I want you to think of this as what I'm always really wanting to express, the state of my ideal soul - loving and glorifying everyone and everything... It is my very favorite movement of Bach, and I think Bach never reaches higher in every compositional regard.
Like Contrapunctus XIV, it is the highest bar.
Unlike most of my posts so far, this movement is not a chorale fantasia or based in any way on a chorale (folk hymn) tune. Rather, it is a large-scale prelude and fugue.
The fugue (beginning at 1:49) is no ordinary fugue however. This is a permutation fugue, arguably the strictest musical form there is.
A permutation fugue is “a type of composition that brings together certain characteristics of fugue and of canon, namely: (1) The voices enter successively, as in fugue, each waiting until the preceding voice has stated the opening theme. (2) Entries alternate between tonic and dominant. (3) Each voice, once it has completed its statement of the opening theme, continues by stating two or three additional themes of the same length, all voices stating these themes in the same order. (4) There is almost no non-thematic material; that is, when a voice has completely stated all themes, it begins the series over again, either immediately or after a rest, and restates all themes again in the same order."
This movement represents the most sophisticated expression of a whole tradition of music-making, the tradition of Western art music and most of all the analytical Germanic kind that Bach inherited and transformed. It is more than just a showcase of the conquering of form; it is the apotheosis of it. Beyond conquering its form, this work glorifies it, deifies it! The listener cannot help but ask how such music - exhilarating, godly, yet natural at once - could be derived from such a strict form!? How could a human of flesh and blood conceive, arrange, construct this *musical Sudoku puzzle* and solve it so gorgeously, so effortlessly in every moment!?
When I first heard this piece, I immediately recognized it as my favorite movement of all the Bach Cantatas I know, one of my favorite works by Father Bach, one of my favorite works of art! of humanity! I was stricken …. and I still am. When I hear this, I live in a Heaven on Earth, swimming in celestial light, dancing through the godly soundscape, transported from the material world, like Faust flying with the evening sun,
away from physicality and into transcendence!
We humankind always wish to live here! to always sing just as the Universe wordlessly sings of its own supreme beauty! to always proclaim the glory of the heavens,
the firmament stretched before us as a canopy of virtuous stars!
We always wish to hear and sing the Om! ——Come! let us sing it together!
Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes,
und die Feste verkündiget seiner Hände Werk.
Es ist keine Sprache noch Rede,
da man nicht ihre Stimme höre.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament shows His handiwork.
There is no speech nor language
where their voice is not heard.
- Psalm 19:1,3
Without a doubt one of the finest works in all of Art. Your post helped me to marvel at the technical craftsmanship as well as feel the glory and transcendence!!
Beautiful...Pure joy
Oh my…the music, your words so so beautiful, and that psalm, one of my favorite. I was just almost brought to tears, tears of joy hearing and reading this