Contrapunctus 1 from J. S. Bach's 'The Art of Fugue'

In the mid 1960's I heard the blind German organist, Helmut Walcha, play the entire work , over two consecutive 'Wednesday at 5.55' recitals in The Royal Festival Hall.
The Art of Fugue, or The Art of the Fugue (German: Die Kunst der Fuge), BWV 1080, is an incomplete musical work of unspecified instrumentation by Johann Sebastian Bach. Written in the last decade of his life, The Art of Fugue is the culmination of Bach's experimentation with monothematic instrumental works.

This work consists of fourteen fugues and four canons in D minor, each using some variation of a single principal subject, and generally ordered to increase in complexity. "The governing idea of the work", as put by Bach specialist Christoph Wolff, "was an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject." The word "contrapunctus" is often used for each fugue.
The first printed version was published under the title Die Kunst der Fuge durch Herrn Johann Sebastian Bach ehemahligen Capellmeister und Musikdirector zu Leipzig in May 1751, slightly less than a year after Bach's death. In addition to changes in the order, notation, and material of pieces which appeared in the autograph, it contained two new fugues, two new canons, and three pieces of ostensibly spurious inclusion. A second edition was published in 1752, but differed only in its addition of a preface by Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg.

In spite of its revisions, the printed edition of 1751 contained a number of glaring editorial errors. The majority of these may be attributed to Bach's relatively sudden death in the midst of publication. Three pieces were included that do not appear to have been part of Bach's intended order: an unrevised (and thus redundant) version of the second double fugue, Contrapunctus X; a two-keyboard arrangement of the first mirror fugue, Contrapunctus XIII; and an organ chorale prelude on "Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit" ("Herewith I come before Thy Throne"), derived from BWV 668a, and noted in the introduction to the edition as a recompense for the work's incompleteness, having purportedly been dictated by Bach on his deathbed.

The anomalous character of the published order and the Unfinished Fugue, have engendered a wide variety of theories which attempt to restore the work to the state originally intended by Bach.

Both editions of the Art of Fugue are written in open score, where each voice is written on its own staff. This has led some to conclude that the Art of Fugue was intended as an intellectual exercise, meant to be studied more than heard. The renowned keyboardist Gustav Leonhardt argued that the Art of Fugue was intended to be played on a keyboard instrument, and specifically the harpsichord. Leonhardt's arguments included the following:

1) It was common practice in the 17th and early 18th centuries to publish keyboard pieces in open score, especially those that are contrapuntally complex.
2) The range of none of the ensemble or orchestral instruments of the period corresponds to any of the ranges of the voices in The Art of Fugue. Furthermore, none of the melodic shapes that characterize Bach's ensemble writing are found in the work, and there is no basso continuo.
3) The fugue types used are reminiscent of the types in The Well-Tempered Clavier, rather than Bach's ensemble fugues; Leonhardt also shows an "optical" resemblance between the fugues of the two collections, and points out other stylistic similarities between them.
4) Finally, since the bass voice in The Art of Fugue occasionally rises above the tenor, and the tenor becomes the "real" bass, Leonhardt deduces that the bass part was not meant to be doubled at 16-foot pitch, thus eliminating the pipe organ as the intended instrument, leaving the harpsichord as the most logical choice.
It is now generally accepted by scholars that the work was envisioned for keyboard.
Several musicians and musicologists have composed conjectural completions of Contrapunctus XIV which include the fourth subject, including musicologists Donald Tovey (1931), Zoltán Göncz (1992, which makes use of what he refers to as a permutational matrix of the 4 subjects) , Yngve Jan Trede (1995), and Thomas Daniel(2010), organists Helmut Walcha, David Goode, Lionel Rogg, Theo Nederpelt and Davitt Moroney (1989), conductor Rudolf Barshai (2010), pianist Daniil Trifonov (2021) and composer / conductor Nikolaus Matthes (2025). Ferruccio Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica is based on Contrapunctus 14. In total, there have been over 80 conjectural attempts to complete Contrapunctus 14.
This incomplete fugue end abruptly at the point where Bach signs his name in music by introducing the fourth subject. B A C H (B flat., A, C and B natural) a subjext since exploited by numerous organ composers since, noteably Liszt. Schumann, Merkel and others.
Played on Hauptwerk sample set of St. Mary le Bow. Thumbnail of the composer.

[CSLWoodward]

This is an amazing performance, thank you for posting this!

[JHernanGiraldo]

One of my favourite BACH'S masterpieces, Thanks a lot for giving me this magnificent reward on this night.
This is the eternal crown of this Day.
BLESSINGS GREAT MASTER.