As well as making a special study of Bach, he was also interested in the approaches of the philosophers of science, Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, whose methodology he called upon in deciphering the enigma.Īn important aspect of the solution comes the fact that Bach was conversant with Pythagorean philosophy. After taking a degree in medicine he decided to devote himself to the concert hall.
Maestro Dentler was one of Pierre Fournier's most outstanding cello pupils. Nevertheless less in our own time a variety of performing versions have been made for everything from small orchestra, keyboard, string quartet, saxophones and even the Canadian Brass.Īfter considerable research Hans-Eberhard Dentler has resolved this mystery and had allowed us to hear the work, as it was intended, for the very first time. Most musicologists clung to the theory that it was either absolute music above all performance or a piece for keyboard. Mozart, one of the greatest composers to come after Bach, did not agree and made his own arrangement for strings.
Others believed it is a piece for private study and the "inner ear". A year after Bach's death the suggestion was made that it was in fact a keyboard piece, for clavier or organ. The work has long remained an enigma for there are no indications of tempo markings, instrumentation or suggestions as to how it should be performed. The last of these was unfinished and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel wrote "While writing this fugue the composer died where the name B A C H appears in the counterpoint." Bach gave no title to the piece, the title we know it by today, the Art of Fugue, was added to the fair copy by the hand of Bach's son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnickol and in the first edition of 1751. The fugal pieces, but not the canons, bore the unusual name of Contrapuntus. Bach's Art of Fugue.Īt his death Bach left an fair copy manuscript of several contrapuntal pieces. I am very happy to use this Web site as a vehicle for announcing the solution by Hans-Eberhard Dentler of the enigma surrounding J.S. Bach's The Art of Fugue: An Enigma Resolved
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