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Hello, the subject line largely sums up what I'd like to know here. This has always really bugged me. The prelude and fugue in book one of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier are written in E flat minor, but their counterparts in book two are in d sharp minor. Does anyone know why this is the case? I really like the book 2 fugue I'm simply unable to read d sharp minor! It's one of those keys no one ever really bothers with. I can't find it transcribed anywhere. I've been told just to play it as written in d minor but (a) Bach would turn in his grave and (b) I have AP and that sort of thing messes with my head I'll be very impressed if someone knows the historical answer to this!
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The fugue in Book I was actually written in D-sharp minor as well. At the time, I don't think Bach could have envisioned that people would have more trouble with six sharps vs. six flats.
I know in Finale, you can load a piece of music and then change the key signature.
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It depends on the edition whether or not the Prelude and Fugue (VIII) are written in the same enharmonic key or not.
W. A. Palmer says in his notes to the Fugue in Book I : "In most editions this fugue is transposed to Eb minor. We retain the original key, D# minor, as it appears in the autograph and all of our sources."
In Henle, Book I, the Prelude is in E-flat minor, the Fugue is in D-sharp minor; in Tovey, the Prelude is in E-flat minor, the Fugue is in D-sharp minor.
In Peters, Book II, the Prelude and Fugue are both in E-flat minor. So get the Peters, edited by Kroll if you want to read it in E-flat minor, or check IMSLP, to see which key their copies are in.
Regards,
BruceD - - - - - Estonia 190
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There are really good historical questions here that I'd love to know the answers to!
1. In most (all?) Urtext editions, the Book I prelude is in Eb minor and the fugue is in D# minor. Why?
2. Why did Bach write the third P/F's in C# major instead of Db major?
Can anyone shed any light on this?
-Jason
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From classicalarchives.com:
"The [E-flat minor] prelude is at once ceremonial and tragic, a procession of widely spaced chords connected by a single, highly ornamented line. The fugue is technically in D sharp minor—there was a difference in tuning in Bach's day, although this is now obscured, particularly when played on the piano. Further complicating matters, it was originally written in D minor, and later transposed to fill the E flat minor gap in this set."
Doesn't explain why the P&F in Book II are in D-sharp minor though.
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From classicalarchives.com:
"The [E-flat minor] prelude is at once ceremonial and tragic, a procession of widely spaced chords connected by a single, highly ornamented line. The fugue is technically in D sharp minor—there was a difference in tuning in Bach's day, although this is now obscured, particularly when played on the piano. Further complicating matters, it was originally written in D minor, and later transposed to fill the E flat minor gap in this set." Does this explain to you why the prelude is in Eb and the fugue in D#? It doesn't to me. If there were some historical precedent for rolled chords to be in flatted keys... And/or if there were some religious significance to all the sharps (aren't they associated with the cross?), and Bach viewed the fugue as religious, and the prelude as secular.... Those would be reasons. But I'm making this up. -Jason
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We all have a sympathetic ear in the words of Cecil Gray, writing of the Prelude and Fugue VIII of Book II in 1938:
"It is exceedingly difficult to discover why Bach should have preferred to write this pair of pieces in the troublesome key of D sharp minor instead of in the synonymous E flat minor, as in the first book; involving as it does the extensive employment of that abomination the double-sharp instead of the simple natural which would take its place if the flat key signature were adopted. In the musical illustrations which follow I have consequently taken the liberty, out of kind-heartedness towards the reader, of enharmonically transposing them into the equivalent and much easier key of E flat minor."[1]
We are not alone, it would seem, in finding D-sharp minor more difficult to read than E-flat minor. I am not sure why that should be if we are as well-trained as we think we are, but Mr. Gray's words do come as a small consolation.
[1]Cecil Gray, The Forty-Eight Preludes of J.S. Bach, Oxford University Press, 1938, p. 101.
BruceD - - - - - Estonia 190
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The D# minor prelude and fugue from book II was my P&F of the day today (I've been playing/reading through one a day for some months now) and yes, D# minor is a little hard to read. But I'm sure it's good for the brain (and the reading). As I find no significant difficulty in reading in F# major (the relative major) it helps me to think of this relationship when reading in D# minor.
Du holde Kunst...
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The D# minor prelude and fugue from book II was my P&F of the day today (I've been playing/reading through one a day for some months now) and yes, D# minor is a little hard to read. But I'm sure it's good for the brain (and the reading). As I find no significant difficulty in reading in F# major (the relative major) it helps me to think of this relationship when reading in D# minor. Interesting... I had noticed before that 6 sharps was harder to read than 6 flats, but I never thought that minor-key 6 sharps is harder than major-key 6 sharps. Makes sense, though. We all have a breaking point. I'm relatively comfortable with 6 accidentals, but I can't do 7. The C# major fugue from Book I is the hardest thing for me to read.... -J
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That's funny - now that you mention it, I can play the c sharp major prelude and fugue without any problems. In fact I learned to play them as a kid. I guess the problem is not the number of sharps or flats; it's just a question of how used to reading it you are.
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The thing that helps me is not thinking about which notes are sharped, but which notes are natural.. in D# minor there is only one to remember.
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About the difficulty of sharps and flats... Alkan's "Aime-Moi", which is in A flat minor, didn't give me problems, whereas the section of the Ravel Toccata that goes into D sharp minor was very difficult for me to read and learn for a while. It's interesting how that works!
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I think it may be easier to get one's mind around E flat minor than D# minor because we are familiar with E flat major, and the process of changing major to minor is relatively easy with the same tonic. Whereas we don't play in D# major.
Du holde Kunst...
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I had considerable difficulty in reading the middle section of the Romance (second movement) of the Chopin E minor Concerto where Chopin modulates to G-sharp major - yes, G-sharp major! Even though many of the accidentals are written in in this section (because the key signature remains in only four sharps) it's still - for me - devilishly hard to read. I could never quite remember by the time I got to the end of the measure that F was F-double-sharp!
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BruceD - - - - - Estonia 190
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I think it may be easier to get one's mind around E flat minor than D# minor because we are familiar with E flat major, and the process of changing major to minor is relatively easy with the same tonic. Whereas we don't play in D# major. That's an interesting theory, and I'm going to keep it in mind. In other words, Eb minor involves taking an Eb key signature we know-- three flats-- and just adding three more flats. D# minor isn't built on a familiar signature in the same way. The explanation I always accepted was that in music, especially minor-key music, things tend to be sharped more than flatted. (The leading tone in a minor key, for instance, requires a sharp, so it's almost like there's an accidental in the key signature itself.) Therefore, heavily sharped key signatures tend to have a lot of double sharps, which are hard to read. In a heavily flatted key signature, this "tendency towards sharps" just results in a lot of natural signs. The bottom line: double-accidentals are more common in heavily sharped signatures than heavily flatted ones, so the former are harder to read. -Jason
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In 1722, when Bach dated the autograph copy of Book I, Rameau published a listing of keys that shows how keys and semi-tones were then regarded. For minor keys, dsharp represents the extreme sharp end and eflat represents the extreme flat end. Major keys go as far as Aflat and then change to Csharp, Fsharp, etc. This is how Bach thought of keys as is evidenced in the WTC. There IS evidence, and strong, that the Book I fugue was originally composed in dminor, but there's no great evidence that the prelude was written in any other key than eflat minor. There is a hint found in bar 29, which might imply that Bach had been thinking in eminor at one time, but by the end of the bar he dispels that notion.
"And if we look at the works of J.S. Bach — a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity... -Debussy
"It's ok if you disagree with me. I can't force you to be right."
♪ ≠$
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