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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was a master of counterpoint: writing several independent melodies that sound at the same time and fit together. In a fugue, one short theme enters again and again in different voices, following strict rules. That precision is why his music can sound mathematical, while it still moves listeners.

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Bach's rules could be very strict. In his Goldberg Variations, published in 1741, an opening aria is followed by 30 variations, and every third one is a canon, in which a second voice repeats the first a little later. The gap in pitch between the two voices grows by one step each time, from the same note in variation 3 to nine notes apart in variation 27. In The Art of Fugue, left unfinished at his death, the last fugue brings in a theme that spells his own name in German note letters: B flat, A, C and B natural, written B, A, C, H. After he died his style was thought old-fashioned, yet composers kept studying it; Mozart and Beethoven both learned from his Well-Tempered Clavier. In 1829 the young Felix Mendelssohn conducted the St Matthew Passion in Berlin, starting a wider Bach revival.

Türkçe oku
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), kontrpuanın, yani aynı anda çalan birkaç bağımsız ezgiyi birbirine uydurarak yazma sanatının ustasıydı. Füg denen biçimde kısa bir tema, katı kurallara göre sırayla farklı seslerde yeniden duyulur. Müziği bu kesinlik yüzünden kulağa matematiksel gelir, ama dinleyeni yine de derinden etkiler.

Bach kendine kimi zaman çok katı kurallar koyardı. 1741'de yayımlanan Goldberg Varyasyonları'nda bir açılış aryasının ardından 30 varyasyon gelir ve her üçüncüsü bir kanondur: İkinci ses, birincinin çaldığını biraz geriden aynen tekrarlar. İki ses arasındaki aralık her kanonda bir basamak büyür; 3. varyasyonda aynı notadan başlayan sesler, 27. varyasyonda dokuzlu aralıkla birbirini izler. Ölümünde yarım kalan Füg Sanatı'nın son fügünde, Almanca nota adlarıyla kendi adını yazan bir tema duyulur: B, A, C, H, yani si bemol, la, do ve si. Bach öldükten sonra tarzı eski moda sayıldı, ama besteciler onu incelemeyi sürdürdü; Mozart da Beethoven da İyi Düzenlenmiş Klavye'den çok şey öğrendi. 1829'da genç Felix Mendelssohn'un Berlin'de yönettiği Matta Pasyonu, Bach'a yeniden ilgi uyanmasının başlangıcı oldu.

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Background reading: Johann Sebastian Bach
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