d. harrison-rhetoric and fugue-an analytical application

Society for Music Theory

Rhetoric and Fugue: An Analytical ApplicationAuthor(s): Daniel HarrisonSource: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 1-42Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for Music TheoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746145Accessed: 28/04/2009 04:59

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Rhetoric and Fugue: An Analytical Application

Daniel Harrison


Daniel Harrison


Daniel Harrison

[Bach] is so completely familiar with the parts ... which the working- out of a musical composition has in common with the oratorical art that one not only hears him with satisfaction when he discourses on the similarity and correspondence of both, but also admires the skill- ful application of the same in his works.'

INTRODUCTION

It is perhaps fitting, in an article about rhetoric and fugue, to point out that I conceived its title as a hypallage on another title-in this case, of an article that appeared some 13 years ago.2 I make this reference to Gregory Butler's work not only as a play on words, but also to repudiate at the outset the approach that he takes in applying rhetorical ideas to fugue. I certainly do not deny that Butler's historical overview of the relationship between these two arts is authoritative and complete; he has read widely and has noted carefully the fine differences among authors such as Joachim Burmeister, Johann Matthe- son, and Angelo Berardi-theorists of no small importance to

'Johann Abraham Birnbaum (Professor of Poetics and Rhetoric at Leip- zig), quoted in Philipp Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hirtel, 1916), 2:64.

2Gregory Butler, "Fugue and Rhetoric," Journal of Music Theory 21 (1977), 49-110. Hypallage is a reversal in grammatical order of two syntactic units.


INTRODUCTION





INTRODUCTION




the history of our discipline. But the musico-rhetorical enter- prise that Butler relates comes across as a curiosity, an abstruse and abstract theory of interest only to the academic antiquary.

To the modern analyst, Butler's researches offer little of value, for the ideas that he organizes and advances, as well as the applications of them that he proposes, do not promise insights of power comparable even to those afforded by other, present-day analytic tools. Not having recognized this fact, Butler naively entreats the reader to abandon current practices and return to the methods of rhetorical analysis used by the venerable authors he quotes, complaining that "current terminology stresses contrapuntal compatibility among the voices and mechanical compositional procedures which leave the fugue bland and lifeless instead of exciting and vital as it was in the period during which it evolved as a musical structure of central importance."3 This peroration is sincere and impassioned, but ultimately it fails to convince; the applications of rhetoric to fugue by the various authors mentioned throughout the article are themselves bland, mechanical, and lifeless.

The authors cited in Butler's article, though they possess an impressive command of classical rhetoric and its forms, by and large do not treat rhetoric as a living and elastic art. Originally developed as a comprehensive theory of discourse by the most eminent philosophers and sophists of the classical age, rhetoric







3Butler, "Fugue and Rhetoric," 99. 3Butler, "Fugue and Rhetoric," 99. 3Butler, "Fugue and Rhetoric," 99.

2 Music Theory Spectrum 2 Music Theory Spectrum 2 Music Theory Spectrum

seemed to be for these authors a scholastic, dry, and contrived system of figures, tropes, and rules to be memorized by teen- aged schoolboys who had as much understanding of their sub- tleties as their latter-day counterparts have of generative lin- guistics when parsing sentences. These authors invariably learned their rhetoric themselves as youngsters using textbooks designed specifically for this kind of instruction. For instance, Joachim Burmeister probably received his first instruction in rhetoric from Lucas Lossius's work, Erotemata Dialecticae et Rhetoricae Philippi Melancthonis, a schoolroom textbook culled from Phillip Melancthon's Institutiones Rhetoricae.4 Al- though for some such as Burmeister and Mattheson, the study of classical rhetoric extended beyond the schoolroom and into university, where they might have studied primary texts such as Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, one must remember that the students, many of whom were much younger than those of today, read these works in light of their original schoolroom training. Burmeister, for one, never seems to have transcended Lossius's teaching despite his acquaintance with primary sources. Original and insightful contributions to rhetorical theory and practice resulting from such "advanced" study were thus quite rare, Melancthon's being a notable exception. Fur- ther, according to Friedrich Paulsen, the state of classical education in both university and school deteriorated throughout the seventeenth century as the previous, humanist educational consensus died out. The quality of rhetorical education during that time is thus open to question.5 The aim and emphasis of rhetorical instruction are also important issues, since they were

4Lucas Lossius, Erotemata Dialecticae et Rhetoricae Philippi Melancthonis (Leipzig, 1552). See Martin Ruhnke, Joachim Burmeister: Ein Beitrag zur Mu- siklehre um 1600 (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1955), 15.

5Friedrich Paulsen, German Education: Past and Present, trans. by T. Lo- renz (New York: Scribner, 1908), 116. Also see Paulsen, Geschichte des Gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitaten mit beson- dere Ricksicht auf den klassischen Unterricht (Leipzig: Veit, 1885), 374-378.







considerably different from the classical conception of Quinti- lian and Cicero. Because of the curricular use of rhetoric, rhetoricians concentrated on style rather than on the more complex art of invention, believing that style was easier to teach to young boys.6 The rhetoric taught in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was thus greatly skewed towards the teaching of figures of speech. The subtler aspects of rhetoric-invention, disposition, delivery, memorization-were either ignored or relegated to dialectic, which was studied after rhetoric.7 Mat- theson, writing in the mid-eighteenth century, demonstrates the longevity of this style of schoolboy rhetoric when he writes about the marginal value of making a list of melodic fragments and ". .. following the proper school procedure, making a regular invention box from them." The box for the topical "places" was a device to help the student develop a sense of invention.8 Mattheson later explicitly states that his method of melodic topic is taken directly from the schoolroom and is meant in the same spirit of intellectual dilution that characterized the textbooks on rhetoric used there:

With many who would not suffer anything having the slightest relationship with the schoolroom, the oft-mentioned loci seem to be greatly despised; not realizing that, basically, they indeed might not be without profit and advantage in various things-particularly when the materials themselves are unfruitful, and the minds are not especially disciplined for imaginative thinking.9

6George A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tra- dition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro- lina Press, 1980), 204.

7Walter Ong gives a detailed picture of the pedagogical role of rhetoric at this time in Ramus: Method, and the Decay of Dialogue (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1958), 275-279. 8Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739),

2.4.17. Also see Ong, Ramus, 121. 9Mattheson, Capellmeister, 2.4.22.













Rhetoric and Fugue 3 Rhetoric and Fugue 3 Rhetoric and Fugue 3

Despite Butler's failure to breathe life into his topic, the connection between fugue and rhetoric remains a suggestive one, and is worth resuscitating by means other than a transfu- sion of historicism. The authors that he relies upon believed that rhetoric was concerned mainly with ornament, and that music was like the literary arts. I propose that rhetoric is primarily a means of persuasion, and that music-and fugue in

particular-is more like oratory. George Kennedy, a contemporary classicist, has made a

useful distinction between the rhetoric of persuasion and the rhetoric of literary device; he calls the former "primary" and the latter "secondary" rhetoric.

Primary rhetoric is the conception of rhetoric as held by the Greeks when the art was, as they put it, "invented" in the fifth century B.C. Rhetoric was "primarily" an art of persuasion; it was primarily used in civic life; it was primarily oral. Primary rhetoric involves an act of enunciation on a specific occasion; in itself it has no text, although subsequently an enunciation can be treated as a text .... "Second- ary" rhetoric, on the other hand, is the apparatus of rhetorical tech-

niques clustering around discourse or art forms when those techniques are not being used for their primary oral purpose. In secondary rhetoric the speech act is not of central importance; that role is taken over by the text. The most frequent manifestations of secondary rhetoric are commonplaces, figures of speech and thought, and tropes in elaborate writing. Much literature, art, and informal discourse is dec- orated by secondary rhetoric which may be a mannerism of the historical period in which it is composed. Secondary rhetoric contributes to the purpose of the speaker or writer, but indirectly or at a secondary level.

Kennedy further notes that "it has been a persistent characteristic of classical rhetoric, in almost every phase of its ancient and modern history, to move from primary into secondary forms."'10













l'Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times, 4-5.



The orientation of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century authors whom Butler cites-and indeed of Butler himself-is decidedly towards secondary rhetoric. By that time, the unity of classical rhetoric had been sundered; invention and disposition had been relegated to dialectics, style and delivery to rhetoric, and memorization had been discarded as unnecessary.1 The narrowing of rhetoric to style, of which the figures of speech were a large category, tremendously weakened the traditions of classical rhetoric. Indeed, rhetoric as a discipline was confused with emerging theories of poetics, a process that had some per- manent effects; when we speak of "metaphor" and "simile," we think of them first as literary devices, not as the rhetorical figures of speech by which they were first recognized and defined.12 The title of Joachim Burmeister's Musica Poetica is quite revealing in this regard, for it shows that Burmeister considered the "rhetoric" upon which he discoursed to be a species of poetics.

"Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, 207-213. See also Ong, Ramus, 101-104. Primary rhetoric was still practiced in the school and university in the form of stylized, ceremonial orations. But these adhered so strictly to classical models and forms of expression and addressed subjects so obscure or uninteresting that they can hardly be considered true orations in the classical sense in which relevance, contemporary style, and creativity were prized. Rather, they are student declamations, which in classical times were ways for young men to practice their oratorical arts and to prepare themselves for free orations on contemporary political or legal issues. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such declamation was the goal of oratorical study and was seen as a means of polishing a student's Latin style or, if performed by a teacher, as a means of exercising and displaying acquired skill.

12The mixture of rhetoric and poetics is examined in Ludwig Fischer, Ge- bundene Rede: Dichtung und Rhetorik in der literarischen Theorie des Barock in Deutschland, Studien zur deutschen Literatur, Vol. 10 (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1968), 7-16, 22-36 passim. Fischer's study points out that, at least in German letters, rhetoric lost so much of its traditional meaning that some considered it to be separated from Oratorie (or Rednerkunst). Martin Ruhnke, in his study of Joachim Burmeister, reports that at the University of Rostock there were in fact separate chairs, one in rhetoric and another in oratory. (Joachim Burmeister, p. 30.)








The emphasis of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century rhetoric on style and literary device accounts for the intense attention given to figures of speech. Burmeister's analysis of Lassus's In me transierunt perfectly illustrates an analysis based on princi- ples of secondary rhetoric.13 The analysis consists of a division of the text into sections using the rhetorical terms exordium, confirmatio, and epilogue as well as a listing of musical figures.14 Such an analysis, interesting though it is, cannot approach modem standards of completeness and insight.15 Its orientation towards secondary rhetoric and poetics encourages the idea that musical figures are self-contained entities, decorations of the musical surface that have no connection to deeper structures. Burmeister illustrates these figures in his treatises with short musical examples and ignores any contribution the figures might make to the rest of a piece.

Applied to fugue, this kind of analysis by rhetorical figure- which Butler believes makes the fugue "exciting and vital"- both obscures large-scale structure and robs fugue of musical interest. This result is precisely what fugue does not need; traditional analysis already brutally atomizes fugal structure, and the fugue has always been suspected of being the favored artistic ve- hicle of erudite scholars, pedants, and bores.

13Musica Poetica (Rostock, 1606), Chap. 15, 73-74. An English translation and commentary is provided by Claude V. Palisca in "Ut Oratoria Musica: The Rhetorical Basis of Musical Mannerism," in The Meaning of Mannerism, ed. Franklin W. Robinson and Stephen G. Nichols, Jr. (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1972), 37-61.

'4Although these terms and the procedures they signify were original to primary rhetoric, they were also applied to secondary forms-such as epistles- that had persuasive purpose. See Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, pp. 185-187.

15It is significant that Palisca, in an attempt to increase the scope of the analytical procedure, feels the need both to add extensive commentary to the analysis, and to identify more figures than Burmeister originally noticed. Further, Palisca's commentary focuses extensively upon the interaction of musical figures with the text, in many cases using the text as a rationale for the analysis of figures.











If, despite the contemporary emphasis on secondary rhetoric, music is conceived in terms of primary rhetoric, where persuasion and not surface beauty is the goal of the art, the relationship of rhetoric to music becomes at once more interesting and more suggestive. Such an attitude honors the perceptions of those sensitive to rhetorical device while also introducing the possibility of analytic techniques that keep the fugue a coherent and unified structure. The entire body of classical rhetoric can participate in the relationship. For figures of speech, used as ornament in secondary rhetoric, become much less important in themselves when returned to the context of persuasive rhetoric, where they are deployed to support content. Persuasion of an audience that an utterance is worthy of approval is the sole end of primary rhetoric. Figures are not used because of their beauty, but because of their utility.

A moment's reflection upon the relationship of music-and fugue in particular-to primary rhetoric reveals several correspondences absent from any relationship between music and secondary rhetoric. Kennedy's comments, although they per- tain to speech in particular, are nonetheless apropos:

Although speech may create a text, which can then be analyzed like a written work, it is in itself an act and not a text. Delivery is an important part of rhetoric. The time, the place, and the immediate reaction of the audience are also important factors, as they are not in the case of literature . 16

The delivery of music is, of course, performance. The parallels between musical and oratorical performance are intuitively clear, first recognized by no less an authority than Quintilian. In his discussion of music in the Institutio Oratoria-the most important locus classicus on the relationship between music and rhetoric-Quintilian compares rhetoric and music only in terms of delivery, asserting that it is necessary for the orator to know









16Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, p. 109. 16Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, p. 109. 16Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, p. 109.


musical gestures and inflections so that he can know how to modulate the voice while discoursing.17 Indeed, he relates the story of how the famous tribune and orator, C. Sempronius Gracchus, placed a musician with a pitch pipe behind him while he spoke so he could hear the tones on which he should pitch his voice.18 No mention is made of any structural similarities between music and rhetoric, and no attempt is made to draw any further analogy between the two arts; to Quintilian, music and oratory were alike only in terms of their delivery.

The oratorical nature of musical performance was once clearer than it is today. Until recently, the delivery of both music and oratory was quite similar in terms of the behaviors of both performer and audience. Indeed, responses to public performance, in whatever medium, were standard and undiscrimi- nating. In the case of music, interruption by applause, singing of refrains or familiar tunes, and demonstrations by claques were familiar activities responding to the performance act. In turn, the performer adjusted the delivery to fit the mood of the audience by, for instance, adding cadenzas, repeating portions of the program, or exaggerating certain mannerisms. These or similar activities are today practiced only in a small number of public situations. That audiences and performers no longer be- have this way in the concert hall should not obscure the rhetorical quality of musical delivery, for these behaviors are quite alive in the concerts of other musics, notably rock music.

17These comments appear in 1.10.9-28 of the Institutio Oratoria. Palisca claims that "there is hardly an author on music in the last half of the sixteenth

century who does not dip into Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria." (Palisca, "Ut Oratoria Musica," 39.) Ruhnke, in developing his ideas about Burmeister's use of rhetoric, cites the pertinent passage from Quintilian (1.10.22). (Ruhnke, Joachim Burmeister, 132-133.)

'8Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 1.10.27. Although this story seems fantas- tic, Roman politicians habitually employed such people whose functions were to assist them in public situations. For example, a nomenclator stood behind a

politician and whispered the names of approaching people into his ear, the better for him to impress these constituents.













Performers are not solely responsible for the rhetorical nature of musical delivery; composers design music for performance, building within their compositions rhetorical artifices that make sense and become effective only in performance. Music theorists forget all too often that the score is essentially a very detailed set of instructions for a performer about the proper delivery of the composition. It is, after all, a set of "notes" for the performer that indicates in a more or less specific way how the piece should be delivered. Performed music and primary rhetoric enjoy a further correspondence in the common reliance upon memorization-that aspect of rhetorical training which is the first to be dispensed with when rhetoric moves into secondary forms-an art considered an essential part of professional performance practice for concerto soloists, pianists, and singers.

How does fugue in particular manifest qualities associated with primary rhetoric?19 If the task of an oration is to persuade an audience of the validity of the speaker's point of view, the task of a fugue is to persuade an audience that the musical material can make a convincing and successful composition, and that the composer has sufficient technique, control, and artistry to create an interesting piece of music despite the several obstacles that the fugal form puts in the way.20 In order to establish this complex dynamic between composition and audience, dissatis-

19These comments apply to what Roger Bullivant calls the "complete" fugue; that is, a self-standing piece. The problem of rhetorical expression with the "incidental" fugue and the fugato is considerably more complex, since other, non-fugal parts of a piece must be taken into account. (See Roger Bulli- vant, Fugue [London: Hutchinson & Co., 1971], 25.)

20The more intractable the material for a fugue seems to be, the more admiration a composer wins if a successful fugue can be made from it. This is all the more the case when the composer improvises a fugue from a submitted theme. Mozart, for one, excelled at this art, which was partly responsible for his repu- tation as a prodigy. (See Warren Kirkendale, Fugue and Fugato in Rococo and Classical Chamber Music, rev. 2nd ed., trans. Margaret Bent and the author

[Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1979], 156-162:)












faction and failure must be a real possibility. A fugue encourages this by starting in the most inauspicious manner possible: as a single, unaccompanied line-in many cases of little musical interest in itself.21 The apprehensions and expectations aroused by a beginning of such little force generate a more or less tense anticipation of subsequent developments, much as when an orator begins with self-deprecating comments and praise for an opponent. In addition, the music following the opening subject adds both texture and content, but slowly-a restriction that heightens anticipation by threatening the free development of the musical material. This deliberate pacing of the fugue in its opening stages can put it at an initial disadvantage in terms of musical interest and variety in the mind of the listener; no other musical form, with the possible exception of canon, begins with such a restrictive protocol. Overcoming this disadvantage-that is, persuading the listener that the material can indeed have both variety and interest-is the job of the rest of the fugue. The persuasive dynamic of the fugue thus results from the gradual unshackling of initially restrained musical ideas.22

Another affinity between fugue and primary rhetoric lies in the use of "subjects" as the basis of their discourse, an affinity that is easily understood and, therefore, commonly cited by

21Many fugal subjects are justly famous because of their unusual or even bizarre characteristics. Domenico Scarlatti's "Cat's Fugue," K. 30 comes to

mind, as does the C#-minor fugue from Vol. 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier. 22Kirkendale has pointed out that the imitative ricercar-a stylistic forerun-

ner of the fugue-arose in part as an attempt to portray musically the rhetorical

technique of insinuatio, a technique "used to captivate a hostile audience by approaching arguments unobtrusively and indirectly." The imitative opening of a fugue is a kind of inverted insinuatio, in that a friendly or at least neutral audience is put off by a comparatively sluggish start. Both ideas concentrate on the introduction of "arguments" but assume different attitudes on the part of an audience. (Kirkendale, "Ciceronians versus Aristotelians on the Ricercar as Exordium from Bembo to Bach," Journal of the American Musicological Society 32 [1979], 25.)













most commentators on fugue and rhetoric.23 Both forms of discourse rely on consistent reference to this organizing thesis that is treated and developed in various well-defined ways. The subjects of both have the character of self-contained propositions. Because of these characteristics, both fugue and rhetorical oration are considered learned forms of discourse requiring extensive preparatory training and self-conscious display of artifice and technique.

Because of this similar conception of rhetorical and fugal subjects, many authors have commented upon similarities in development of both types of subject. Likening the formal structure of a fugue to that of an oration, they propose structural divisions based on those of rhetorical discourse: exordio, narratio, divisio, confirmatio, confutatio, and conclusio. Ba- roque theorists were extremely interested in the relationship between this rhetorical dispositio and fugal structure, and tried to develop comprehensive and detailed correspondences between the two.24 But since forums for using primary rhetoric in

anything more meaningful than school declamations were so few in those days, they did not treat dispositio in the same supple and creative way that classical authors did; rather, their cor-

respondences were-in the spirit of schoolroom instruction-

23Musicians often use the term "subject" in connection with fugue without

realizing that it is borrowed from rhetoric. For other similarly derived terms, see Kirkendale, "The Ricercar as Exordium," 38, n. 206. Butler, "Fugue and

Rhetoric," 63-65 provides a summary of opinion on the relationship between

fugal and rhetorical subjects. 24See Butler, "Fugue and Rhetoric," 72-99 for a thorough discussion of the

ideas of Mattheson and others on this topic. Butler reports several variants of the six-part dispositional scheme, which is based on ancient Greek models. Some musical rhetoricians transposed, some omitted sections according to their purposes. New sections were defined amplifying certain techniques of ar-

gument. Equivalent terms often replaced those given above: for instance, peroratio for conclusio. Despite the wide variations in terminology and order, the basic ideas and divisions of the disposition remain clear. (Butler, 69-72.)






















ossified and prescriptive, their conception of dispositio formal, not procedural.

A relationship between fugue-or music in general-and that part of rhetoric dealing with style (elocutio) can also be developed. And indeed, since preoccupation with style is a hall- mark of secondary rhetoric, this relationship has already been encouraged by many of the authors represented in Butler's article. The application of rhetorical figures to music, an innova- tion of Burmeister's, has a distinguished history, and has sur- vived as a scholarly specialty even into this century.25 It must be admitted that the claims of secondary rhetoric in this area are perhaps more compelling than those of primary rhetoric, since the latter art uses many stylistic resources and figures unneeded in music. For instance, fugue has little to do with forensic oratory; thus it cannot deal with questions of justice. Figures of speech commonly employed in the law courts, such as the mocking of an adversary (insultatio) or the appeal for mercy (benevolentia)-devices that are useful to any orator in an ad- versarial situation-have neither any means of musical expression nor any conceivable utility to a composer of fugues. Simi- larly, fugue needs none of the commonplaces of political oratory, since music does not seek public office.

The figures that might have analogues in music are those that have to do with small-scale and technical manipulations of parti- cles. In the traditional applications of Burmeister and others, such figures describe very specific tonal procedures, many of which we today often recognize under different, less learned names. For instance, Burmeister's gradatio is defined as a melodic fragment repeated in sequences of ascending seconds; his syncope is a suspension; noema is a homophonic section within a larger contrapuntal form. Alongside these familiar techniques with unfamiliar names are those special types of irregular disso-

2One of the most thoughtful studies examining this aspect of musical rhetoric, and one that deserves the attention of all interested in this topic, is Brian Vickers, "Figures of Rhetoric/Figures of Music?," Rhetorica 2 (1984); 1-44.









nances, melodic motions, text paintings, and cadences also given names derived from the figures of classical rhetoric, such as Walther's exclamatio (an ascending leap of a minor sixth).26 The insights that these figures bring to a fugue are not terribly powerful, and Butler's suggestion that we adopt similar terms in fugal analysis essentially offers to substitute one set of terminol- ogies describing the most immediate tonal relationships for another. An examination of musical figures is no more satisfying and adequate an analysis than a listing of the types of passing notes, suspensions, and cadences. Both reveal information of value to the analyst, but not about any structures longer than a few notes.27

The analysis to follow of the fugue from Bach's Toccata, S. 915, starts with the assumption that the composition is a persuasive discourse with a self-defined topic, and not a collection of ornaments, graces, and techniques having a purely aesthetic meaning. In other words, the fugue is treated more as primary rhetoric than as secondary rhetoric.28 By necessity, the analysis

26George Buelow has conveniently summarized and provided examples for these figures in his article "Rhetoric" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. A more comprehensive and comparative list of musical figures is found in Dietrich Bartel, Handbuch der musikalischen Figurenlehre (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1985). Bartel's list of terms emphasizes that various authors held different opinions as to the definitions of many figures, a circumstance which, as Buelow points out, makes a coherent doctrine of musical figures difficult to construct.

27Palisca's discussion and amplification of Burmeister's analysis of Lasso's In me transierunt shows that analyzing musical figures in conjunction with a text can be rewarding. Indeed, the moder-day attempt to formulate a Figurenlehre rests on the application of figures to texted, not instrumental, music. Even Buelow, who is skeptical that a coherent Figurenlehre can be reconstructed, illustrates figures in his New Grove article either with vocal music, or with music written in a cappella style.

2Although this analysis is set in a foundation of classical, primary rhetoric, it has much in common with the so-called "new rhetoric" in that it is concerned with persuasion and argumentation, and in that it keeps sight of the relationship between audience and utterance. In the new rhetoric, as formulated by one of its founders, Chaim Perelman, "form is subordinated to content, to the












works from the "notes" of the discourse, but always with an eye towards the delivery of those notes. The emphasis upon the oratorical, persuasive nature of the fugue is intended to recapture some ideas that were lost or altered in the development of secondary rhetoric-specifically, those concerning status and topic-thereby extending the relationship between rhetoric and music to new and suggestive areas.

Analysis of the fugue in such terms entails reconsideration and, in some cases, redefinition of some accepted relationships. For instance, as mentioned above, fugal and rhetorical discourses have "subjects." Yet the analogy between the two in its commonly understood form is terribly simplistic. Their facile equation misleads many about the nature of "subject" in both fugue and rhetoric. Just as the thesis of an oration is usually not baldly announced in the first sentence, the thesis of a fugue, if you will, is hardly confined to the unaccompanied "sentence" that opens the composition. The musical "subject" of a fugue can only be but one component of a larger, musico-rhetorical thesis. Other material in the fugal exposition is as important to the development of the work as the titular subject. This idea will become clearer with its detailed treatment in the analysis.

The use of the formal divisions of the rhetorical dispositio adopted here also does not conform to the precepts of Berardi,

action on the mind, to the effort to persuade and to convince. Consequently, the new rhetoric is not part of literature; it is concerned with the effective use of informal reasoning in all fields." (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. "Rhetoric.") Although there is much that is modern-hence new-in the new rhetoric, it is better to think of it as a project that reclaims the provinces of classical, primary rhetoric from the domination of stylistics and literary discourse, and that develops these long impoverished regions with a wealth of new

scholarship. That it must be called the "new" rhetoric testifies to the extent which classical rhetoric has been handed over to literary critics. The pioneering study of new rhetoric is Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, trans. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969).











Schmidt, or Mattheson which Butler relates in his article.29 Dis- positional structure is not to be treated as an independent dimension, but as an expression of the content of the subject. Form and disposition are matched to the needs of a thesis in both music and oratory and are not imposed upon material to fulfill theoretical requirements. Not every oration, nor every fugue, needs to develop according to the predetermined plan. Cicero's Cataline orations, for instance, long favored in the schoolroom for their exciting subject and straightforward language, do not strictly adhere to the sectional requirements of rhetorical theory and even break rules that Cicero himself set.30 Similarly, in the G-minor fugue analyzed in this paper Bach uses neither stretto nor pedal point, even though these two devices are prescribed by many theorists for the confirmatio and conclusio of a fugue.31 The fugal composition, although guided like the oration by a generally useful order of parts, should ultimately be structured by the requirements and peculiarities of its subject, not by a standardized procedure.32

Likewise, the use of figures of speech is different from that of the Figurenlehre theorists such as Burmeister and Bernhard. In

29Butler, "Fugue and Rhetoric," 66-72. 30George Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1972), 175. Kennedy notes that In Catalinem I be-

gins emotionally with a series of impassioned, sarcastic questions addressed to Cataline himself, not to his ostensible audience of senators. "Cicero is not play- ing the role of moderate statesman, calm in crisis, and violates his own injunc- tion . . . against an emotional beginning." (Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric, 179.) The influential Rhetorica ad Herennium, 3.9.17-3.10.18, explicitly states that the arrangement of parts in an oration should be "accommodated to conditions"-in other words, that parts be omitted or extended according to the specific problem the oration addresses. This should be done if the normal

ordering of parts will not secure persuasion, as was the case in Cicero's oration

against Cataline discussed above. 31Butler, "Fugue and Rhetoric," 94-98. 32Later in the history of fugue these devices were required of students, and

thus did in fact supersede the requirements of the subject as the most important factor in fugal composition.


















order to qualify as analytically meaningful, they must satisfactorily answer the questions "For what persuasive purpose?" and "By what means is an effect achieved?" When Kirkendale, demonstrating the origin in forensic rhetoric of certain contrapuntal terms, says that "prosecution lawyers augment the vices and diminish the virtues of a defendant; these arguments may be inverted by the defense ... ,"33 we can easily discern persuasive purpose and infer the means of effect. The purpose is obviously to place a client at an advantage; the means can be any number of statements, testimonies, and characterizations of defendant or plaintiff that affect their standing with jury and judge. In music, answers to these questions greatly depend upon the nature of the subject, the context in which a figure appears, and the degree to which a figure is judged to be an exceptional development in the composition. In other words, thematic augmentation in, for instance, Bach's C-minor fugue in Vol. 2 of The Well-Tempered Clavier might have an entirely different rhetorical meaning and purpose than the augmentation found in the C-major organ fugue, S. 547. Augmentation cannot normally be considered a figure in itself, but it might become so when it creates and contributes towards the persuasive efficacy of the music.

The time-honored Latin and Greek names for the rhetorical figures, though somewhat inappropriate, serve here to draw an analogy between effects that these devices describe in classical rhetoric and similar effects in fugal discourse.34 The descriptions

33Kirkendale, "The Ricercar as Exordium," 38; emphasis in original. 34The original achievements of George Puttenham's TheArt of English Po-

esie (1589) were quite tempting in this matter. Among other innovations, Put- tenham invented vernacular nicknames for the Greek and Latin figures. For

instance, hypallage-invoked in the first sentence of this paper-is called "the

changeling"; metonymia is "the misnamer." Besides bathing the figures in

clear, English waters, Puttenham's neologisms have certain impish characteristics, as if the figures were conceived as linguistic elves who magically added















and definitions of various figures have been drawn primarily from Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero, and Quintilian, the most influential sources in both classical and modem times. The stylistic achievements of secondary rhetoric, however, have not been entirely neglected: later collections, such as Joannes Sus- enbrotus's Epitome troporum ac schematum grammaticorum et rhetoricorum of 1540 and Henry Peacham's The Garden of Elo-

quence of 1577, have provided special effects not described in the sources named above.35

In more than a few cases, calling a musical effect by a Latin- ate term designed for another medium produces a bad fit; ide- ally, an analysis of a musical composition in terms of primary rhetoric should have a set of modified or newly coined figures that it could draw upon. One might justly be accused of putting the cart before the horse by not first defining such a set, but the rhetorical technique that a figure represents is bigger than its name, and it is hoped that the reader, more interested in the results of the analysis than in the nomenclature employed, will indulge this putting the analysis before the theory.

The following rhetorical analysis is thus a study of musical argument, as well as a means of exploring the particular techniques by which this fugue, starting from a lowly state, gradually becomes an eloquent, persuasive, and powerful musical utterance.36

sparkle to plain words. The idea of figures as transformations of ideas is intriguing, and especially suggestive in a musical context.

35Peacham's catalogue of 184 figures is the largest such compendium in the whole corpus of classical rhetoric. Peacham is the major source for Lee A. Son- nino's A Handbook to Sixteenth-Century Rhetoric (London: Routledge and

Kegan Paul, 1968), which, in turn, is Butler's main reference. For Susenbro- tus's treatise, I had available to me only the edition of 1576.

36Eloquent, persuasive, and powerful, that is, in the hands of a skilled performer, for all the rhetorical devices used in the piece are useless if the performer has no sense of how to deliver them effectively.


















ANALYSIS OF THE FUGUE FROM BACH'S TOCCATA, S. 915

STATUS

The first task of the analysis is to determine what causes this fugue to develop as it does. In rhetoric, this is a question of status, or issue.37 What are the problems that the orator means to address and take a stand on? How do these problems determine the strategies used in the oration? In music, one can make a rough analogy to the notion of "compositional problems" that a composer sets out to solve in the piece. Unlike the case in law, where the doctrine of status was originally formulated, a problem or conflict in music is artificial and is created by the composer for solution within the composition. The G-minor fugue under discussion can no more address any legal dispute between two persons than it can any compositional issue unique to, say, the C-minor fugue from Vol. 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Any conflict or status in the G-minor fugue results from material within the fugue itself.


STATUS



STATUS


37A status (Quintilian's translation of the Greek oraotg; also called consti- tutio by Cicero and Auctor ad Herennium) is a conceptualized conflict that gen- erates the need for a persuasive oration and determines its character. For example, the pair "accusation" and "denial" form a status, one that is the basis of many legal disputes. Another familiar legal status comes from the pair "accusation" and "admission, but with extenuating circumstances." In classical rheto- rics, statzs were divided into many categories and subcategories that were determined by the nature of the case and by the evidence. The Rhetorica ad Herennium, 1.11.18-1.15.25, discusses these in detail. See also: Cicero, De In- ventione, 1.8.10-1.13.18; Quintilian Institutio Oratoria, 3.6.6-3.6.104. In music, the search for statas presupposes that a composer sets out to treat and develop various "problems" or tensions in the composition. This view is characteristic (though subtly so) of many stylistic studies, such as Charles Ro- sen's The Classical Style (New York: Norton, 1971). Rosen's discussions of se- rious opera and church music are couched in terms of the problems respectively associated with these genres and the compositional solutions offered by



Example 1 shows the opening entrance of the subject. Two statas are immediately apparent. In keeping with earlier re- marks about the rhetorical perception of a fugal opening, they are presented here in the form of apprehensions on the part of an audience.

* Why is El given such emphasis in the first phrase and then ignored in the second?

* Why is the second phrase so monotonous compared with the first?

These questions deal with two status: reliance upon Eb as opposed to abandonment of El, and "active" phrase as opposed to "static" phrase. They represent created events in the musical composition that give a first impression of structural disunity and irregularity. In order for the fugue to succeed rhetorically, these two statis must be resolved by the application of "arguments," which in musical composition can take the form of harmonic and contrapuntal devices, thematic transformations, manipulations of structure, or other conceits of the composer.









Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Although Rosen here deals with problematic genres and not with specific problems within a piece, the distinction between the two sometimes becomes moot. Speaking of the "problem" of structuring the opening ritornello of a concerto (a problem, incidentally, that he presents in implicitly rhetorical terms), Rosen states that Mozart "solved this problem" in the opening of the Piano Concerto in Eb Major, K. 271. (See Rosen, p. 198, for his understanding of the solution!) David Epstein, inspired by Schoen- berg's Grundgestalt, advances a rather different and more developed version of the idea of compositional issue, a version that seems less contentious than the idea of status: "Musical compositions are, among other things, products of ordered thought-thought structured by concepts, procedures, and modes of reference intrinsic to the medium. Like all manner of ordered thought, compositions are based upon initial ideas from which thinking emanates. These ideas have been referred to in parts of this book as 'premises,' understood in the sense of bases, stated or assumed, upon which reasoning proceeds." (David Epstein, Beyond Orpheus [Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1979], 161.)




Example 1.

e _1 ̂ m3t:i_ [ _Ir[i[

? 9 [r-i

Example 1.

e _1 ̂ m3t:i_ [ _Ir[i[

? 9 [r-i

Example 1.

e _1 ̂ m3t:i_ [ _Ir[i[

? 9 [r-i

Before discussion can turn to these arguments, other status in the subject and its attendant counterpoints should be identified. Since the two already discovered are salient events on the surface of the piece, they should be considered foreground statas. Other statCis not so easily heard can be defined by an examination of structural levels. This project also plumbs the depths of the foreground status, determining thereby both their origins and significance.

Example 2 shows the various harmonic and contrapuntal forces at work in the fugue theme.38 At 2a is shown the basic, two-line frame in which both subject and countersubject work; their structural lines are labeled Y and X respectively. Example 2b adds a new line Z accompanying the other two in a series of

38Example 2 reflects the use of Schenkerian analytic techniques; also borrowed here is Schenker's own method of analyzing a subject at different structural levels from his essay on Bach's C-minor fugue from Vol. 1 of The Well- Tempered Clavier. See Heinrich Schenker, "Die Organische der Fuge aufgezeigt an der I. C-moll-Fuge aus dem Wohltemperierten Klavier von Joh. Seb. Bach," Das Meisterwerk in der Musik 2 (1926), 60-63; trans. Sylvan S. Kalib, "Thirteen Essays from the Three Yearbooks Das Meisterwerk in der Musik by Heinrich Schenker: An Annotated Translation" (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1973), Vol. 2, 246-320. Carl Schachter employs a similar method using Schenker's later, arhythmic notation in "Bach's Fugue in Bb Major, Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, No. XXI," The Music Forum 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), 242. Roger Bullivant flippantly and naively dismisses such an approach, in which all the contrapuntal lines working with the subject are considered simultaneously with the subject (the "harmonic background," in the words of Ebenezer Prout), by stating: "The whole idea of anything 'implied' in music is of course complete nonsense. The ear hears what it hears, and if no harmony is present, no harmony is present and that is that." (Bullivant, Fugue, 182.) The reader is left to judge during the course of discussion how much nonsense results from Example 2.







ascending 5-6 syncopes. At m. 3, the lower neighbor notes force a break in the series, making El a suspended seventh that resolves downwards on the second beat. With the addition of line Z the entire harmonic and contrapuntal support for the subject is represented. So far, the three-line background conforms to a strict-style contrapuntal structure that is basic, unadorned, and non-rhetorical. No statCis have yet emerged, since the structure represented in Example 2b shows a set of controlled and regular tonal relationships adhering to the norms of strict, three-part counterpoint.39

It is in Example 2c that statiis appear; these result from licenses and from manipulation of the structure for artistic purposes. Line X is diminuted into a rising chromatic line spanning the fourth D-G. Later, line X splits into upper and lower strands by means of an octave leap at the end of m. 2. Maintain- ing the voice leading of Examples la and lb, the upper strand continues to F# in the following measure, while the lower strand moves to A in m. 3, appropriates that note from line Y, and turns it into a passing note to Bk. Because of this annexation, line Y is now broken off at m. 3.

At Example 2d, the shape of the subject begins to emerge from lines Y and Z. Line Z, which in the previous two examples had completely overlapped line Y, is now cut away on the first

39The only differences that distinguish Example 2b from an exercise in species counterpoint are note values, which would be twice as long in an exercise, and the voice crossing found at the beginning of the progression; line Y begins over line Z, but subsequently crosses underneath it. For an example and discussion of this progression as strict counterpoint, see Heinrich Schenker, Kon- trapunkt, 2 vols. (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1922), 2:111; trans. John Rothgeb and Jurgen Thym as Counterpoint, 2 vols. (New York: Schirmer Books, 1987), Vol. 2,112.









12 Music Theory Spectrum

Example 2.

3rd progression (n.n.)

X 4th progression

(b) :b f + 7 + +J l7> + I z

(c) *b r r r '

(d) F i f T r if r I

3rd progression

(e) ):-

4th progression- -

3rd progression

(f) (9 bW ( A T

qb^1 TirT 1 7 r <n~~~~~~~~~~~b wv?-

goI^ ^ OR


Example 2.


X 4th progression

(b) :b f + 7 + +J l7> + I z

(c) *b r r r '


3rd progression

(e) ):-

4th progression- -

3rd progression

(f) (9 bW ( A T

qb^1 TirT 1 7 r <n~~~~~~~~~~~b wv?-

goI^ ^ OR


Example 2.


X 4th progression

(b) :b f + 7 + +J l7> + I z

(c) *b r r r '


3rd progression

(e) ):-

4th progression- -

3rd progression

(f) (9 bW ( A T

qb^1 TirT 1 7 r <n~~~~~~~~~~~b wv?-

goI^ ^ OR


and third beats of mm. 1-2 to reveal line Y working underneath it. In m. 3, line Z is further pruned when the suspended El is left dramatically unresolved.40 The entrance of F# on the second beat-the beat in which El, should resolve-creates in the foreground a descending leap of a diminished seventh. The unresolved suspension and the resulting dissonant leap, along with the annexation of line Y, force the subject and countersubject to extend beyond m. 3 at the foreground in order to deal with the consequences of licenses introduced there. This extension creates the unusual consequent phrase first noticed in connection with Example 1, shown also in Example 2f. The role of this phrase will be discussed in detail later in the paper when musical arguments are analyzed.

The foreground structure of the subject and countersubject is shown in Example 2e using analytic notation. An octave coupling in m. 2 divides line X (the countersubject) into two linear progressions. The first of these, a fourth progression D-G, has been transferred intact through the structural levels with the important addition of chromatic passing notes. The second linear motion is a third progression (G2-A2-B,2) that first appeared when line X was split as shown in Example 2c. Signi- ficantly, this progression reprises the ascending third G-A-Bl, of line Y; this intermingling of voice leadings will prove to be an important feature of the fugue.

The subject, as was discovered in Example 2d, is a com- pound of lines Y and Z. It still contains the third progression of

40One could conceivably invoke Christoph Bernhard's figure of syncopatio catachrestica (a suspension that receives unusual treatment) for this striking event. See Bernhard, Tractatus compositionis augmentatus, Walter Hilse trans. in "The Treatises of Christoph Bernhard," in The Music Forum (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), 102. However, the analysis to this point does not yet deal with the notated music of the fugue, only with the structures that support its subject. The invocation of a rhetorical figure here, before the statas used in the composition of the piece have been located, would be premature.









line Y, but it is also accompanied by a shadow in upper parallel fourths made from the remnants of line Z. Unlike line Y, which departs from the initial G, this shadow line progresses towards El as the point of arrival. El is thus surrounded by special treatment; not only is it prolonged by an ascent, but it is also left unresolved when dissonant-creating, so to speak, a voice-leading "crevasse."

Structural analysis of the subject presented in Example 2 has revealed various stattis originating at different levels of structure. To summarize:

1. The 5-8 tetrachord is chromaticized (status: diatonic as opposed to chromatic; Ex. 2c).

2. Normal voice leading is abandoned in m. 3 (status: norm as opposed to license; Ex. 2c).

3. The subject emerges by means of alternating voice- leading strands (status: line Y as opposed to line Z; Ex. 2d).

4. El is left unresolved in m. 3 (status: reliance as opposed to abandonment; Ex. 2d).

5. A consequent phrase of peculiar immobility is created (status: active as opposed to static; Ex. 2f).

From the list of statis above, one can see that many status work to reinforce and isolate a motivic D-El. As seen in Example 3, this motive works in both subject and countersubject at many levels of structure. Example 3a shows the deepest structural occurrence, highlighting the opening motion of line X as represented in Example 2a. The addition of line Z to the two-voice framework also affords another opportunity for expression of the motive, shown in Example 3b. Here, Eb is the apex of line Z, prohibited from further ascent by its dissonance with the lower parts. Just below the foreground structure, this Eb of line Z forms an upper neighbor to the opening D of line Y, as illustrated in Example 3c. Finally, the D-Eb found in line X re-


















Example 3.

(a) 1 l _ (b) 7iJ# _ (~. (ci)

'~

F )" I-|()T (a) I 0IL

-

91-l v 1: 6 1 11I' 1ld I

Example 3.

(a) 1 l _ (b) 7iJ# _ (~. (ci)

'~

F )" I-|()T (a) I 0IL

-

91-l v 1: 6 1 11I' 1ld I

Example 3.

(a) 1 l _ (b) 7iJ# _ (~. (ci)

'~

F )" I-|()T (a) I 0IL

-

91-l v 1: 6 1 11I' 1ld I

ceives expression at the immediate foreground by means of the lower-neighbor figuration used for the countersubject (Ex. 3d).

In the manipulation of the various lines to produce the status discussed above, an additional, curious, perhaps chimerical status can be discerned. The transference of the ascending third progression to a lower voice (documented in Ex. 2e) piques one's interest as to whether the contrapuntal accompaniment is similar to the version in line Y, mm. 1-2, where it is in the middle voice. The support in the first two measures is by parallel lower thirds, illustrated in Example 4a with interpolated chromatic passing notes. In mm. 2-3, when the third progression is in the lower voice (Ex. 4b), the support starts in parallel upper sixths, a double counterpoint at the fifteenth, but the use of





Example 4.

(a) I- IJ (b)J i I

Example 4.

(a) I- IJ (b)J i I

Example 4.

(a) I- IJ (b)J i I n:.~i J aW, rt , ff IIJ ' n:.~i J aW, rt , ff IIJ ' n:.~i J aW, rt , ff IIJ '

aug. 2nd

1.l

aug. 2nd

1.l

aug. 2nd

1.l

~-I rI+l- [-r

both EN and F# without the mediating chromatics-resulting from the manipulation of voice leadings in m. 3-forces the third progression to support a descending leap of a diminished seventh to avoid an augmented second. From this, another status can be deduced:

6. Only line X can span the tetrachord 3-8; other lines are blocked (status: line X as opposed to lines Y and Z).

~-I rI+l- [-r



~-I rI+l- [-r



The reader may have noticed that of the six status discussed above, only two-those framed initially as apprehensions-are immediately perceived by an audience at the beginning of the fugue. The rest either become apparent during the course of the exposition, as is the case with the chromaticization of the S-8 tetrachord, or do not ever become audibly apparent. These subtler statuis are known only by the arguments or solutions used to handle them, not by direct statement in themselves. It is important to remember that status is an abstraction, a conceptualiza- tion of a conflict or issue that is meant to help determine lines of argument.

After identifying status, the rhetorical analysis of the fugue then concentrates on uncovering solutions. Since the persuasive power of the fugue rests in convincing an audience that the problems posed by the various statCs can be overcome, the deployment of arguments that treat the status is the most important rhetorical task of the composer. The analysis of the fugue will now proceed in rhetorical stages, borrowing the dispositional scheme of classical rhetoric.41 This kind of analysis will allow arguments to be placed more easily in relationship with each other and in relationship to the fugue as a whole.

41Particularly relevant are parts of the dispositional scheme of the extremely influential Rhetorica ad Herennium as presented in 1.3.4. Butler (pp. 69-71) presents some variants on this scheme that, while interesting and suggestive, deviate significantly from the convention represented in Rhetorica ad Herennium, a convention that was the basis of all later dispositional schemes.








NARRATIO

Exposition: Measures 1-21

The traditional understanding of the prelude as exordium motivates analysis of this exposition as the correspondent to the rhetorical narratio.42 Figure 1 shows the thematic structure of the exposition. "S" and "A" indicate subject and answer re-

spectively; "C" indicates countersubject; and "Ro" indicates a

special thematic unit that will be discussed in full below. As the

figure shows, the exposition links its three thematic members into a single, large thematic unit: S/A-C-Ro.43 Although the thematic entry in m. 13 is incomplete in this respect, it nonetheless continues beyond the statement of the answer-which in itself would be sufficient to satisfy the protocols of the fugal exposition-to include also the countersubject, accompanied by an additional entry of the subject in a middle voice. This extension, along with the extensions by the other thematic entries to include both C and Ro, binds the subject and countersubject together in such a way that the latter might profitably be called the "continuation of the subject."44 This designation, by blur-

42According to Butler, "... the introductory and preparatory function of the exordium was invariably the province of the preludial composition which in most cases immediately precedes the fugue proper .. ." ("Fugue and Rheto- ric," 105, n. 94.) This is a reasonable statement. Certainly in the present case the music preceding the fugue is preludial and preparatory in character, involv-

ing four sections of differing tempo, figurational pattern, and style. Moreover, this music is quite clearly the junior partner of the composition, for it is roughly only half as long as the fugue, and only half as interesting besides. (The score can be found in Vol. 36 of the Bach-Gesellschaft edition, 57-62.)

43These thematic shorthands will be used throughout. For thematic presentations outside the exposition, designation of the main fugal theme by "S/A" will avoid any confusion that might arise from using the term "subject" in two different senses, one tonally specific and the other generic. (Bullivant discusses this issue in Fugue, 32, n. 12.)

44Bullivant states that in place of the term "countersubject," "some teach- ers use the term continuation of the first part against the first answer .. ." and cites some examples in which the countersubject, as in the present case, continues the subject without interruption. (Bullivant, Fugue, 74-75.)

NARRATIO










NARRATIO










Figure 1.

m. 1 5 9 13 17

(A C

(A C R S S

Figure 1.

m. 1 5 9 13 17

(A C

(A C R S S

Figure 1.

m. 1 5 9 13 17

(A C

(A C R S S

Ro0)

?S C R)

Ro0)

?S C R)

Ro0)

?S C R)

ring the distinction between theme and countersubject, emphasizes the unitary nature of the thematic members, and it suggests that the rhetorical thesis of the fugue is not the province of the subject alone, but rather that of the S/A-C-R complex. In this light, the work done in Example 2 takes on new meaning; the three voice-leading lines X, Y, and Z enjoy not only a verti- cal relationship as represented in the example, but also a hori- zontal relationship manifested in the exposition.

So far, little has been said about the theme R. R is essentially the collection of any notes in a thematic presentation that be- long neither to S/A nor to C-in other words, the "residue" notes. Unlike S/A and C, R has no regular sequence of pitches. Since X, Y, and Z are already incorporated in the two thematic members S/A and C, R is required neither to add missing voice leadings nor to add crucial chord tones that modify harmony projected by S/A and C. Despite the variability of R, three re- curring and rhythmically constant versions can be analyzed: Ro, R1, and R2. Figure 2 shows the rhythm of these versions of R in comparison to that of S/A and C. The arrows from R1 and R2 show where these versions connect with the rhythm of Ro. Ro, the version found in the exposition, is rhythmically identical to S/A in the antecedent phrase, except for the parenthesized vari- ant in m. 3, but takes on a new and distinct pattern in the consequent. (The two other versions of R will be discussed later.)

The informal pitch design of Ro allows it to play different roles and address different status in the fugue. The pitches of Ro







(S C_F' (S C_F' (S C_F'


Figure 2. Figure 2. Figure 2.

v . J:^r J.7.r.:JT mmm mrrnmm v . J:^r J.7.r.:JT mmm mrrnmm v . J:^r J.7.r.:JT mmm mrrnmm

y ?:. 7 . 47

V. V.~~~~

y ?:. 7 . 47

V. V.~~~~

y ?:. 7 . 47

V. V.~~~~

Ro X 7- J. 3J. 3

R. ̂ ^ 7- J

Ro X 7- J. 3J. 3

R. ̂ ^ 7- J

Ro X 7- J. 3J. 3

R. ̂ ^ 7- J

R2 - R2 - R2 - r r r

J. J, . 3J. : 3J. A

J v. J- j .7

J. J, . 3J. : 3J. A

J v. J- j .7

J. J, . 3J. : 3J. A

J v. J- j .7

found in m. 9, by using notes left out of the construction of lines Z and Y (shown in Ex. 2c), draw attention to the "line Y as opposed to line Z" status. The technique by which this is accom- plished is shown in Example 5, which isolates the two lower parts of mm. 9-10. S, expressed in the lower voice, alternates between notes of lines Y and Z, as shown in Example 2c. Ro here also alternates between these two voice-leading lines, but in opposite sequence. That is, when S takes notes from line Y, Ro takes notes from line Z, and vice versa. Example 5 indicates this relationship with arrows that trace the progress of these two voice-leading lines through both thematic members.

Ro completes the harmony of the passage and counterpoises S with notes that are, after a fashion, the complement of S. Rhe- torically, Ro in this case exposes the "line Y as opposed to line Z" status by mediating between the two lines, filling lacunae left by the construction of S. Moreover, Ro further exposes the status by reproducing the notes as well as the rhythm of S, creating by accident a stretto per arsin et thesin. This relationship is





Example 5.

z

, y^JtT].^7 uppervoice=R

,J > Y .b [ :: r . = [: : ~lowervoice =S

shown in Example 5 by brackets enclosing the relevant portions of both thematic members.

The remaining versions of Ro in the exposition adhere to the rhythmic configuration shown in Figure 2, but each has a different collection of pitch relationships. In the thematic entrance of m. 13, Ro is initially played out in the two middle voices during the antecedent, and then reduced to one voice in the consequent once the textural requirements of the exposition are satisfied-that is, once Bach has indicated that the fugue will be

Example 5.

z





Example 5.

z





S/A

C

S/A

C

S/A

C

(J. s)Â

(2 -.

(J. s)Â

(2 -.

(J. s)Â

(2 -.

-7 ~n -7 ~n -7 ~n

J. J. J. J. J. J.


in four voices. Again, the rhythm of Ro is constant even though Ro is partially presented in two voices.

For the final expositional entrance at m. 17, Ro helps project a series of uninterrupted 5 chords, taking advantage of its position in the bass to free itself from the voice-leading strictures of Example 2.45 Significantly, this version of Ro traverses an ascending third C-D-ES,, magnifying this same progression of notes expressed in the upper, "shadow" line S/A. While still ex- posing the status "line Y as opposed to line Z," Ro here offers a method different from that of "mediation" used in the entrance of m. 9, favoring line Z at the expense of line Y. In addition, Ro here also faithfully reproduces the voice-leading crevasse between El[ and F# that characterizes line Z (mm. 18-19). The rhetorical function of Ro in the exposition is thus to expose the status concerning lines Y and Z, thereby drawing attention to the construction of the subject.

Riverso: Measures 21-29

As mentioned earlier, the exposition of a fugue has an elaborate protocol that induces tension and apprehension in the mind of the listener. The material immediately following the exposition thus has an important rhetorical function to perform: being the first freely structured section of the piece-in the sense that no protocol determines its format-it can begin the process of overcoming the statis presented in the exposition and can set the direction for what is to follow.

In the Toccata S. 915, the exposition of the fugue is suc- ceeded by a remarkable counterexposition that, in addition to maintaining the tonic/dominant alternation between subject and answer, contains inverted forms of the subject and countersubject. In one manuscript copy and in the Bach-Gesellschaft











45Were this version of Ro placed in an inner voice, faulty and inelegant 6

chords on strong beats would result. 45Were this version of Ro placed in an inner voice, faulty and inelegant 6

chords on strong beats would result. 45Were this version of Ro placed in an inner voice, faulty and inelegant 6

chords on strong beats would result.

edition, the inversion is expressly indicated by the word "riverso" in the score at m. 21.46 Several features of this section, including the presence of inversion, give the counterexposition unusual structural and rhetorical properties, properties that to some extent do not bring about the expected relaxation of protocol but rather extend and supplement the elaborate relationships created in the exposition.

A strong and clear cadential boundary on the downbeat of m. 21 separates the counterexposition from the preceding section. This boundary is further marked by a paring of texture and a contraction of register following the cadence. (A sensitive performer might change manuals here to reinforce the sense of boundary.) Such demarcation is unusual compared with Bach's normal handling of a counterexposition, in which the additional entries are fitted seamlessly into the texture and character established in the exposition, the possible intervention of an episode notwithstanding. Both the cadential boundary and the thinned texture isolate the counterexposition, helping to give it a new and unaccustomed role: to contest, rather than expand, the exposition. That the counterexposition uses inversion further strengthens its role as competitor. It does not simply replay the same thematic material; rather, it presents what seems to be a radically different view of this material.

Upon close inspection, however, this view turns out to have many features in common with that afforded by the recto. As Example 6a shows, recto and riverso forms of the subject share three pairs of invariant dyads in their antecedent phrases. This remarkable relationship results both from axial inversion

46The term counterexposition is used here as defined by Prout: an additional set of thematic entries in the tonic key area that follows the exposition immediately. Prout notices that the answer, or the dominant form of the theme, fre-

quently leads and the subject replies, a principle illustrated in the fugue under discussion. (Ebenezer Prout, Fugue [London: Augener & Co., 1893], 89 [section 207].)












Example 6.

(a)

Example 6.

(a)

Example 6.

(a)

recto

riverso

recto

riverso

recto

riverso

(b) (b) (b)

, O , , - a d ? a

\^n I - -- dP .p 0

- - axis| retrograde

:V . , p tv IIV " 't

axis

, O , , - a d ? a

\^n I - -- dP .p 0



axis

, O , , - a d ? a

\^n I - -- dP .p 0



axis

around 3 and from structural peculiarities of the theme itself. The first two dyads of the theme (5-i and 4-2) are symmetrical around 3, as is the dyad , 6-] P found at the end of the antecedent. When inverted about 3, these dyads exchange positions: i into 5 and S into i, 4 into 2 and 2 into 4, and so forth.

The dyadic exchange discussed here, created by an accident of inversion, is given more substantial existence elsewhere in the counterexposition. In the thematic entry at m. 26, the pitch structure of the top voice, which contains the thematic member Ro, is generated by a series of dyadic exchanges with the riverso theme in the middle voice. Dyadic exchange is thereby liberated from its adventitious relationship to thematic inversion, allowing it to become an independent and possibly significant force in the fugue. Another feature that the recto and riverso have in common is shown in Example 6b. The recto and riverso are related by a partial retrogression. This relationship complements and strengthens the effects of the dyadic exchange, tying the two versions of the fugue theme together with an additional unifying force. Taken separately, each of the three forces- inversion, dyadic exchange, retrogression-is sufficient to create a meaningful thematic relationship. Taken together, the three establish a profound bond between the two elemental versions of the fugue theme.

In sum, the exposition and counterexposition enjoy a dynamic relationship in which forces separating the two sections in







the structural dimension are opposed by forces binding them together in the pitch dimension. This dynamic relationship gives the counterexposition rich and complex rhetorical meanings. The subjoining of the counterexposition and its quasi- expositional protocol to the exposition, despite the unusually clear seam between the two sections, indicates that the counterexposition extends the rhetorical narratio even while introducing elements that seem to contradict previous material. This extension suggests that a strategy of argument by contraries might be used in the fugue. This strategy-what rhetoricians call a "topic"-is only suggested and not actually developed in the counterexposition; for the musical oration is still in its opening stages and is thus not yet ready to offer closely reasoned argument, a function that is the province of the following sections.

This unusual treatment of rhetorical structure multiplies the difficulties the fugue has in persuading its audience. The appearance of inversion so soon in the working-out of the fugue is alarming; a "heralded" inversion of this type is usually a culmi- nation of rhetorical development, not a starting point.47 The rhetorical effect of such a "premature" inversion is powerful; by depriving himself of a valuable device for climax, Bach greatly increases the apprehensions of an audience: either the fugue will fail to persuade because of injudicious deployment of argument, or it will succeed spectacularly because of some marvel- ous device yet to be revealed.

Almost forgotten amid the questions surrounding the structural and dispositional qualities of counterexposition is the rea-

47A thematic inversion is heralded when it is designed to be clearly heard and noticed. It is usually placed at an important structural point, isolated-as is the case in the fugue under discussion-by register or texture, and meant to solidify musical argument. By contrast, an "unheralded" inversion is a hidden, subtle, and almost prosaic event having no obvious rhetorical impact. In the D- minor fugue from Vol. 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier, for instance, the "unheralded" inversion at m. 14 is placed in the middle of a recto thematic entry and hidden in the middle voice.










son for the very use of inversion. Effect aside, what makes inversion an appropriate device for this fugue? To what statas

might it relate? Appropriately, this dramatic wrenching of musical material addresses a status as fundamental as the inversion is striking: the chromaticization of the 3-8 tetrachord. Al- though this chromatic tetrachord is a common occurrence in minor-mode pieces of the Baroque era, rarely is it found in an

ascending form. By far its most representative use is in descending motions from 8 to S, where countless examples come to mind. Ascending chromatic tetrachords are not unknown, but they usually span i-4 and, moreover, are characteristic of pieces in the major mode. Thus, Bach deals with this status not by "de-chromaticizing" the line, but by "normalizing" it, by arranging it so that its direction conforms to custom. The argument by contraries suggested by the counterexposition is addressed specifically to this status. Again, because the counterexposition extends the narratio and hence presents material to be examined further, it is an argument that is here only suggested, not developed. But the placing of this suggestion in the narratio amounts to a promise that argument by contraries will play an important and far-reaching role in the rhetorical growth of the fugue.







the rhetorical divisio and the music following fugal exposition and counterexposition are not as clear, since in both cases the structure of the section is determined by the content of the narratio. In a divisio, the issues to be addressed are "briefly established point by point." Lines of argument are laid out, and their direction of development is made clear.49 This description is certainly accurate for the G-minor fugue, for the music following the counterexposition offers clear and cogent developments of the material introduced in the narratio. Expositional protocol no longer controls the flow of information; the fugue loses its preparatory character and takes on one more studied, forceful, and inexorably logical.

First Episode: Measures 30-32

The narratio ends at m. 30 with the appearance of the first episode. This episode isolates the expositional sections from the remainder of the fugue. It flows neatly from the previous material, maintaining both the three-voiced texture and the insistent jig rhythms. This episode, like others in the fugue, is transitional: it relieves the intense exploration of the thematic members and prepares the listener for new developments-the musical equivalent of the often heard "Let us now turn our attention to . . ." used to demarcate sections of verbal discourse.







DIVISIO DIVISIO DIVISIO

The similarities between rhetorical narratio and fugal exposition can be easily understood: both deal with statements of elemental facts governing the discourse, and both present these statements in brief, clear, and plausible formats, gathering the essential information into a single sectional unit that adheres to certain chronological conventions.48 The similarities between



Antithesis: Measures 32-40

The Auctor ad Herennium writes that "contraries can be registered through antithesis."50 Thus, the topic of contraries, suggested in the counterexposition, is in mm. 32-40 given substance and developed antithetically by the juxtaposition of the





48Rhetorica ad Herennium, 1.9.14-16; also Cicero, De Inventione, 1.20.28- 48Rhetorica ad Herennium, 1.9.14-16; also Cicero, De Inventione, 1.20.28- 48Rhetorica ad Herennium, 1.9.14-16; also Cicero, De Inventione, 1.20.28- 29. 29. 29.

49Cicero, De Inventione, 1.22.31. 50Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.45.58. 49Cicero, De Inventione, 1.22.31. 50Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.45.58. 49Cicero, De Inventione, 1.22.31. 50Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.45.58.


recto and riverso forms of the theme. The technical term "antithesis" is not entirely felicitous, for it is a favorite of the musical rhetoricians cited in Butler's article, hence is freighted with conflicting definitions. To some, antithesis is manifested in the relationship between subject and countersubject; to others, antithesis comes about when dissonance is used instead of an an- ticipated consonance.51 The antithesis identified in the present case conforms to neither of these two definitions, but instead describes the adjoining of related yet contrasting musical ideas. To be sure, the word can describe a variety of situations, but its use here is meant to recapture its sense as a figure of thought, as opposed to its more common form-represented in the first definition above-as a figure of speech. "A figure of thought derives a certain distinction from the idea, not from the words."52

Thematically, the antithesis consists of a riverso in mm. 32- 36 followed immediately by a recto in mm. 36-40. These two statements are framed by episodes preceding the riverso and following the recto, which, by isolating the two elements of the antithesis, focus the listener's attention on the comparison being made. The antithesis constructed in these measures, however, contains more than this thematic contrast; other musical elements-specifically, register and spacing-are also brought into play antithetically to heighten and secure the effect of the figure.

In the riverso, register is high and spacing tight. The lowest voice, notated in treble clef, extends downwards only to G3; the tessitura lies around C4. This is an unusually high register for the lowest of three voices in a keyboard piece. Indeed, in only one other place in the fugue is the register so consistently high. The registral height of the riverso is emphasized by the unrelent- ing downward motion of the episode preceding, which reaches

51See the entry under "Antithesis, Antitheton" in Bartel, Handbuch der musikalischen Figurenlehre, 99-102. Butler (87-92) glosses many of the same passages cited in Bartel.

52Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.13.18.











its nadir on a D2 immediately before the riverso. Although the lowest voice of the riverso is quite high, the upper voices are not in unusual ranges, which means that very little registral space separates the voices. Indeed, the span between the highest and lowest notes in the riverso is only a thirteenth, and the normal space between the outer voices-the most common harmonic interval-is a sixth. By contrast, the registral space of the following recto is quite wide; the largest span between outer voices is a 29th, the normal space a seventeenth. This remarkable change in the width of register is due to the entrance of the recto subject in the second octave, the lowest position used in the fugue. The reactivation of this register after 19 measures of only sporadic use (it was last heard in mm. 15-17) pulls the center of register downward, creating a tessitura lower than that of the riverso.

The antithesis expressed in mm. 32-40 thus contains three linked elements: the riverso is associated with high tessitura and narrow registral width, while the recto is associated with comparatively low tessitura and an expansive registral width. A performer could introduce yet another element of antithesis by using a second manual with a light 8' stop for the riverso, and then going to the primary manual with a stronger 8' for the recto, perhaps even using a 16' to underscore the difference in tessitura.

Of the two questions asked of rhetorical figures (see p. 9), that which is concerned with the achievement of effect has been answered satisfactorily above. The question about persuasive purpose has, at this point, a more speculative answer, for not enough arguments of the fugue have been revealed to propose anything more certain. Nevertheless, it is clear both from the extraordinary introduction of thematic inversion in the counterexposition and from the unambiguous antithesis of mm. 32-40 that the recto and riverso forms are to be used to play off each other, to probe and prove their respective qualities, advantages, and worth. First suggested by unusual features in the counterexposition, the competition between these two thematic forms definitively established here is a critically important








means of securing rhetorical success for the fugue; for where there is competition, there is excitement and, therefore, interest.

Advances are made in other areas of argument in mm. 32-40 as well. Dyadic exchange, a relationship that was originally manifested between recto and riverso forms of S/A and that was also found to affect the construction of the inverted form of Ro from S/A, is given a dramatically vivid expression in mm. 32- 33. Here the exchange uses not just the same pitch classes, as was the case in mm. 26-27, but the very same pitches, producing a literal voice exchange that obliterates the outline and con- tour of both S/A and Ro. This exchange develops the strategy of normalizing the chromatic tetrachord, creating the most common form by which the descending chromatic tetrachord and its standard accompaniment are known: the tetrachord is in the lowest voice supporting a series of descending parallel 6 chords above it. Because of the voice exchange, the typical parallel motion of the accompaniment is emphasized, whereas in an earlier presentation in mm. 26-27 the sense of thematic identity over- rode the clear perception of parallel 6 chords, obscuring the relationship of the descending tetrachord to its accompaniment.

Incrementum: Measures 42-67

A short episode of two measures separates the antithesis of mm. 32-40 from the next section, which, because of the cleverly timed unveilings of topics in the relatively short space of 25 bars, can be likened to the figure incrementum: a series of phrases in which each is felt to be rhetorically stronger than the last.53 The phrases here consist entirely of thematic entries, both recto and

53Incrementum, according to Quintilian, is a means of amplifying a discourse by arranging ideas in ascending order of rhetorical impact. The image Quintilian uses is of a gradual climbing by steps. (Quintilian, Institutio Orato- ria, 8.4.3-9.)











riverso. The source of increasing rhetorical strength in this section is the rapid deployment of arguments that deal with almost all the statis associated with the subject, a deployment not careful and slow, but overwhelming and explosive. The development of the fugue, which was originally restricted by the de- mands of exposition and counterexposition, then carefully structured and controlled by the coordination of elements required to make the antithesis of mm. 32-40 effective, here progresses with unrestrained purpose and vigor.

The incrementum begins with a striking treatment of the riverso in which Ro, taking advantage of its placement in the bass as it did in mm. 17-19, harmonizes the riverso in a way quite unlike any other encountered so far. Whereas previous versions of the riverso rely upon the "normal" harmonization of the descending chromatic tetrachord by parallel 6 chords, the harmonization presented in mm. 42-44 uses a series of 5 chords, an exceptional treatment of this standard voice-leading structure which creates a novel and exciting effect. Bach has shown that the strategy of normalizing the tetrachord by means of the riverso deftly handles the corresponding status; he now expands the function of the riverso by allowing it to take on unusual features of its own.

Example 7.

n J ;1_ . , -j'fo*<z' I



Example 7.

n J ;1_ . , -j'fo*<z' I



Example 7.

n J ;1_ . , -j'fo*<z' I

mm. 42-44 mm. 42-44 mm. 42-44

e

44-46 extension, m. 46 e

44-46 extension, m. 46 e

44-46 extension, m. 46

The next device that increases rhetorical strength is the cadential extension in m. 46. As Example 7 shows, this extension fills in the conspicuous voice-leading gap separating the antecedent and consequent phrases of the theme. Although first analyzed in the recto version of the theme, this crevasse separating the two phrases is just as wide and just as disturbing in riverso.




Indeed, the crevasse might even be said to be more treacherous in this case since it is the leading tone 4 that is left unresolved, not the comparatively less urgent 6 found in the recto. This extension addresses the status concerning the abandoned note at the end of the antecedent in m. 44; the topic used is "fill the intervallic gap."54 Notice that this topic is not addressed to the original litigants, as it were, of the status, that is, to Eb (6 of G minor) and the recto antecedent, but to surrogates, appearing in connection with the riverso in D minor. Furthermore, the fill is not placed between the two phrases, but after the consequent of mm. 44-46. Again, Bach's ingenious technique of suggesting arguments before actually deploying them, of teasing the listener with solutions separated from their applications, is used to good effect; the anticipation that this technique produces of a proper and satisfying application is a potent source of musical interest and persuasion.

The addition of the one-measure extension shifts the following recto entrance to the fourth beat of m. 46, the first time that a thematic entrance has begun on any but the second beat. This shift, by disturbing the regular placement of the theme, becomes yet another addition to the development of the incrementum in this section. The recto entrance at m. 46 introduces a new version of R, which was labeled R1 in Figure 2. R1 is a transformation of Ro in which rhythmic elements belonging to the con-

54This strategy is so common in tonal music that it might be called a common topic (commonplace, locus communis), insofar as it can be applied to a variety of musical situations. This is not the only topic available for this status; consider another that could be applied in the present case: "use as intervallic motive." The diminished seventh Eb-FO would be treated as a motive to be transposed, inverted, sequenced, and so forth, but not filled. (See, for example, use of this topic in connection with this very interval in the Orgelbuchlein chorale prelude "Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt," S. 637). The point of this digression is to show that a topic is not a specific argument, but rather a generic line of argument. "Fill the gap" can work as a topic for many compositions, but it takes a unique form as an argument in the G-minor fugue to accom- modate the specific conditions of this composition.







sequent phrase are placed in the antecedent. R1 can thus be thought of as a traductio of Ro, defined here as a persistent use of the same musical "word" within a phrase-in this case, the characteristic rhythmic figure of the consequent.55 The purpose of traductio here is to address the status concerning the overall relationship of antecedent and consequent by blurring the distinction between the phrases of Ro, affecting by implication the relationship between the antecedent and consequent of S/A; traductio is thus an indirect means of unifying the two phrases. Granted, the unification here is certainly weak, involving only a partial transformation of a subsidiary thematic member; but a suggestive line of argument has been opened nonetheless, one that will be developed with further and more comprehensive application.

As in the previous thematic entrance, a cadential extension is added to the end of the recto that fills the crevasse between antecedent and consequent. Also as in the previous entrance, this fill is placed after the consequent; yet, compared to that in m. 46, the extension in m. 50 rushes in a beat earlier and has no decorating diminutions, adding thereby its mite towards the building of the incrementum. Moreover, this extension-again like its predecessor in m. 46-pushes the following thematic entrance off the expected metric position, shifting it from the fourth beat back to the second with the help of a half-measure modulating connector (m. 51). The cadential extension in m. 50 contains important information about the way in which Bach manipulates the topic of "fill the gap." As shown in Example 8, the same descending span A-D is used in m. 50 as was used in m. 46, although the foreground register, rhythm, and diminu- tion of the two are quite different. The same descending motion is thus put in service of both riverso and recto, an assign- ment made particularly noticeable by consecutive presentations of both thematic forms in the same key of D minor.





55Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.14.20. 55Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.14.20. 55Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.14.20.


Example 8. Example 8. Example 8.

extension, m. 50

A salient characteristic of the thematic presentation in mm. 46-50 is the unusually low center of register coupled with a narrow registral width; the highest note of the passage is A4 (reached only in the cadential extension) and the span between the highest and lowest notes is a nineteenth (A4-D2). The compression of registral width in this passage is reminiscent of mm. 32-36, but the narrow registral band found here is located at the other end of the spectrum with respect to the earlier measures. As will be seen shortly, the low register of these bars is a starting point of a gradual ascent in register, an ascent timed to climax at the end of the incrementum-yet another contribution to the successful effect of the rhetorical figure.

Unexpectedly, another recto presentation occurs in mm. 51- 55, the first time since m. 32 that two of the same thematic forms have directly followed one another. Doing its part to develop the incrementum, this presentation has both a higher center of register (El 5-A2) and a more complete traductio of R0- labeled R2 in Figure 2-that does away with any rhythmic distinction whatsoever between antecedent and consequent forms of R.

By a gradual transformation through R1 and R2, the rhythmic theme R has become a significant unifying force, replacing the distinct division of the antecedent and consequent phrases with a single rhythmic structure that, with the help of the other single rhythmic structure, C, partly resolves the status concerning the relationship of antecedent and consequent ("active as opposed to static"; see p. 13). Significantly, no cadential exten-

extension, m. 50




extension, m. 50




sion is added to the recto presentation of mm. 51-55. Bach does not yet want to fill that special crevasse separating Eb and Ft, for these two notes are extraordinarily sensitive, being the original litigants of the status. To be sure, they will receive special treatment along the lines already afforded to their surrogates, but such treatment, which would conclusively resolve the status, is to be delayed until other arguments come into play.

The thematic entrance in mm. 55-59-the third recto presentation in a row-advances an ingenious and powerful development of the "fill-the-gap" argument already deployed. In order to emphasize this development, Bach significantly alters the rhythmic and pitch functions of R, shortening its length and having it support a new harmonization of S/A and C. When this shortened R drops out in m. 56, the texture thins to two voices, a texture not heard in a thematic presentation since the beginning of the counterexposition in m. 21.

Now occupying the center of attention, the two voices carry- ing the thematic members S/A and C temporarily exchange these members using double counterpoint at the octave. This technique is illustrated in Example 9a, where brackets enclose the thematic content of each voice. The voice-leading twine resulting from this exchange has two purposes. First, as can be seen in the sketch of the lower-voice structure in Example 9b, the substitution of a portion of C for a portion of S/A enables the crevasse between a local 6 8 and # 1 to be filled for the first time within the consequent phrase itself, not after it as was previously done. Second, the specific technique used here directly addresses the status concerning the immobility of the consequent phrase by simply "mobilizing" it, by replacing some of the pitches responsible for its condition with others that are relatively more active.

This twining of thematic members thus completes the unification of antecedent and consequent; whereas the transformation of Ro through R1 to R2 broke the alliance of R and S/A that worked to preserve the separation of the two phrases-a defection of R to the unifying rhythmic forces of C, as it were-










Example 9.


Example 9.


Example 9.

C C C (a) I

A I rm I i I (a) I

A I rm I i I (a) I

A I rm I i I

S/A C I I I

I t' --: I'T'-

S/A C I I I

I t' --: I'T'-

S/A C I I I

I t' --: I'T'- Top: Middle: Bottom:

Voices

Top: Middle: Bottom:

Voices


Voices

i l l,I I I

S/A C S/A

(b) 6 5 4 3 2 1

; L_

i l l,I I I

S/A C S/A

(b) 6 5 4 3 2 1

; L_

i l l,I I I

S/A C S/A

(b) 6 5 4 3 2 1

; L_ lower voice alone

lower voice alone

lower voice alone

- - - - - -

the infiltration of elements from C into the consequent phrase of S/A breaks down the remaining forces of separation and significantly develops an argument dealing with a troublesome, "foreground" status.

Immediately following this signal event, a riverso presentation occurs in mm. 59-63. The appearance of a riverso after such a long absence has a profound effect, one even deepened by a striking new harmonization. The climax of the incrementum is now felt to be not far off. The riverso takes advantage of the twining technique just introduced and puts it to use with three voices, this time including R, which must be altered in the consequent in order to participate in the twine. This version of R begins like R--which has not had the opportunity to be used in riverso-but uses the rhythm of the antecedent in the consequent so it can receive its portion of S/A. The thematic content of each voice is summarized in Figure 3. Significantly, the twined voices here do not close the crevasse as obviously as the previous presentation did; there is a change of register in the analogous place where the fill was earlier put, pushing the linear





m. 61 62 C R R S/A

S/A C

m. 61 62 C R R S/A

S/A C

m. 61 62 C R R S/A

S/A C

C ' R - thematic content

S/A ----


S/A ----


S/A ----

Example 10.

( ?), (&. )

-9:6 a i 6- a o ---l k_?

Example 10.

( ?), (&. )

-9:6 a i 6- a o ---l k_?

Example 10.

( ?), (&. )

-9:6 a i 6- a o ---l k_?

m. 46 51 55 59

descent out of the expected register. The most characteristic and powerful use of the voice-leading twine as a development of the "fill-the-gap" argument will thus be tantalizingly delayed for another riverso presentation.

Although the change of register does not help to fill the crevasse, it does advance another important rhetorical feature of the incrementum: the gradual ascent in register begun in m. 46. Example 10 documents the progress of this ascent, showing the highest and lowest notes of each thematic presentation; the measure numbers denote the beginning of a presentation. As the figure shows, the registral limits of the presentation at m. 51 are a fourth higher than those previous. While no progress is made in the upper range in the recto of m. 55, the lower range continues the ascent by fourth. The unusual form of R used in

m. 46 51 55 59



m. 46 51 55 59





that presentation, which drops out in m. 56, creates two lowest notes, one formed by R as bottom voice, and another-shown in parentheses in the figure-created by the lowest voice participating in the twine of mm. 57-58. The temporary desertion of the lower of the two registers is used for good rhetorical effect; the S/A of the long-dormant riverso is placed there in m. 59. As in the previous presentation, this register is again deserted during the voice-leading twine of mm. 61-62 where, as was discussed above, the lowest voice shifts register when it has C. The lowest note after the shift in register is also shown in parentheses.

The incrementum concludes with an unusual recto presentation in mm. 63-67. For the first time since the rather perfunc- tory deployment in mm. 13-15, four voices are used simultaneously to thicken the texture and create an emphatic, epitomizing effect, one similar to that produced by the rhetorical figure epiphonema-a concise exclamation at the end of a section that summarizes it.56 Like the last time four voices were used, the presentation in mm. 63-67 must give R to two different voices. Both voices use different forms of R here unlike any used before. The R placed in the top voice reprises the voice leading but not the rhythm of the R used in mm. 9-10, while R in the voice just below reproduces the rhythm but not the pitches of Ro.

As in the earlier use of four voices, one voice again drops out in the consequent phrase. What remains, besides S/A and C, is an R using the same rhythm as the consequent of S/A, in other words, an R that instead of transposing its elements from consequent to antecedent transposes elements the other way around, using elements from the antecedent in the consequent. This un- precedented manipulation is a clever demonstration of the efficacy of arguments used to unify the two phrases. Having suc- cessfully used the topics for unification described above-the







56Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 8.5.11. 56Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 8.5.11. 56Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 8.5.11.

transformation of R and the twining of thematic members- Bach deploys a contrary argument, showing that traductio of antecedent into consequent addresses the same status with the same results but by different means. This is an example of expolitio a contrario, or refining the point by advancing a seemingly different but nonetheless related argument.57

The analysis of the previous section involved many different musical dimensions, and the reader might well be overwhelmed by the attention given to them all, as well as wearied by the analytic rhetoric. Accordingly, Figure 4 gathers in one place information already presented about the various sections and their properties, showing the contrapuntal arrangements of thematic members, the boundaries of rhetorical sections, the rhetorical techniques used in those sections, and a capsuled list of elements participating in the incrementum. In addition, information about key areas is offered for the first time, as well as a clas- sification of the various harmonizations used in the thematic presentations. The remainder of this section is devoted to these two new dimensions.

The harmonizations referred to by number in Figure 4 are shown in Example 11, a paradigm of the harmonic settings used in the fugue.58 Harmonizations 1 and 2 are for recto forms, 3 and 4 are for riverso forms. The complete harmonization is indicated by thoroughbass signatures; other structures, such as dyadic exchange and imitation, are also noted. What have previously been referred to as "exceptional treatments" or "striking

57Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.42.54-56. 58The harmonizations shown in Example 11 represent types only; slight var-

iations exist between members of the same category, usually due to the workings of R. Furthermore, two-voice harmonizations are not included in Figure 4 because they have a comparatively weak harmonic component and because there is not enough information in certain cases to distinguish between, for instance, la and lb or 3a and 3b.













rhetorical section

rhetorical technique

rhetorical section


rhetorical section


four voices, epiphonema, expolitio riverso!, three-voiced twine, highest register, harmonization 3

twining of voices, third consecutive recto

traductio of R1 into R2, higher register, second consecutive recto

traductio of Ro into R1, low register, entrance on fourth beat, extension

harmonization 4b, cadential extension

Narratio I Divisio

counter- antithesis incrementum exposition + f t






Narratio I Divisio







Narratio I Divisio


1 1 1 5 9 13 17 21 26 30 32 36 40 42 46 51 55 59 63 L 5 9 13 17 21 26 30 32 36 40 42 46 51 55 59 63 5 9 13 17 21 26 30 32 36 40 42 46 51 55 59 63 L 5 9 13 17 21 26 30 32 36 40 42 46 51 55 59 63 5 9 13 17 21 26 30 32 36 40 42 46 51 55 59 63 L 5 9 13 17 21 26 30 32 36 40 42 46 51 55 59 63

A C C Ro Ro C SIA R1 S/A C C R

I A C Ro S S o S R S C R2 S/A R1 R

S C Ro A _ C . ? S/A C (R2*) C

S C R C u S t Ro C S/A S/A



S C Ro A _ C . ? S/A C (R2*) C




S C Ro A _ C . ? S/A C (R2*) C


harmonization

key area

harmonization

key area

harmonization

key area

la 2 Ib la 2 Ib la 2 Ib 3a 3a 3a 3a la 3a la 3a la

(I & V) (I & V) (I & V)

3b 2 2 lb 4 la

V V of V of IV 3b 2 2 lb 4 la

V V of V of IV 3b 2 2 lb 4 la

V V of V of IV

*R2 drops out before the consequent phrase *R2 drops out before the consequent phrase *R2 drops out before the consequent phrase

Note: Italicized letters indicate riverso forms Note: Italicized letters indicate riverso forms Note: Italicized letters indicate riverso forms

new harmonizations" are really first appearances of one of the harmonizations shown in Example 11. Figure 4 shows, for instance, that harmonization 3b is used for the first time at m. 42, which is the beginning of the incrementum. Similarly, the effect of the long-awaited riverso in m. 59 owes some of its power to the appearance of the previously unused harmonization 4. In

keeping with the elaborate expositional structure of the ex-





tended narratio, there is no movement between key areas in mm. 1-36. As Figure 4 shows, I and V alternate in both exposition and counterexposition according to protocol.59 This alternation continues past the expositions into the antithesis, where

59In what may be a revolutionary breakthrough in the theory of fugue, Bullivant-relying upon Fux and upon a puckish disdain for harmony-asserts





beginning m. beginning m. beginning m.

voice part voice part voice part

t t t exposition exposition exposition


Example 11.

n) I L

Example 11.

n) I L

Example 11.

n) I L N a g

N a g

N a g

(a) (b) etc.

-b ' 6 '

-

^ .- 6

.

c

6 6 6 6 6 5 4 5 3

D.b- _-

: b ,'

. ' t- ' " ' ' ' '

6 6 6 6 7 6

(a) (b) etc.

f7)= bv '~~ -K* qJ i^- i

(a) (b) etc.

-b ' 6 '

-

^ .- 6

.

c

6 6 6 6 6 5 4 5 3

D.b- _-

: b ,'

. ' t- ' " ' ' ' '

6 6 6 6 7 6

(a) (b) etc.

f7)= bv '~~ -K* qJ i^- i

(a) (b) etc.

-b ' 6 '

-

^ .- 6

.

c

6 6 6 6 6 5 4 5 3

D.b- _-

: b ,'

. ' t- ' " ' ' ' '

6 6 6 6 7 6

(a) (b) etc.

f7)= bv '~~ -K* qJ i^- i

f. upper line of S f. upper line of S f. upper line of S

5 3 5 3 5 3

6 6 6 6 6 6 4+ 4+ 6 # t 2 3 6 6 6 6 6 6 4+ 4+ 6 # t 2 3 6 6 6 6 6 6 4+ 4+ 6 # t 2 3

1: p bb , - , 6 6 6 6 b7 4 6

2+ 4

1: p bb , - , 6 6 6 6 b7 4 6

2+ 4

1: p bb , - , 6 6 6 6 b7 4 6

2+ 4

1 1 1

2

3

2

3

2

3

4 4 4

_ _n- - _ _n- - _ _n- - _ _ _ _ _ _


the opposition of tonic and dominant harmonies adds yet another element to that structure.

Episode 2, mm. 40-42, moves the harmony decisively to the dominant plateau, a key area confirmed by the cadential extension of mm. 46-47. Thereafter, by means of successive fifth relationships, the harmony turns towards the subdominant, reaching it in the presentation of mm. 55-59. This quick harmonic motion, occurring in the space of 13 measures, contributes its portion to the building of the incrementum. The large- scale outer-voice structure prolonging the harmony is shown in

Example 12. As would be expected with such restricted movement between key areas, the voice leading prolongs harmony with arpeggiations and repetitions. Significantly, the first neighbor motion in the upper voice is D5-Eb 5, an example of this

important motive at a structural level deeper than those presented in Example 3. More will be said about large-scale voice leading below.

that the fugal answer is to be conceived not as being in the key of the dominant, but rather as being a point of imitation at the upper fifth that preserves the whole- and half-step relationships of the subject, and that also gives i in reply to 5 and vice versa. In most cases, of course, this conception seemingly puts the answer in the dominant key, but adventitiously and without true harmonic meaning. By stressing what he calls "melodic tonality" (Fugue, 39-41), Bulli- vant eliminates the cancerous academic rules that defined the answer as a harmonic entity, and offers in their place the two essentially melodic rules mentioned above. In a brilliantly argued section (56-74), Bullivant shows that these two rules can explain the most perplexing fugal subject and answer pairs. The implications of Bullivant's position for the Schenkerian analyst are profound, since it emphasizes a scalar unity of subject and answer instead of a harmonic dichotomy; the entire exposition of a fugue can be thought of as a tonic prolongation in which any tonicization of the dominant accommodates the scalar construction of the answer, not the other way around as in conventional theories of fugue. That Bullivant's ideas on this topic have not had the impact they deserve is telling evidence of the current neglect of contrapuntal theory.











Example 12.

m. 1 17 20 30 36 40 51

Example 12.

m. 1 17 20 30 36 40 51

Example 12.

m. 1 17 20 30 36 40 51 59-63 66 59-63 66 59-63 66

5 5 5

V IV V IV V IV

CONFIRMATIO

Having reached the summit of the incrementum, the fugue passes through the critical point in its discourse. The intriguing competition between recto and riverso, the stimulating and insistent jig rhythm and the clever coordination of parts creating the incrementum have all produced the crucially important sense that the fugue is overcoming its obstacles, that the inher- ent status of the piece are being competently exposed, addressed, and resolved. The confirmatio is that place in the rhetorical organization of this fugue where some arguments advanced in the divisio are elaborated, given more expansive and less brittly logical treatments, and placed in diverse and in some cases surprising environments. After the intense development and involved rhetoric of the divisio, the fugue in the confirmatio drops some of its earnestness, acquiring in its place a lighter, almost relaxed character.

The confirmatio has two subsections, here designated the "expansion" and the "affirmation." These are not regular rhetorical terms from the classical treatises, but rather are headings

CONFIRMATIO



CONFIRMATIO




that describe the main objectives of this confirmatio. The expansion temporarily leaves off the arguments advanced in the divisio and adopts a new tack-in essence, "expanding" the scope of argument in the fugue. The expansion addresses issues concerning the countersubject, C, investigating its properties and examining its effects upon the other thematic members. The harmonic scope of the fugue is expanded as well in this section, moving first towards a major-mode key area and then reaching a harmonic limit, beyond which further harmonic expansion is unnecessary.

The affirmation, which follows the expansion, takes up again the arguments of the divisio, placing them in new contexts and proposing them in light of the accomplishments of the expansion. After the rhetorical and harmonic expansion of the previous section, the fugue in the affirmation begins to tie together various arguments in preparation for the conclusion. Harmoni- cally, it journeys back from its harmonic limit towards tonic. The affirmation thus secures and finishes the argumentation of the fugue, leaving the resolution of only one status for the conclusio.

Expansion: Measures 67-86

The chief ornaments of the expansion are its episodes, which, in contrast to the sparing use of these structures in the divisio, are here found between every thematic presentation, diluting the concentration of argument and slowing the rather frantic pace of development set in the divisio. The third episode (mm. 67-68), like its predecessors, is short and transitional. From the very first, it is clear that the episode signals a new rhetorical attitude; the pervasive dotted rhythm of S/A and R, which persisted even in previous episodes, is abandoned in fa- vor of a figuration using the steady eighth-note rhythm of C. Harmonically, the episode changes the support for the prolonged El 5 from IV to VI-the first indication of a move towards a major-key area. Significantly, it is not the relative major









of G minor to which the fugue turns first, but rather the relative major of its subdominant C minor; the continued prolongation of EN 5 is what is desired here, a role that B!, major is unable to play.60

Hidden in the middle voice, the first presentation of the theme in the major mode begins unnoticed in m. 68- unnoticed because no C accompanies it; the lowest voice, which normally would have been assigned C, in this case continues with figuration from the episode until the middle of m. 69. Since its rhythm is identical to that of C, the figuration used in the episode merges indiscernibly into the notes of C. The expansion of argument here proceeds along a surprising route, pulling S/A and R2 out of a structure that they do not usually inhabit. This hiding and subsequent uncovering of a thematic presentation has a pronounced rhetorical effect. It shows the versatility of the thematic structures, in that they can be both presented in the major mode and also separated from each other. This surprising presentation deftly demonstrates the extent to which S/A is known through C. Without the readily identifiable chromatic tetrachord-moving in either direction-S/A loses much of its salience, even if accompanied by R2 as is the case here.

The thematic presentation ends in much the same way as it began, joining itself to an episode with a seam so indistinct that the episode emerges almost by surprise. Episode 4 (mm. 72- 76), like its predecessor in the confirmatio, is also quite unlike the episodes found in the divisio. It is both longer than the others and divided internally into two subphrases: a short imitative section (mm. 71-73), and a longer section that drives to a half cadence in El major at m. 75. Furthermore, unlike any other episode in the fugue, it is not a simple, open-ended transitional

60The emphasis on VI at the expense of the more usual III can also be attrib- uted at another structural level to the pervasive use of the V-VI deceptive cadence at the beginning of recto presentations. For instance, see mm. 9, 36, 47, 63, and elsewhere.










passage between two thematic statements, but a route leading to a formal gate that opens to an important thematic statement.

By moving to a pronounced half cadence, the episode is a musical counterpart of the rhetorical colon or clause, a thought that depends upon what follows for its completion. A colon is a prefacing tactic, a means of increasing the weight of what follows.61 The first section of the colon, which breaks up what had been a continuous and long-breathed musical flow into short points of imitation, announces the upcoming event by drawing attention to its unusual imitative texture.62 The second section draws out and prolongs motion towards the sectional gate, creating a sense of anticipation which, when satisfied, heightens the effect of the arrival at the half cadence in m. 75.

The fourth episode ends in such a way that the following thematic presentation begins on the fourth beat of m. 75. In concert with the prefatory effect of the colon, this shift in the location of the thematic entrance increases the impact of the presentation in the same way that the cadential extension in m. 46 emphasized the following presentation by shifting its metric location. The outstanding quality of the riverso presentation in mm. 75-79, so deserving of a special preface, is grasped at once: while the preceding harmony has been firmly set in El major-indeed, the harmonic point of the colon was to fix this key-the presentation immixes the parallel minor, a wholly un- expected event that temporarily creates a rich modal confusion. The source of this effect is, of course, the countersubject,

61The author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium offers a grisly but nonetheless effective simile on the rhetorical qualities of colon. Referring to the "thrust" of an argument, he writes: "Accordingly in [colon] it seems that the arm draws back and the hand whirls about to bring the sword to the adversary's body ..." (4.19.26). The classifications of the logical units of rhetoric has had a profound impact upon theories of musical phrase structure, as our present- day use of terms like "period" and "phrase" testify.

62This sudden change in tone is like the figure brevitas. (Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.54.68.) See Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 9.3.50, where it is discussed under the Greek name fpaXvuoyia.











C. Since the descending chromatic tetrachord 8-5 is an attrib- ute of the minor mode, the appearance of C with this structure can do nothing else but suggest El minor. This confusion per- sists throughout m. 76 abetted by R2 in the top voice. In the following measure, elements from El major are reasserted: the riverso arrives at Gt, and the crevasse separating the antecedent and consequent is a minor seventh instead of a diminished seventh. By the end of the consequent, any hints of El minor have disappeared.

This temporary yet remarkable confusion of modes is another searching proof of the properties, meanings, and powers of C. The recto presentation of mm. 68-72, by omitting C and thereby hiding S/A and R2, demonstrated the importance of C in the aural definition of the fugal subject. The presentation here reinforces the meaning of that demonstration, showing that C as a linear force can overcome any harmonic power ranged against it.

The deployment of these explorations of C is a happy alliance of both musical and rhetorical interests. By first omitting C and then using it in an improper context, Bach manifests a valuable principle in rhetorical persuasion: work from weaker to stronger arguments. Imagine how lame and anticlimactic a reversal of the two would be; how could omitting C from a presentation be of any interest after its previous stimulating, even licentious use in strange and exotic surroundings? As it turns out, C is omitted by technical necessity from the earlier recto presentation, since it could not be used without extremely bizarre and thoroughly disorienting effects.63

By toying with expectations as to where and how C might appear, Bach has used the expansion for an extended examination of the characteristics of C. It is then fitting that the last such

63The prospect of a chromatic ascent in major, not from i to 4 but from 5 to 8, is too weird even for Bach's purposes here. Although the 5-8 ascent in minor is, as noted earlier, not unknown, such an ascent in major is not part of any common-practice tonal style.












/cons.) I

V I V P-.3t. IV6 5 V I v bTTb ! (n.n.)

/cons.) I


/cons.) I


examination occur not in a thematic presentation, where it is

expected, but in the alien context of an episode. Example 13 shows the harmonic and voice-leading structure of the fifth episode (mm. 79-82). To place the episode in its proper harmonic and voice-leading setting, the first part of the example summarizes the contents of Example 12. The outstanding quality of the episode is marked by the beamed upper voice, a bold attempt to steal the ascending chromatic tetrachord from C.64 Here, a figure having the effect of incrementum is used to emphasize this extraordinary development, a short, breathless ascent by step from weaker to stronger elements.65

64This beam does not denote a Schenkerian linear progression, as examination of the graph should make clear. It is an ad hoc symbol illustrating the blocked ascent of a voice-leading line.

65The difference in scale between the incrementum here and that defined for mm. 42-67 is obvious. Yet the effect of the construction is the same, and is

perhaps better understood and exemplified in the present case, which corres-

ponds more closely to Quintilian's image of the figure as an ascent by step.













Although the D-Eb relationship has been distributed throughout the structural levels of the fugue and has been awarded to more than one thematic member, Eb has up to now been the apex, the ceiling of this motivic activity. The upper voice of the fifth episode punches through this ceiling, passing from El 5 through El 5, on to F5, and then-the completion of the tetrachord within sight-reaches what could have been the penultimate F# 5. It is instead thrown back by the enharmonic equivalent, Gb 5. This frustrating obstacle at the summit of the incrementum is supported by a rhetorically powerful Neapoli- tan sixth chord-a striking sonority used here to cap the incrementum-which firmly cements Gl, 5 in place as the upper limit of the ascent. The point made is clear and unambiguous: only C is privileged to span the chromatic tetrachord; all other lines are blocked and repulsed. Thus, the status concerning this issue, the sixth discovered in the initial analysis of the thematic members (see p. 14), is neither treated with careful argument with an eye towards resolution nor uncovered gradually by the workings of other arguments; it is given sudden, vivid, and dramatic expression and then disposed of with remarkable pur-



79 80 79 80 79 80 81 81 81

Example 13.

5

Example 13.

5

Example 13.

5

I V IV VI I V IV VI I V IV VI

82 82 82


pose and vigor. No argument addresses it. No subtle maneu- verings influence it. The two litigants do not resolve their differences; one is victor and the other vanquished.

The effect of the previous episode upon the harmonic structure of the fugue is profound. The apparatus necessary to support the upper-voice structure in the episode without offering any hope for its proper completion is tentatively set in the key of F minor. The retreat from Gl 5, which stops on V of F, shunts the harmony more forcefully into this unusual, remote, and obscure key area hardly ever visited by a piece in G mi- nor.66 Unlike mm. 76-77, there is to be no modal confusion here in an attempt to normalize harmonic structure by changing F minor into the more acceptable F major; earlier presentations in the confirmatio have shown that C controls mode, not the other way around. Thus, the investigation of C has taken the fugue to its point of furthest harmonic remove, the limit of harmonic and rhetorical expansion. It is a place already so far distant from the G-minor tonic that no further motion away from tonic would have impact or meaning.67

The recto presentation in mm. 82-86 strongly reinforces the point of furthest remove-this temporary exile to F minor-by thickening the texture, a technique for creating emphasis that was used with similar effect in mm. 63-67. The four voices used here are maintained throughout the presentation, unlike earlier uses of this texture in which a voice dropped out in the consequent. As before, R is assigned to two voices-inner voices both-and, also as before, the version of R used is Ro, which

66? VII, which would be F major here, is certainly a way station in many minor-mode pieces; its parallel minor is decidedly not.

671 am indebted to Leonard Ratner for introducing me to this idea. He defined the "point of furthest remove" as the "turning point" in the development section of a sonata form, after which motion is directed towards tonic to

begin the recapitulation. It is thus a kind of harmonic apogee, and as such can be applied to many pieces having a succession of related keys, such as a sonata form, a prelude, or a fugue. (See Leonard Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style [New York: Schirmer Books, 1980], 226-227.)













densens the texture of the antecedent by means of the rhythmic activity it takes from S/A.

In addition to the thickening of texture, the recto emphasizes the results of the previous episode through irony, a fa- mously effective verbal technique that is difficult to apply in instrumental music. As a comment upon the spectacular failure of the aborted ascent, the presentation places C in the same top voice and in the same register as that ascent; C, of course, spans the tetrachord and passes without incident the frontier at which the previous attempt was stopped and seized.

Affirmation: Measures 86-98

Just as the four-voiced presentation of mm. 63-67 signaled the end of the incrementum, so the presentation of mm. 82-86 signals the end of the investigation of C. Except for the unusual key area, this presentation is more like those in the divisio than others in the confirmatio. The voices are once again twined in the consequent, a return to topics used in the divisio: S/A in the lowest voice and C in the highest exchange parts in m. 85. In an unusual break with precedent, the twining does not begin until the second half of m. 85, four beats and a fraction after the be-

ginning of the consequent; the previous twinings occurred after only two (mm. 57-58, 61-62). This delay, by shifting the normal location of the twine, underscores the return of the voice- leading twine to the flow of rhetorical argument. This return is underscored further by a cadential extension in the beginning of m. 86 that mimics the structure of the consequent, thereby seeming to extend the consequent-and the voice-leading twine it uses-by two beats.68

8The resemblance between the extension and the actual structure of the consequent is quite close. The upper voice in the beginning of m. 86 is identical save for one note to that in the latter half of m. 85. The lower voice is also identical save for one note in the first beat of m. 86; the second beat is different in that it uses the 5-1 cadential motion in the bass.















86 86 86 87 88 87 88 87 88 89

I . I

89

I . I

89

I . I

(summary of Exx. 12 and 13) X

42 ): f / \ r : r F

f: I


42 ): f / \ r : r F

f: I


42 ): f / \ r : r F

f: I C: IV5

After a strong cadence in F minor, created by a short cadential extension, the sixth episode (mm. 86-88) begins and moves the fugue away from its point of furthest remove, a process shown in Example 14. The first part of the example summarizes the contents of both Examples 12 and 13. Although the voice leading is complicated, the direction of the motion is not: treat- ing F minor as "IV of IV," the episode moves the harmony a fifth back to C minor as IV of G minor.

Preparing an audience for the end of a discourse-suggested both by the reaching of the point of furthest remove and by the resumption of previous arguments-is a delicate and exacting task. Two elements must be carefully balanced in order for the fugue to maintain its rhetorical interest during the return trip from its harmonic apogee. The first element is the sense of im- pending closure to be created; a listener must be made to antici- pate the ending of the fugue. Anticipation is a powerful force in rhetorical discourse; by setting up expectations that may or may not be fulfilled, it heightens interest in the content of the discourse. The techniques used in this concluding section (mm. 88-98) to create anticipation include allusion to earlier presentations, which has a summarizing effect, and compression of thematic presentations by removing intervening episodes,

C: IV5



C: IV5



V V V

which creates excitement through the increased concentration of argument.

The second element in the balance is uncertainty, derived from arguments whose outcomes are still in doubt. These must be completed and outstanding statCs resolved before the fugue can end satisfactorily and persuasively. Incomplete arguments are the source of any remaining tension in the composition, and their completion, carefully rationed, reinforces the anticipation of an ending. Properly handled, these two elements signal to the listener that the fugue is ending without communicating exactly how that ending will be managed. The balance is thus between necessary occurrence on one side and unusual fulfill- ment on the other.

The recto presentation of mm. 88-93 continues the work of its predecessor in that it puts another twist into the twine of voices. In previous three-voiced twines, a thematic member appeared in only two out of three voices. For example, in Figure 3, which shows the twine of mm. 61-62, C appears in only the top and bottom voices, and not in the middle. The situation de- picted in Figure 5, showing the twine of mm. 91-92, shows a marked development or, as expressed earlier, another twist. Notice that C now appears in all three voices.







,--\I ,--\I ,--\I A, I II / , I -1I A, I II / , I -1I A, I II / , I -1I






m. 91 R C

S/A

m. 91 R C

S/A

m. 91 R C

S/A

R S/A C

R S/A C

R S/A C

92 C

S/A R

92 C

S/A R

92 C

S/A R

What makes this particular relationship so compelling is that the riverso of mm. 88-93 clearly alludes to the presentation of mm. 59-63 that is the subject of Figure 3. They are both in the key of C minor, they place S/A in the same register, and they use the same version of R2 for most of the antecedent. They differ in the type of twine used, in the contrapuntal arrangement of the upper voices, and in the pitch and rhythmic content of R used in the consequent.69 The last difference points up an interesting property of R, that it cannot take any of its three loosely defined versions, Ro, R1, and R2, in the consequent when it participates in a twine. Instead, it takes on the rhythmic characteristics of another member to make a smooth transfer between the voices. In the twine of mm. 61-62, R used the rhythm of S/A since it was to accept that member in the twine. Here in mm. 91-92, on the other hand, R takes on the rhythm of C, the easier to accept that member.

Although the differences between the two related presentations prevent the later from obviously and inartistically rehash- ing the earlier, they also show the extent to which the argu-

69The term "contrapuntal arrangement" engages the theory of invertible

counterpoint and, specifically, the disposition of thematic material among the voices. The two upper voices in mm. 89-90 are in a double counterpoint at the fifteenth with respect to those in mm. 59-60; thus these two passages have different contrapuntal arrangements. I define this term with more precision in my article, "Some Group Properties of Triple Counterpoint and Their Influence on Compositions by J. S. Bach," Journal of Music Theory 32 (1988), 23-49.









ments of the earlier presentation are advanced in the later. Besides adding another twist to the twine, the consequent in mm. 91-92 also closes the crevasse separating the riverso antecedent and consequent, undoing the tantalizing delay of this event that had been created by a shift in register in the earlier

presentation. Even more significant, the thematic content of the bottom voice-S/A-C-R-reproduces on a small scale the rhetorical "subject" of the fugue identified in the exposition (see Fig. 1). From this point on, all voice-leading twines will in- volve this particular thematic combination, which demonstrates how central the twining technique is to the thesis of the

composition. This satisfying fill also satisfies another argument: that the

crevasse of either recto or riverso be filled by the same descending stepwise motion, first suggested in the extensions of m. 46 and of m. 50. Example 15 shows the filling of the crevasse in mm. 91-92, which uses all three thematic members. It is in- structive to compare this example with Example 9b, which shows the workings of the first, two-voiced recto twine of mm. 57-59; the manner in which the crevasse is filled is remarkably similar in both passages, despite the structural differences between recto and riverso.

An extension finishes this presentation with a strong cadence in C minor in m. 93. Another presentation begins imme-

diately thereafter, the first time in the confirmatio that an episode has not separated presentations. This compression reflects an increase in momentum, an acceleration towards tonic and

completion of the discourse. Significantly, this presentation is a riverso, the second such structure in a row. Thus, not only are

episodes abandoned in this part of the confirmatio, but also the

regular alternation of recto and riverso that had characterized the earlier parts of the confirmatio, a reuse of some techniques deployed in the divisio to create the same sense of anticipation.

The return to tonic is given a subtle yet firm push in this riverso of mm. 93-97 by clever manipulations that seem to change the key of the presentation in medias res. The beginning





















Rhetorc and Fugue 35 Rhetorc and Fugue 35 Rhetorc and Fugue 35


89 90

1 1 I L - ___I I

89 90

1 1 I L - ___I I

89 90

1 1 I L - ___I I

S/A S/A S/A

92

4 ̂

1 1 I

92

4 ̂

1 1 I

92

4 ̂

1 1 I (pi b IJ - , I i - -

_ I 11-1- , -----.- C

(pi b IJ - , I i - - _

I 11-1- , -----.- C

(pi b IJ - , I i - - _

I 11-1- , -----.- C -U- O: -U- O: -U- O:

RI I I ! C R

RI I I ! C R

RI I I ! C R


delay j -c A I I -__



,~ pt,-

~I.' , '--I

etc. ~

- - -I e/c.

g: III V- I

B: I?

,~ pt,-

~I.' , '--I

etc. ~

- - -I e/c.

g: III V- I

B: I?

,~ pt,-

~I.' , '--I

etc. ~

- - -I e/c.

g: III V- I

B: I?

double counterpoint at the twelfth with respect to any S/A-over-C presentations in riverso

/A


/A


/A

of the riverso behaves as if it were in Bb major, with C provid- ing the same piquant confusion of mode that it created in bars 76-77.70 But C is altered on the fourth beat of m. 94, repeating the previous neighbor-note figure on G4-this time with Ahl 4-instead of moving to the expected figure on GI, 4. Al- though the chromatic descent is continued into the first beat of the next bar, the delay has shifted the direction of harmony

70B, major appears entirely unprepared in this context; the previous presentation, with the help of its cadential extension, was set firmly in the key of C minor. Thus, there is not only modal confusion in the presentation but also confusion of key, which will become even more pronounced during the course of the presentation.





away from BIb major and towards G minor since G4 moves to F# 4 over a D4. In the second half of m. 95, C suddenly shifts position, abandoning B, major and adopting notes belonging to G minor, a change that confirms the suggestion advanced by the use of Ft.

Example 16 illustrates this process of harmonic change with a graph of the voice-leading structure in this presentation. No- tice that the crevasse separating antecedent and consequent of S/A is not the wide seventh, but rather the theoretically narrow octave; the crevasse is thus replaced by a registral fault line, easily crossed with a conceptual vault. This change in intervallic relationship between antecedent and consequent profoundly changes the voice-leading properties of the presentation. The





A I A I A I

v v v


pitch the antecedent typically abandons in a normal presentation, which in this case would be A3, is here a passing note con- necting B[, 3 and G4 by means of a register transfer, promoting the smooth flow of voice leading between the antecedent and consequent instead of hindering it.

The analysis also reveals another element that subtly screens the return to G minor. In the consequent, C and S/A are put in an unusual contrapuntal relationship, being set in a double counterpoint at the twelfth with respect to other presentations of S/A over C.71 Thus, while C works out its content in the normal G-minor location, S/A is placed a fifth away from its accus- tomed station, occupying a site that normally works out a C- minor presentation. The use of Ah and F# in place of the AN and F5 of C minor prevents the intrusion of any unwanted poly- tonal effect.

Although no fill between antecedent and consequent is necessary in this presentation, a voice-leading twine is used nonetheless to continue the argument, showing that the pursuit of argument is, in this case, stronger than the temptations of structural opportunity. As illustrated in Figure 6, the technique producing the twine is similar to that of mm. 91-92, shown in Fig- ure 5. Indeed, by concatenating the thematic content of each voice, a large-scale relationship between the two twines can be deduced. This relationship is illustrated in Figure 7, where the concatenated thematic members are labeled as U, V, and W. The figure shows that the upper two parts of mm. 96-97 are inverted with respect to those of mm. 91-92, while the bottom part-the only part containing all three members-remains sta- tionary.72

The unusual harmonic and contrapuntal treatment of this presentation can be likened to the rhetorical figure of me-

71See mm. 42-45 and 32-36. 72See the more detailed discussion of this kind of contrapuntal parallelism

in "Some Group Properties of Triple Counterpoint," 31-47.















Figure 7.

R+R+C=U C + S/A + S/A = V

S/A + C + R = W


Figure 7.


S/A + C + R = W


Figure 7.


S/A + C + R = W

m. 96 C R

S/A

m. 96 C R

S/A

m. 96 C R

S/A

S/A R C

S/A R C

S/A R C

97 S/A C R

97 S/A C R

97 S/A C R

mm. 91-92 96-97 U V VW W W W

mm. 91-92 96-97 U V VW W W W

mm. 91-92 96-97 U V VW W W W

tonymy. In this case, a Bb-major antecedent is substituted for one in G minor. As the relative major of G minor, B 6 thus suggests and refers to that key. In terms of classical rhetorical theory, this metonymy works by substituting "creature" for "crea- tor," that is, by using a key that is "created" as the relative major in the context of the "creating" G-minor composition.73 By the seeming use of two different keys in one presentation, the metonymy here cooperates with the technique of compress- ing the presentations to fortify the impression of gathering harmonic speed. It also enables the fugue to steal upon its tonic key, avoiding any unwanted sense of strong arrival before the proper rhetorical moment.

73This is a one-way relationship; Bb major cannot in turn create a relative major for itself. The Rhetorica ad Herennium speaks of this type of metonymy as the substitution of "invention" for "inventor," an image that I find less suggestive than the one offered above. Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.32.43.






CONCLUSIO

That moment is the beginning of the conclusio on the downbeat of m. 98. From here to the final double bar, G-minor as tonic is affirmed vigorously and conclusively. Just as no other key areas are left for exploration, so no statas remain unad- dressed, no arguments lack sufficient and convincing development, and no doubt exists about the persuasive efficacy of the fugue.

The affective properties of a rhetorical conclusio, if but im- perfectly understood, are certainly well known. The conclusio is specifically designed to bur the discourse into memory through its flamboyance and fervor. It is a section that appeals to the emotions of an audience, that uses the most striking language and constructions, and that displays the best command of expression the orator possesses. It is the last impression an audience will have of the performance. For the purposes of rhetorical persuasion, it is crucial that this impression be favorable, affirmatory, euphoric, conducive to vigorous applause and, in the best cases, shouts of approval.

In the G-minor fugue, Bach constructs a conclusio that matches the criteria described above, one that derives its effect from extreme swings in register around a firmly set harmonic anchor, from the ultimate and gratifying use of the voice- leading twine in tonic-based presentations, from the intense concentration of thematic presentations-two of which are four-voiced-and from the use of structures similar in effect to the figures praecisio and adiectio as preparations for the final cadence.

The confirmatio and conclusio are joined by elision on the downbeat of m. 98. The strong and decisive arrival on unison G is part of the concluding cadence of the preceding section as well as the beginning of the first recto presentation in the new section. The special nature of the conclusio is indicated by a surprising dissolution of texture; as if to catch its breath for the ex- ertions of the final period, the fugue drops both C and R for the first two beats of that measure, leaving S/A exposed in the only

CONCLUSIO





CONCLUSIO





only remaining voice. This striking event is short-lived, however; C and R are picked up in the middle of the phrase and resume their normal course.

For the first and only time in the fugue, the voice-leading twine is applied to a recto G-minor presentation, the home of the original litigants of the status for which the twine was designed. Using the same pattern in the bottom voice that was used in the last two twines, S/A-C-R, the twine effectively and conclusively brings long-sought unity to the tonic recto presentation. Many signs have foretold this consummation of argument, and its occurrence is deeply satisfying.

In the presentation of mm. 97-101, the low center of register is accompanied by tight spacing, giving a substantial density and force of conviction to this presentation. S/A is placed in its lowest position, occupying the second octave.74 Even after one voice drops out in the consequent, the remaining three are so tightly twined together that the loss is imperceptible. In the consequent, the top voice barely emerges from the third octave. Since the lowest voice is rooted in the second octave, the span between highest and lowest notes in the consequent is only a thirteenth. Not since mm. 46-50-the beginning of the registral ascent in the incrementum--has there been a presentation of such registral quality.

The riverso presentation in mm. 101-105 has entirely different registral qualities. S/A is in the fifth octave, which is its highest position in the fugue.75 The difference in register between

74This register is used only four times in the fugue for S/A. It is first opened up in the exposition (mm. 9-13); it is used again in mm. 36-40 to help create the antithesis in that section; in mm. 82-86 it contains the F-minor S/A at the point of furthest remove. Its final use is here at the beginning of the conclusio. This register is thus saved for S/A presentations of special importance and emphasis.

75This register, like the register of the second octave described in the previous note, is saved for special presentations and is used only three times in the fugue: in the exposition, mm. 13-17; at the beginning of the incrementum, mm. 42-46; and, finally, in mm. 101-105, immediately following the especially low presentation.















mm. mm. mm. 91-92 96-97 104-105 u w V UV

w w u

91-92 96-97 104-105 u w V UV

w w u

91-92 96-97 104-105 u w V UV

w w u

the two presentations is enormous: not only is S/A placed at its registral extremes but, because of the tight spacing used in both presentations, the respective centers of register are separated by an unusually wide distance. Since S/A is in the top voice, the thematic makeup of the twine is different than that used previously. Figure 8 shows the contrapuntal relationship between three different twines using the theoretical apparatus introduced in Figure 7. The S/A-C-R combination that fills the crevasse, labeled as W in both figures, is in mm. 104-105 necessar- ily in the top voice, overlapping and depressing the other two thematic combinations.

The three versions of the twine represented in Figure 8 thus illustrate one of the salient rhetorical properties of invertible counterpoint: by using the same thematic materials in different configurations, invertible counterpoint can accomplish the same purpose in music that the trope expolitio does in rhetorical discourse. This figure was invoked above to describe a situation in which an argument was advanced by a seemingly contrary method (p. 25). But its general meaning "consists in dwelling on the same topic and yet seeming to say something ever new."76 If a musical topic or argument is made up of certain thematic members, then the rearrangement of those mem-





76Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.42.54, trans. Harry Caplan, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), 365.



bers by invertible counterpoint certainly harmonizes with that definition.77

The great difference in register between the presentation of mm. 101-105 and the one preceding, along with the placement of the gap-filling W in the top voice, allows Bach an opportunity for extending the scope of the fill to cover not only the crevasse between antecedent and consequent but also the larger chasm separating the two registers of presentation. The working-out of this extended fill is shown in Example 17; the thematic members that make up this fill are marked in the example. This extension is a rhetorical tour de force, a highly effective "winding down" device. The satisfaction normally en- gendered by the filling of the crevasse is here prolonged, redoubled, and cemented in the listener's mind by this gap- filling extension.

The ending of this extended fill is set in four voices as part of the final, truncated riverso presentation (mm. 106-109). This presentation is set at a register so low as to exhaust the capaci- ties of most harpsichords; the countersubject, C, descends to the lowest note available, C2, before recovering and settling into the upper half of the great octave. It is significant that this last presentation of the fugue, as well as the one preceding, should be riverso, for this thematic form was highly effective in

dealing with the status concerning the chromatic tetrachord. The use of the normalized, descending version of the tetrachord, coupled with the compelling extension of the descending fill and the overall downward trend of the riverso thematic members, create an impression-entirely appropriate for a conclusio-of irreversible and exhaustive finality.

The fugue has one last rhetorical trick to perform before it concludes. The consequent phrase of the last presentation sud-

77As I have written elsewhere, "Invertible counterpoint can be a subtle and covert means of thematic repetition . .. and therefore can become a powerful way to unify musical structure." ("Some Group Properties of Triple Counter-

point," 23.)







point," 23.)







point," 23.)


Example 17.

104 105 106 107 108 109

S/A C R extension R II I I I I I I I

Example 17.

104 105 106 107 108 109


Example 17.

104 105 106 107 108 109


denly breaks off in the middle of m. 109 and pursues a quite different course, producing an effect very similar to that of the figure praecisio, the stopping short of an utterance in mid- sentence.78 What is substituted for the remainder of the consequent is a four-voiced, free development of the consequent figuration of C, presented simultaneously in both recto and riverso. Moreover, this development is emphatically repeated throughout m. 110, an event that imitates the action of the figure adiectio, a figure in which individual words are repeated for the sake of emphasis.79 This emphatic action sets up the final goal of the fugue, the cadence of mm. 111-112. Upon this final cadence, the fugue rests its case, as it were. The powerful forces of the conclusio have worked to dispel any remaining doubt about the success of the fugue. All the statuis that generated the discourse have been thoroughly explored and resolved, and an

78Rhetorica ad Herennium, 4.53.67, shows how the use of this figure, which Quintilian calls aixoaoWrnCTcg, can create emphasis, which is how it is used here. In 4.30.41, praecisio is described as an independent figure of speech. Quintilian describes how this figure is used to indicate emotion and how it creates a digression in the discourse-two effects that are felt in the fugue at m. 108. (Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 9.2.51.)

79Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 9.3.28.







audience, remembering its original apprehensions and curiosi- ties, finds itself marveling at the masterly control of rhetoric that brought them to this state of appreciation and satisfaction.80

DIGRESSION AND CONCLUSION

One evening in spring 1984, I was scheduled to practice upon the magnificent organ in Woolsey Hall at Yale Univer- sity. I arrived, my Bach and Franck ready for exercise, only to find the hall brightly lit and filled to capacity with boisterous and enthusiastic people, with more milling around in the lob- bies and some even in the street. Jesse Jackson, then making his

80Following the cadence is a recall of the opening period of the Toccata, mm. 1-5. Presumably added to round off the structure of the whole work, it instead sounds like a superfluous addition, an unnecessary, even awkward attempt at unity. I consider the fugue a masterpiece of fugal rhetoric, but I be- lieve it is set in a compositional frame of embarrassingly inferior quality; the fugue is so large and powerful that it overwhelms the other, weaker sections. A rich irony: though the fugue persuades, the Toccata as a whole does not.










first run for the Presidency, was slated to speak that evening; the organ was to remain silent.

Like many others, I had followed Jackson's campaign with some interest that year, for he was exciting both press and pop- ulace with his uncommon political talents and reputedly powerful oratory. Unfortunately, I had heard only disjecta membra from his campaign speech in what television journalists call "sound bites"-ten-second excerpts designed for the impatient and easily bored viewer. Here was an opportunity to hear it un- edited and live, to see and hear for myself what Jackson was about. I found a niche where I could stand comfortably, took off my hat, put down my music satchel, and waited quietly.

At that time I was a registered Republican and, although I was of a more liberal kidney than other Republicans I knew- and there weren't many at Yale-I was entirely unsympathetic to Jackson's proposals, at least to those I knew about. Indeed, I thought them somewhat frightening and demagogic.81 I thus awaited Jackson's speech with great skepticism.

After a 20-minute delay, Jackson entered the hall and was greeted enthusiastically. After the obligatory round of thanks to the community luminaries proudly gathered on stage around him, he began his campaign speech slowly and deliberately. As it progressed, frequently punctuated with applause, I felt my distrust and wariness evaporate. At first reluctantly, then later with more conviction, I, too, began to applaud with the audience. His speech lost its initial tentativeness and became more animated. Arriving at his central points with an irresistible momentum, he was like one transfigured, emanating the most fas- cinating charisma, and advancing his ideas with unbelievable force and fervor. They started to make a kind of sense to me.

Jackson's command of rhetoric was astounding. He dis-

81This was the campaign in which the Black Muslim leader, Louis Far- rakhan, whom many suspected of anti-Semitism and other odious beliefs, was closely linked to Jackson.













coursed flamboyantly, filling his speech with alliterations, puns, repetitions, and other figures. The combination of their simple effect and complex construction made me realize that Latin and Greek terms from the classical age would appropriately describe the rhetorical devices of this contemporary black American preacher. In short, he was intoxicatingly persuasive. At the end, I found myself applauding vigorously with the rest, shaking my head in amazement, wondering whether I was crazy or just credulous.

As it turned out, influenced both by Jackson's rhetoric and by other strange events too incidental for inclusion in this space, I did not vote Republican in that election.

On my way home that night, I remembered another epiph- any experienced in Woolsey Hall not long before. During a les- son with Robert Baker, an organist of great skill and profound musicality, we started to talk-which we did more often than hear me play-about Bach's B-minor organ fugue, S. 544, and about the difficulties it presents to the performer. In one of his many insights about that piece, he casually opined that although one hears a dull and spiritless subject at the beginning of the fugue, by the end, that same subject seems to have become the best tune ever written.

It struck me that the same process by which I was moved to applaud Jesse Jackson was at work in my appreciation of the B- minor fugue, a process in which doubt turns into belief, indif- ference into admiration. The B-minor fugue seems alive not just in the typical descriptive, organic sense of germination and growth, but in the sense that it expresses what can only be called animate personality and character, that it seems to have a motivating will. The organic unity of the fugue can be but darkly apprehended if stages of growth expressed in Auskom- ponierung are the main object of analysis. For fugue achieves artistic success not because it displays a pre-existent unity in every structure, as Schenker seems to maintain in his essay on the C-minor fugue, but because its various thematic treat-










ments, harmonic modulations, contrapuntal devices, and so forth interest, convince, and perhaps even amaze, persuading the listener that it has not only displayed but also earned its unity. The rhetoric of fugue consists in this: that structure is also device, motion is also gesture, and that unity is a result, not a source.

Although in a sense all music has a natural rhetoric, fugue provides a particularly apt illustration of this idea, both because its relationship to rhetoric has long been noted, and because its form embraces more than its share of unpersuasive, uninven- tive, and failed compositions. Everyone knows at least one such fugue. Having written my dissertation on Reger, I know a great many. The rhetoric of such pieces is bombastic and empty, their statis trivial, and their structures are routine and without relation to content. They are for the most part excruci- atingly boring. They persuade us not at all, except perhaps to flee from the room. These failures support the contention that the task of a fugue is to persuade; the remembrance of these grievous fugal fustians is sure to prove that persuasion is something that a fugue can only attempt, not assume.

Along this line, it is interesting that after fugue ceased to be the most honored of compositions, it fell into the hands of con- servatory school masters, who made their pupils write sterile pieces with obligatory strettos, countersubjects, pedal points, and so on, and who occasionally redoubled the insult to art by requiring that such pieces use a subject by Bach. This decline is analogous to the fate of rhetoric: after the disappearance of forums in which an orator could use his art with originality and relevance, rhetoric became ossified and limited to pedagogical device. Declamations, which previously were mainly preparatory exercises in deliberative and forensic oratory, became per- formances instead of drills; students again and again exhorted a long-dead Agamemnon not to sacrifice Iphigenia or prosecuted an imaginary case in which the defendant was accused of violat- ing some law under the most bizarre of circumstances. These







declamations, like the "school fugue" described above, had many requirements to meet and conventions to adhere to, poses to be struck and structures to be imitated. Just as students of rhetoric pleaded vainly with Agamemnon, so did students of music discourse ineffectually upon the subject of the C-major fugue from Vol. 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Thus fugue and rhetoric suffered the same fate after their decline. Both had been high art devalued into pedagogical builders of character, and the products of both vitiated arts had neither compelling raison d'etre nor practical use outside of the school.

This analysis of a fugue written with conviction in terms of a rhetoric that emphasizes substance over style is meant not so much to be about structure as about the effects of structure. It is not meant to offer a new analytic theory, but to expand upon existing theories both musical and rhetorical. It is not meant to indict Butler, or Burmeister, or Mattheson, but to free them and their successors from the stifling restrictions of a rhetoric designed to match the skills of seventeenth- and eighteenth- century youngsters. The traditional names for rhetorical divisions and figures have been invoked as analogies, even though argument by analogy is quite vulnerable and prone to fallacy. Certainly, some figures describe the musical situation better than others, and certainly one can quibble over the descriptive advantages of one figure over those of another for the same situation. Yet, since the relationship between fugue and rhetoric is inherently analogical, the use of the traditional names, despite the occasional poor fit, is an appropriate and honest expression of this relationship. There would be little point in lim- iting oneself to those figures recognized by musical rhetoricians of the past, for not only are their conception and application of rhetorical figures different from those presented here, but they are by no means of one mind about what these figures describe. They also tend to limit the definition of figures to the narrowest of situations. Burmeister, for instance, defines congeries- which in classical rhetoric describes an accumulation of short






phrases building toward a climax, often joined paratactically- as a series of 5-6 suspensions in three voices.82 Clearly, congeries could describe various interesting and unusual musical situations other than the one Burmeister limits it to. Indeed, Bur- meister's treatment of this figure would be akin to restricting the definition of simile only to those comparisons that liken something to a flower, or having soleocismus refer only to an improper preposition. Working backwards from effects to causes yields a treatment of figures that is more supple and adaptable.

The translation of the doctrine of status into music- theoretical terms may seem unjustified to some, but surely no one can deny that it gives a unique view of the developmental imperative of fugue and offers many insights about the construction of fugal subjects and countersubjects. The application of status as well as other structures of classical rhetoric to the G- minor fugue has not been supported by an elaborate theory, al-





82Bartel, Handbuch der musikalischen Figurenlehre, 141, citing Burmeis- ter, Hypomnematum musicaepoeticae (Rostock, 1599).



though in some senses it assumes the existence of one. Rather than go on at even greater length to define musical status closely, provide a lexicon of musical figures, and analyze great numbers of fugues, it seemed more persuasive and, indeed, more provocative to cast these ideas in an analytic mold-as the maxim goes, to let deeds speak louder than words. Although this article is meant to persuade that the insights from rhetorical analysis are interesting and valuable, I hope that any success has been less my doing than that of the piece; do not the rhetorical excellences of the G-minor fugue speak and persuade for themselves?

ABSTRACT The article begins by critiquing traditional understandings of musical rhetoric, offering in their place a conception of rhetoric rooted in the classical model of rhetoric as persuasive discourse. Fugue in general is studied in light of its affinity to this model. The fugue to Bach's Toc- cata, S. 915, is then closely analyzed as rhetorical discourse. The notion of rhetorical status, or issue, is brought to bear upon the subject of the fugue, which exposes the compositional problems that the fugue addresses with specific "arguments." The article concludes with additional observations on the nature of musical rhetoric.





d. harrison-rhetoric and fugue-an analytical application

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