Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543

Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543 is a piece of organ music written by Johann Sebastian Bach^[1] sometime around his years as court organist to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar (1708–1717).

Versions

First page of the Prelude BWV 543/1a (19th-century copy)^[2]

Prelude

An alternate version of the organ piece is numbered BWV 543a. As for this earlier version only the prelude is different, that version of the prelude is sometimes indicated by BWV 543/1a (BWV 543/2, that is the fugue, being identical in both versions).^[3]

Fugue

The fugue of BWV 543 is the final incarnation of Bach's harpsichord Fugue in A minor, BWV 944, written in 1708.

Score

Prelude

	Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543 – Prelude Performed by organist Noah Horn
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The musical materials of the prelude are a descending chromatic bassline and simple arpeggiated chords above it; this is first stated solo in the manual, and, after a lengthy embellishment of a tonic pedal point, in the pedal. The highly embellished cadence that follows—full of manual runs over sustained pedal notes—leads into a contrapuntal exploration of the opening material in sequence; this is followed by a very free peroration. The Toccata-like prelude—in the stylus phantasticus—bears the marks of Bach's early, north German-influenced style, while the fugue could be considered a later product of Bach's maturity.

Fugue

	Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543 – Fugue Performed by organist Noah Horn
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The fugue is in 6/8 time, unlike the prelude, which is in 4/4 time. The fugue theme, like that of the prelude, is composed of arpeggiated chords and downward sequences, especially in its later half. Due to the sequential nature of the subject, the majority of the fugue is composed of sequences or cadences. The Fugue ends in one of Bach's most toccata-like, virtuosic cadenzas in the harmonic minor. Unlike most of Bach's minor-key keyboard works, it ends on a minor chord rather than a picardy third.

Arrangements

Liszt's transcription

	Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543 Liszt's transcription performed by Raymond Smullyan
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Because of the piece's overall rhapsodic nature, many organists play this piece freely, and in a variety of tempi; it can be easily transcribed to a different instrument. Liszt included it in his transcriptions of the "six great preludes and fugues" BWV 543-8 for piano (S. 462).^[4]

The Sicilian Clan

Italian composer Ennio Morricone created a variation of Prelude and Fugue in A minor for the main theme of the French movie The Sicilian Clan.

References

1. Prelude and fugue, a BWV 543 at www.bach-digital.de
2. D-BSZk I B 3,56 at www.bach-digital.de
3. Prelude, a (early version) BWV 543/1a at www.bach-digital.de
4. Transcriptions at pianosociety.com

External links

• Prelude and Fugue in A minor: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free download of BWV 543 recorded by James Kibbie on the 1736 Erasmus Bielfeldt organ in St. Wilhadi, Stade, Germany
• PDF of Liszt's Piano transcription of BWV 543