Still during Johann Sebastian Bach’s (1685–1750) lifetime his sons, pupils, colleagues and admirers began to create collections of inventions, preludes, fugues, organ trios and chorale settings in the style of their revered model. Various collections of fugues for keyboard instruments without pedal have come down to us from this circle, among them the following titles: Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710–1784), Eight Fugues (ca. 1778–1779)[1] BR-WFB A 81–88/Fk 31; Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788), VI Fugen vor die Orgel, wie auch vor das Clavier Wq 119/2–7, one source dating from 1756[2]; Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1709–1783), Huit Fugues pour le clavecin ou l’orgue, Berlin 1773[3], and Johann Christoph Kellner (1736–1803), Six Fugues pour les orgues ou le clavecin, Berlin s. d. [ca. 1770].[4] Collections of this kind reflected the users’ demand for instructive models for their own compositional attempts as well as their need for repertoire pieces they could perform in public.
The editor of this volume is convinced that a number of the fugues presented here are instructive training pieces from which the improvisation of a fugue might be learned. Later compositions of this kind may have served rather as exercise repertoire for organ and keyboard students. As these fugues were used for private studies and thus had to make do without obbligato pedal, the collection presented here is suited for playing on organs without pedal as well as on any domestic stringed keyboard instrument.
By the preface from Rüdiger Wilhelm (translation Stephanie Wollny)
[1] At the time there were plans to publish the piece, but the print never materialized. See Joachim Kertscher, “Ein Brief-Fund aus einem halleschen Verlagsnachlaß – Wilhelm Friedemann Bach an Johann Jakob Gebauer. Mit einer Nachbemerkung von Peter Wollny”, in: BJ 2000, Leipzig 2000, pp. 351–358.
[2] See Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Organ Works, ed. Anette Richards and David Yearsley (The Complete Works, I/9), Los Altos 2008, The Packard Humanities Institute, pp. 47–69.
[3] See Johann Philipp Kirnberger: Acht Fugen für Cembalo oder Orgel, ed. Hugo Ruf and Hans Bemmann, Mainz 1973: Edition Schott Nr. 6501.
[4] See Claviermusik um Johann Sebastian Bach, ed. Rüdiger Wilhelm, Wiesbaden 1993: Edition Breitkopf Nr. 8454, pp. 18–29.
