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From : BachScholar
Added: Feb 28, 2009
This prelude and fugue offers a good example the natural tempo for each resulting in equal durations. In my performance, the prelude lasts 1:37 and the fugue lasts 1:34, which are virtually equal. I also present this fugue in a separate video in my series "pieces almost everyone plays too slow". You are invited to view that video and read the analysis for more details on the style and tempo of this fugue, which will help illuminate the present analysis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nc2i-hMIHI Although this prelude is notated in 4/4, its constant triplet 16ths create an energetic gigue-like character. The actual quarter-note speed is not very fast at about 64 beats per minute, however, this equals a common gigue tempo of eighth = 128. With 26 measures, this tempo results in a duration of 1:38. As discussed in my separate video, this fugue has the style and tempo of a polonaise, quarter = 84. For example, comparing meas. 5-6 in the Burlesca from Partita 3 with meas. 9-10 in this fugue shows identical styles and suggests a tempo no slower for this fugue than one would choose for the pompous and energetic Burlesca. The tradition of playing this fugue slowly and expressively probably began as early as the 1820's. Perhaps it was the minor tonality that led the 19th-century romantics during the Bach revival to believe it was a slow and brooding piece? The proper polonaise-style tempo of quarter = 84 results in a duration of 1:34, which virtually equals the duration of the prelude, 1:38, at its natural tempo. This is yet another example out of at least two thousand that proves Bach did indeed aim for accurate duration ratios in his music. It is as simple as discovering the natural tempos, letting them speak for themselves, and recognizing Bach's intentions. On the other hand, the traditional tempos here of a faster prelude and much slower fugue distorts Bach's intentions to the fullest. **************************************** About the Well-Tempered Clavier: Ever since the time of Beethoven and Czerny, around 1820, composers and performers began operating with a new esthetic entirely different than in Bach's time 100 years previously. It was then that Beethoven proclaimed to a publisher "we can hardly have tempi ordinari" any longer, meaning that the standard tempos and tempo conventions of the 1700's had become obsolete for the new kind of romantic music in vogue. In general, Beethoven sped up the fast tempos like allegros and slowed down the slower tempos like andantes and adagios. Czerny then passed on these tempos to his students, they to their students, and so on. Most students, teachers, and professors today are probably not aware that many of the tempos we play, hear, and teach are actually 19th-century tempos. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier is probably the work most affected by incorrect and false tempos and traditions, because it is Bach's most well-known and most played collection of pieces since the time of Beethoven and Czerny. In order to truly understand the WTC, one should pretend never to have heard any music composed or performed after 1750. Only then does it become possible to understand and appreciate authentic 18th-century tempos in an enlightened and unbiased fashion.
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