Five Prelude and Fugues

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Five Prelude and Fugues

arranged for string quartet by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K405

in C minor BWV 871

in E flat major BWV 876

in E minor BWV 878

in E flat minor BWV 877

in D major BWV 874

One of the most significant events in Mozart’s career - one which changed his whole style, once he had absorbed its implications - was his encounter with J.S.Bach. He knew Bach’s sons and was particularly indebted to Johann Christian, but the music of Bach the father was little known to him, or of little importance to him, until about 1782. He came to realize the greatness of Bach through his contact with Baron van Swieten, who had been the Imperial Ambassador to the court of Prussia in the 1770s and whose attention had been drawn to J.S.Bach by none other than Frederick the Great. From then on van Swieten became a baroque enthusiast and, after his return to Vienna as Prefect of the Imperial Library, took to presenting Sunday midday concerts of Bach and Handel in his rooms in the Library.

The revelation for Mozart was, of course, Bach’s counterpoint, which is not just a matter of textural interest but more a way of life. Mozart’s supreme achievement was to integrate what he learned from Bach with his own sonata-form way of life: the Finale of the “Jupiter” Symphony is the ultimate example of that. But first of all he had to get to know his J.S. Bach, which he did partly by making arrangements of preludes and fugues for van Swieten’s concerts in 1782. There are string-trio versions of five Bach Fugues from various sources and these string-quartet versions of five four-part Fugues with their appropriate Preludes from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Mozart’s own Fugue for two pianos K426 of 1783 was a direct result of the Bach experience but the indirect results, beginning with the earliest of the “Haydn” Quartets in 1782 , are even more interesting.