BWV 927  (Schenker)
Beethoven, Piano Sonata in A Major, Op. 101, first movement  (Schenker)
Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, second movement   (Schenker)
Chopin, Etude in Eb Minor, Op. 10n6   (Schenker)
Schubert, Valse sentimentale, D779n2   (Salzer)
My intention was to comment briefly on each of these before proceeding, as promised, to discuss at greater length the pieces named in the article's endnotes. Immediately, however, I am faced with a small but significant literature on BWV 924. The revised plan, then, is to look at this one piece and its literature in some depth and then move on to music named in the endnotes.

There are two versions of BWV 924, both of them in the Clavier-büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. I have "disassembled" Pierre Gouin's excellent digital notation (link to Preludes page on IMSLP) and collated the two versions below.


In tomorrow's post I will reduce both versions to block chords and collate those.