My interest in fugues began in high school when I was able to buy the Wanda Landowska harpsichord recording of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier on six LP's for less than $20. Although the crisp sound of Glenn Gould's piano is more exciting, this has remained my personal favorite.

I soon began enjoying the study of fugue sets. Composers who write sets of fugues, like Bach and Hindemith, seem to take the form more seriously than composers who write fugues only to prove they can.

In the intervening years I have amassed a large collection of recordings of fugues and fugue sets, and have kept notes about fugues mentioned in the textbooks which have apparently never been recorded. I offer the following fugue-ography to other music lovers in Web World. Please help me grow this list until it becomes a real resource for musical historians.

NOTES:

  1. To keep this list to a manageable size, I have to date ommitted individual fugues unless they are considered important to the literature.
  2. I'd like to thank the following individuals for help in compiling this web page: Michael D'Andrea and Mark D. Taylor.
  3. If you contribute a new entry, you could get an acknowledgement, too!

Books and monographs that will interest fugue fans, not all of which have I examined personally

Trivia Questions

  1. What Bach fugue subject uses all 12 tones of the chromatic scale?
  2. What fugue subject consists of a descending major scale?
  3. What 19th-century fugue subject uses only 1 tone from the chromatic scale?
  4. What fugue set contains the most fugues?
  5. What fugue contains the most voices?
  6. What is "Altnikol"?

(In college, I wrote lots of countrapuntal piano pieces. Feel free to listen to MIDI versions of and .) Each "quartet" takes the form of an adagio and fugue. "Johann Georg Albrechtsberger gave lessons to Beethoven and succeeded Mozart, at the latter's request, as assistant to the Kapellmeister of St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, with right of succession, a promotion realised two years after Mozart's death, in 1793. He won contemporary distinction as an organist, composer and teacher, and displayed a particular mastery of counterpoint, reflected in his own 240 fugues and in the later work of his pupil Beethoven." "The Musical Offering consists of 12 canons and fugues for various combinations of two to six instruments and a four-movement trio sonata; the whole is based on a theme given to Bach by Frederick the Great in 1747, upon which Bach improvised in the presence of the King, and which he later elaborated to constitute this 'offering.'" (Encyclopedia Britannica) "The Art of the Fugue, Bach's last work, is a set of 19 fugues (the last unfinished) for two to four unspecified instruments. The work is based on one theme that is transformed in systematic fashion in successive movements, and employs two additional themes on occasion." (Encyclopedia Britannica) These works were transcribed for piano by Franz Liszt and are available in a 1991 performance by Michel Block on CD . Both books of the WTC, Wanda Landowska, harpsichord . Both books of the WTC, Glenn Gould, piano . Wolfgang Baumgratz, organ . Performed by Christopher O'Riley, piano, on the album entitled "The Short-Tempered Clavier and Other Dysfunctional Works for Keyboard." This album also includes the Little Pickle Book (S. 6), the Sonata Da Circo (Circus Sonata) (S. 3 ring), and 3 Choral-Based Piecelets (S. III). The second movement of this challenging work is an amazing four-part fugue. Glorious fugues and canons infect all of Bartok's major compositions, but this fugue from the Violin Sonata is one of the most remarkable. The Grosse Fuge was "written originally as the final movement to the String Quartet in B-flat, Op. 130. When the quartet was first performed on March 21, 1826, the finale proved incomprehensible to audience and critics. Beethoven's publisher, Matthias Artaria, suggested that the composer provide a new final movement, offering to publish and pay for the fugue as a separate composition. Beethoven agreed, though reluctantly, and in November 1826 he delivered another finale to the B-flat String Quartet. Artaria published the fugue separately as Op. 133" -- from liner notes by Paul Jacobs. NOTE: In May of 1827 the Grosse Fuge was published in a version for piano four-hands as Op. 134. Richard Bellak's "Fugal Dreams" is a set of 12 preludes and fugues in jazz styles for piano. Bellak is the first composer ever to write and record a complete set of preludes and fugues in jazz idioms. The jazz preludes and fugues in "Fugal Dreams" are a new age fusion which crosses the boundaries of classical, jazz and other musical categories, including a wide variety of styles. Included are both 3 part and 4 part fugues. One of the fugues uses as a theme the name "BACH" in musical notation. The "Fugal Dreams" website at includes a sample prelude and fugue for downloading in .MP3 format as well as an order form.

  1. Prelude and Fugue ("Flat-foot") No.1 in C (1:57)
  2. Prelude and Fugue ("Scat") No.2 in d (2:34)
  3. Prelude ("Dreams") and Fugue No.3 in E (5:29)
  4. Prelude ("Disco") and Fugue ("Disco") No.4 in f (2:32)
  5. Prelude ("Klazz") and Fugue ("Klazz") No.5 in G (2:18)
  6. Prelude ("Folia") and Fugue No.6 in a (3:27)
  7. Prelude ("Bop") and Fugue ("blue") No.7 in B (3:42)
  8. Prelude ("Spanish") and Fugue ("Latin") No.8 in c# (4:25)
  9. Prelude ("New Age") and Fugue No.9 in Eb (2:56)
  10. Prelude and Fugue ("Rock") No.10 in f# (2:53)
  11. Prelude and Fugue ("Crosstalk") No.11 in Ab (2:49)
  12. Prelude and Fugue on B.A.C.H. ("Space-Time Warp") No.12 in bb (3:19)
All Rights Reserved
(c) 1977, 1985 Richard Bellak
(c) RCB Sound Publications
All Selections B.M.I.

RCB Sound Publications
P. O. Box 1082
Tallahassee, Florida 32302
Also available on cassette tape and as a printed score. from the Records International Catalogue, January 1999, describing Niels-Viggo Bentzon's performance : "This mammoth set of pieces - thirteen volumes each consisting of 48 preludes and fugues, composed over some 40 years -- comprises a kind of compositional backbone to the career of the prolific Danish composer-pianist. Thorough and solidly crafted, inventive and pianistically ingenious (the composer is his own able interpreter here), eschewing empty virtuosity in favour of tautly argued musical structures, Bentzon's music breaks no new ground here -- in fact, for a composer who has used 12-note techniques and been influenced by non-classical forms, his self-imposed restriction to tonality and conventional playing techniques is all the more remarkable. So this is not an encyclopaedic survey of everything the composer knows about the piano, nor a freak show of elephantine giganticism; it is just a very, very large set of small pieces any and all of which are well worth hearing for their own sake, such is the compelling nature of Bentzon's vision. In fact, staying with the pieces for as long as one can spare reveals ever more to capture the attention and delight; not many contemporary composers could achieve this over a span of this many hours! 15 CDs for the price of 7." Julius Berger and Hyun-Jung Sung, celli . from the Records International Catalogue of January 1999, describing a performance by Raymond Clarke >: "The three big fugal works are the most impressive here, tough granitic pieces, tautly constructed. As a bonus this disc contains Brian's most striking and disturbing song, The Defiled Sanctuary, as well as two other songs which Brian also reworked as two of the piano Miniatures." This work is subtitled "Chorale-variations on 'Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe' followed by a quadruple fugue on a Bach fragment." In a letter to his wife, Busoni called it "my most important work for piano (excepting the Concerto)It consists of: First Fugue, Second Fugue, Third Fugue (all much elaborated), Intermezzo, Variation I, Variation II, Variation III, Cadenza, Fourth Fugue, Coda. As you see, the plan is out of the ordinary. And every note 'sounds.'" The complete work was first made available in a 1986 performance by The Duo Batendo (Ton Huijsman and Sjaak van Vugt) on a 2-LP set that is now out-of-print. Fortunately, the first 15 preludes and fugues from this performance are still available today on CD . Movements include: 1) Prelude and Fugue a la hornpipe in G-majeur, 2) Prelude and Fugue a-mineur, 3) Prelude and Fugue c-mineur. Cope's books, Computers and Musical Style and Experiments in Musical Intelligence, describe the computer program Experiments in Musical Intelligence (EMI) which he created in 1982. The program functions by inheriting a composer's style and then composing new music in that style. EMI's music is available on a 1994 CD called "Bach by Design: Computer Composed Music." This CD includes 5 EMI-Bach inventions, an EMI-Bach fugue and chorale, an EMI-Mozart Sonata and overture, an EMI-Chopin Mazurka, an EMI-Brahms Intermezzo, an EMI-Joplin Rag, an EMI-Bartók "mikrokosmos", an EMI-Prokofiev sonata and an EMI work called "Vacuum Genesis" in the style of its creator, David Cope. All works are performed by the EMI program via a Yamaha Disklavier. Three preludes and fugues are available in a performance by William Black . From the composer's liner notes: "The three Preludes and Fugues from the set of 52 (in two volumes) for piano comprise a smll area of a project I set for myself as challenge and discipline. Of course Bach's great Well-Tempered Clavier was the guiding light, so to speak. I had just returned from Paris in the early spring of 1939, and had notebooks full of counterpoint and fugal studies done with Nadia Boulanger during my Guggenheim Fellowship stay (1938-1939), and as she had commented encouragingly about some of the fugue subjects, I decided to compose preludes as well. Between 1939 and 1942, while at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs and at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, I set myself the task of trying to complete a prelude and fugue a day. This did not always happen. They cover all the keys in sharps and flats and in enharmonic alternate versions. The fugue subjects are never academic, the contrapuntal rules are obeyed within reason, the fugal structure is sometimes strict, sometimes free. The piano writing does not try to capture the spirit of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The three heard here are from the first volume -- in C Major, E minor, and C sharp minor." Franz Haselböck, organ . From the liner notes: "Bach's most important predecessor and inspirer was the master of chapel from Rastatt, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer [1665 - 1746], with his Ariadne Musica, a collection of 20 small Preludes and Fugues of which this is the first complete recording As compared to Bach's, Fischer's pieces much shorter and more modest in scope, but very concentrated and unified." (Contributed by Mark D. Taylor.) I. Moderate speed -- II. Tranquil and expressive -- III. Cheerfully. The last three works are available with Stephen Coombs on the piano . "The very people who claim intense dislike of fugues are likely to adore Handel's Messiah, many of whose choruses are fugal." -- Antony Hopkins, Downbeat Music Guide, 1977. composed in a baroque style, available in a performance by Akiko Kitagawa [1993] >The Blair Quartet . The following liner notes, by Matthew Rye, are from a CD entitled SERGEI PROKOFIEV Visions fugitives, op.22; PAUL HINDEMITH Ludus tonalis performed by pianist Olli Mustonen and produced in 1996 by the Decca Record Company Limited, London: " works of the early 1940's share an exploration of the very elements that go to make up Western classical music. Most notable among these is Ludus tonalis (which might be translated as either 'Sound games' or 'Games with keys') in which, in the spirit of Bach's The Well-tempered Clavier, Hindemith sets out to contemplate all that is possible with the concept of fugue within a tonal framework. As Olli Mustonen says: 'Ludus tonalis is a fifty-minute landmark in twentieth-century piano literature, a work that is too big for timid classifications. Discipline, freedom, humour, lightness and tremendous power are all there, forming an exceptional unity in this unique masterpiece'. "There are twelve fugues separated by interludes which provide links between the tonal centers of each fugue. These tonalities are based on a premise of relationships which Hindemith propounded in his theoretical treatise Unterweisung im Tonsatz (The Craft of Musical Composition, 1937). According to Hindemith's theory, twelve (rather than twenty four) fugues were sufficient to cover all keys in the octave, since he rejected the polarity between major and minor modes. While sketching the cycle, the composer decided to base it on his own so-called 'Series 1': the twelve semitones are related to a central keynote according their place in the harmonic series. In Ludus tonalis the keynote is C, so the fugues appear in the following keys, beginning with the keynote, continuing a perfect fifth above and ending with the tritone: C - G - F - A - E - E flat - A flat - D - B flat - D flat - B - F sharp. "The twelve fugues are very varied in rhythm, tempo and movement. Certain fugues feature traditional contrapuntal procedures such as inversion, stretto, double and triple fugue writing, and each fugue exploits to the full the melodic or rhythmic characteristics inherent in its subject. "Immediately after completeing the fugues in September 1942, Hindemith began to compose the eleven interludes, and the prelude and postlude. Whereas the interludes are conceived as independent character pieces (No.2, for example is headed 'Pastorale', No.6 'Marcia' and No.11 'Valse'), the extensive prelude/postlude is a contrapuntal masterpiece which provides a framework for the whole cycle. Were one to turn the score of the prelude upside-down and play it from end to the beginning, one would obtain its retrograde inversion, the postlude. A toccata-like introductory passage based on C introduces and concludes the work.
  1. Praeludium Moderate - Arioso, quiet - Slow - Solemn, Broad [3'38]
  2. Fuga Prima in C Slow [2'11]
  3. Interludium Moderate, with energy [1'29]
  4. Fuga Secunda in G Gay [1'27]
  5. Interludium Pastorale, moderate [1'03]
  6. Fuga Tertia in F Andante [2'17]
  7. Interludium Scherzando [1'18]
  8. Fuga Quarta in A With energy - Slow, grazioso - Tempo primo [3'08]
  9. Interludium Fast [1'14]
  10. Fuga Quinta in E Fast [1'18]
  11. Interludium Moderate [1'18]
  12. Fuga Sexta in E flat Quiet [2'10]
  13. Interludium March [2'10]
  14. Fuga Septima in A flat Moderate [1'58]
  15. Interludium Very broad [1'58]
  16. Fuga Octava in D With strength [1'08]
  17. Interludium Very fast [1'23]
  18. Fuga Nona in B flat Moderate, scherzando [2'10]
  19. Interludium Very quiet [2'07]
  20. Fuga Decima in D flat Moderately fast, grazioso [2'10]
  21. Interludium Allegro pesante [2'06]
  22. Fuga Undecima in B (Canon) Slow [2'06]
  23. Interludium Valse [1'55]
  24. Fuga Duodecima in F sharp Very quiet [2'31]
  25. Postludium Solemn, broad - Arioso, quiet - Moderate [3'11]

The above timings correspond to a 1996 performance by John McCabe . Sviatoslav Richter . "a jazzed-up version of the C Minor Fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier." (from Records International Catalogue, January 1999) (Contributed by Mark D. Taylor.) All four of the above works are available with Gerard Schwartz conducting the Seattle Symphony . from the Records International Catalogue, January 1999, describing Ian Hobson's performance : "Like other composers of cycles of preludes and fugues, Johnson has used motivic links to add homogeneity to the cycle; individual characterisation to add variety, and references to well-known themes, providing a humorous touch (The Animals went in 2 by 2! and Bobby Shafto - which invites comparison with Ronald Center, whose piano sonata veers near this theme also). There is something of Center (an Aberdonian composer, whereas Johnson is Edinburgh-based) in the rhythmic energy and harmonic clarity of these works, which may also remind some of the piano music of Alan Bush. Prelude 6 is a transcription of the composer's setting of a MacDiarmid poem, and is dedicated to MacDiarmid's great friend, and Scotland's premier living composer, Ronald Stevenson - who has also been a champion of Center, and Bush which will give you an idea of where this CD fits into the picture" Murray McLachlan, piano . "A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't." (anonymous) A unique modern masterpiece. Privately issued. From the composer's liner notes: "The instrument used on this recording is a synthesizer. The instrumental effects I use are primarily of the extreme tonal sonarities of the harpsichord with the addition of today's multitude of effects to generate a newer more extreme tonal library." Lukas Foss conducting the Sheffield Ensemble . "An extraordinary release the most remarkable Die Kunst der Fuge ever recorded Do not deny yourself this joyous musical celebration!" --American Record Guide Prelude I: andante -- Fugue I: allegro -- Prelude (nocturne) II: andante -- Fugue II: allegro energico. David Buechner, piano . Movements in sonatas, as well as the separate fuga, are fugues. According to one visitor to the Amazon.com site, "Pachelbel is famous for a single work, but he wrote a trainload of beautiful music. In Seventeenth Century performances of the Magnificat the organist was expected to improvise short preludes in all eight of the medieval modes. Or he could draw on this collection of 95 fugues in all the modes. Pachelbel generally uses short fugue subjects (typically 8 notes) to keep the pieces short, but there are some exceptions, including a few double-fugues. Most of the fugues require manuals only. (I play them on harpsichord.) Most are easy (for fugues). A few are two-voice fugues. Most will delight listeners just the way the famous canon does." (FOR THE RECORD: As much as I hate Barney the Dinosaur, I hate Pachelbel's Canon more.) The last two works for solo violin are available with Mateja Marinkovic on the violin . Fugue 9 is a pastiche of Domenico Scarlatti's Cat's Fugue (K.030), while fugue 18 contains the only monotonal subject I know of. Tiny Wirtz, piano . The finales of his organ sonatas numbers 1 through 24 are fugues. Dedicated to the memory of Rose Horowitz. Contains canons, inventions, fugues, mostly written between 1940-46; fugue [1948-49] from Sonata for Piano No. 2; 4-hand transcription of fugue from String Quartet No. 4 [1977]. (Manuscript held by Theodore Presser Company.) from the notes by Charles Suttoni included in the 1975 2 Vox Box set entitled "Camille Saint-Saëns: Complete Works for Piano": "Near the end of his long career Saint-Saëns capped his interest in older, academic forms by composing a set of 6 Fugues, Op. 161 [1920] dedicated to the great French pedagogue Isidor Philipp [1863 - 1958]. These compositions are the work of a man who had been writing fugues for half a century and are replete with subleties that only such experience can provide. It is amazing how many moods the fugal form can attain in Saint-Saëns' hands." (Contributed by Mark D. Taylor.) The subject of this fugue starts with the following dotted quarter notes, each rising further from the G below middle C: G >> Bb >> Eb >> F# >> Bb >> C#. Since the opening notes are each spaced only two or three inches apart on the keyboard, those who could imagine it being played by a cat gave it the title by which it is known today. Actually, I've had cats. So I know that any four-footed animal would present a subject with notes that rise and fall according to whether a forelimb were registering after a hindlimb, or a hindlimb after a forelimb. But it's a charming title nevertheless. Harold Schiffman, piano . (Contributed by Mark D. Taylor.) Edition Peters hosts a that discusses Op. 72 and Op. 126. Both of the above works are available with Murray McLachlan on the piano . Keith Jarrett, piano . I. Allegro, with vigor -- II. Lento con moto -- III. Allegretto -- IV. Lento -- V. Allegro - giocoso -- VI. Lento -- VII. Scherzando (allegro) -- VIII. Lento -- IX. Allegretto -- X. Lento con moto -- XI. Presto ma non troppo -- XII. Lento. This is a challenging and legendary 4-hour long work which was neglected for 50 years. Along its backbone lie four ambitious fugues. John Ogdon, piano . Contains one of the 20th century's all-time greatest fugues. Kurt Redel conducting the Pro Arte Orchestra of Munich in a transcription for chamber orchestra . The work is included in Louisiana Story: The film music of Virgil Thomson with Ronald Corp conducting the New London Orchestra , which has its own . The third quartet contains fugues, "the only 20th century ones I know that really work" according to composer David Matthew." "A different kind of work for Toch, a moment of 'Spielmusik' (music for fun and play) in this otherwise romantic's music. An enjoyable and sophisticated sort of German rap on world place names." -- "Blue" Gene Tyranny Peter Jacobs, piano . Includes Prelude No. 22 from Book I, Fugue No. 8 from Book I, Prelude No. 14 from Book II, Fugue No. 1 from Book I, Prelude No. 8 from Book I, and Fugue No. 21 from Book I. An immitation of the better known work by Bach." Weismann was a German pianist, conductor and composer who studied composition with Rheinberger.

Trivia Answers

  1. What Bach fugue subject uses all 12 tones of the chromatic scale? The last fugue from Book I of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.
  2. What fugue subject consists of a descending major scale? The 10th fugue from David Johnson's .
  3. What 19th-century fugue subject uses only 1 tone from the chromatic scale? The 18th fugue from Anton Reicha's 36 Fugues for Piano, Op. 36.
  4. What fugue set contains the most fugues? 20th-century Danish composer Niels Viggo Bentzon's contains 13 volumes of 24 preludes and fugues each, for a total of 312 individual fugues.
  5. What fugue contains the most voices? Pietro Raimondi's 64-voice fugue for 16 4-part choirs.
  6. What is "Altnikol"? Altnikol was the son-in-law to whom Bach dictated his very last composition (the choral prelude "Vor deinen Thron tret'ich hiermit") once he realized he was not going to complete the Art of the Fugue.

()