I have been concerned why a style of music, the fugue, attracts us so deeply. At least, it is one of my most favorite music styles. It is told to have been thoroughly completed by JS Bach. His unfinished work of "Die Kunst der Fuge" is regarded his real achievement in that composition mode.
It is a question why the fugue or, in broader sense, the polyphony fascinates our mind. No definite answer yet. As I told in a previous post, the polyphony is identical to or, at least, comparable to the mechanism our consciousness works. Different ideas or thoughts are coming up in mind repeatedly. In case of polyphony, with different tune/tonality. They are compiled in a mass. The flow of compilated thoughts must be an aspect of our consciousness.
It's enough to soapbox on the relationship between our concsiousness and polyphony.
The performance of this work extends to various instruments/ensemble. I have been listening mainly to string quartet version. The performance by Juliard String Quartet has been the best choice for me. Very excellent combination of modern and authentic performance. For the past few days, however. I listen to a rendition by two harpsichords. The players are Ton Koopman and Tini Mathot.
What I liked it is, in short, that they are keeping constant tempo among contrapuncti. Even in each contrapunctus. As a characteristic of harpsichord rendition, it is dynamically fairly flat, far from romanticism. These characteristics may keep our mind absorbed in the essence of the music. Not emotionally excited. It is another point which attracted me is that Bach might have composed this with a keyboard as well.
Whenever I listen to this piece, it inspires me a lot that the last contrapunctus in a 3 voice fugue ends abruptly with the motif of BACH. They say it was not intended but only a result of accidental abandonment. Bach was going to finish it later. Still this ending is symbolic from our perspective of life. Our life could be forcefully ended regardless what we may wish for the rest of our life. We should learn that from this ending.
The 1st contrapunctus of this renditon. You may listen to further with different videos uploaded by the same person.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKr89xxnMM8&list=PLWX0mJtyf2ceho-yYTx7K6dVyaWJk53TQ
