Austin Symphonic Band Performing Bach Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor BWV 867
Austin Symphonic Band. November 5, 2023 concert at the Connally HS Performing Arts Center in Austin, TX. ASB performing Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor, BWV 867 by J.S. Bach (trans. Roland L. Moehlmann). Music Director Dr. Kyle R. Glaser conducting. "Grand Structures" Concert.
Video and Sound Production: Eddie Jennings
From the program notes written by David Cross:
Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor, BWV 867 (1722)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Transcribed by Roland L. Moehlmann
The Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 846–893) is a set of preludes and fugues in the major and minor modes of all 12 keys. Typically, these preludes were modest in length and moderate in tempo.
J.S. Bach’s music was harmonically more innovative than that of his peer composers, employing surprisingly dissonant chords and progressions, often with extensive exploration of harmonic possibilities within one piece. Bach’s prodigious output of music often followed a replicable framework (e.g., prelude and fugue, toccata and fugue, cantata, concerto). With a busy career as a church musician and with nineteen children, who could blame him for taking some shortcuts?
Bach composed this Prelude and Fugue in Köthen, while he was in the employ of Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, who preferred his church music to be less complex. So during that time, most of Bach’s output was secular (including the well-known Brandenburg Concerti).
Listen for:
• Prelude: A sequential rising motif, followed by a chromatically descending line.
• Much back and forth from instrumental choirs.
• Fugue: A four-part fugue, with development extending into B-flat major, ending in
typical fashion with a dramatic allargando leading to a Picardy third.
