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Johann Sebastian Bach: Fugue in C major for Solo Violin BWV 1005 “Pentecost” Volume I.

Based on the Urtext edition.

Edited by Márta Ábrahám and Barnabás Dukay, 2021, with the addition of colored notes, diagrams and explanations.

The Fugue in C Major (BWV 1005) is the first volume of J. S. Bach’s Three Fugues for Solo Violin Special Tricentennial Collection 1720-2020 published by BioBach-Music Publishing.

In their textual introduction to the score, the authors first give a brief account of the genesis of Bach’s Fugue in C Major, followed by an outline of their structural and motivic analysis of the piece.  Having thus identified formal relationships, they draw attention to their symbolic meaning that goes beyond the realm of music.

The second part of the publication contains the full score of the piece prepared using the Colorful BACH technique.  Colored notes help navigate within the piece by making its internal structure transparent.  The aim of color coding is to facilitate the identification of themes, countersubjects and counterpoint, as a result of which inversions, stretti and double counterpoint are also clearly recognizable.

Becoming directly acquainted with the structural organization of the piece could be revelatory for a new generation of young violinists, and might perhaps lead to a paradigm shift in interpretation.  We recommend this fundamental book by M. Ábrahám and B. Dukay not only to all violinists but also to students and teachers of string or keyboard instruments, musicology or composition as well as to all educated music lovers.  It is not only Bach’s Fugue in C Major itself that a musician ought to know after all, but also the logic and order of Bach’s canon and fugue constructing art.