The Subject of this Bach Fugue is not by Bach!

Many of us consider J.S. Bach’s E-major Fugue No. 8 (WTC 2) music of the spheres, but did you know that Bach borrowed many aspects of this piece (including its subject!) from an E-major Fugue by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (c. 1656-1746)? Fischer’s music greatly influenced Bach, and his gorgeous, Fugue No. 9 – published more than four decades before Book 2 of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier (1744) – appears in Part 1 of Ariadne Musica (1702) a collection of Preludes & Fugues composed for organ. I’ve lots to share with you about this music, and yes, this is the video where I cried. The music is so beautiful.♥️

Note: The photo of Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer used in the thumbnail of this video is one for which I could not identify the authenticity/source of the painting. The photo is found on two sites that I could find: https://toccataclassics.com/product/johann-caspar-ferdinand-fischer-vesperae-op-3/ and https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/johann-caspar-ferdinand-fischer-1656-1746.59950/. The photo of J.S. Bach is, of course, the famous portrait from 1746 by E. G. Haussmann (via Wikipedia).

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:18 Welcome & Agenda
2:00 Fischer’s Influence on Bach
5:10 Comparing E-major Fugues of Fischer & Bach
25:15 Fischer’s Alto
27:17 Bach’s Alto
30:45 Heart Moments, Stretti & More
42:28 Getting Emotional
43:52 Wrap-Up
44:28 Closing Remarks

Related Videos:

Sheet Music for Bach’s E-major Prelude & Fugue (WTC 2): https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/5/50/IMSLP02186-BWV0878.pdf

Sheet Music for Fischer’s Ariadne Musica: https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/6/62/IMSLP19244-PMLP45354-ariadne-letter.pdf

If you enjoy this content, then please subscribe. Your comments and likes are also appreciated. Thank you! 💙

To find out more about me, please visit my website: https://www.pennyjohnsonpiano.com

Want to help support me make more videos devoted to Mr. B’s music? You can “buy me a coffee” over on my Ko-Fi page: https://ko-fi.com/pennyjohnson Thank you so much for your support!🥰

So they both share the same subject,  and Bach’s Fugue is shorter,   yet it has seven times the notes and  an expanded Alto part. Holy moly. I’m starting to cry, never thought that would  happen in a video. Well hi there and welcome  

Back to my practice room, it’s me Penny and  thanks for joining me for this video devoted   to a very very special Fugue by Bach. It’s  one of my favourites, it’s the E-major Fugue,   Number 8 from Book 2 of The Well-Tempered Clavier.  Now I love this piece very much, it’s one of my  

Favourites and I feel like I’m entering another  realm, or sphere altogether when I play it. And I   was doing some research on it a few months ago  and discovered that the subject of this Fugue   was not in fact composed by Bach. Bach borrowed  this subject and he borrowed a lot of music from  

Other composers, as I am learning the longer I  make videos here, but this is a literal copy,   or borrowing of a subject of a Fugue that  was also in E-major, also for four voices,   from a cycle of Preludes and Fugues, no less,  that was published in 1702, composed by Johann  

Caspar Ferdinand Fischer. Now apparently  Fischer, who was a German Baroque composer,   his dates are circa 1656 to 1746, and we don’t  know a whole lot about this guy, but he was an   incredible keyboard composer, as I am learning, so  much so, that he greatly influenced Bach himself,  

George Frideric Handel, too, no less. So this is  worth taking note. If it’s good enough to inspire   Bach, it’s more than good enough to inspire you  and me at our practice sessions. So I explored  

This E-major Fugue by Fischer and I want to share  with you some of the things that I noticed. And   there’s quite a bit. You heard a few of those in  the intro. And I have copies of the sheet music to  

Put up on the screen, in which I have colour-coded  the voices. Now just a quick word on that Fischer   Prelude & Fugue. He composed a set of, what was  it, 19, I think, Preludes & Fugues, 20, sorry. 20  

Preludes & Fugues in 19 different keys, and one  in Phrygian mode based on E and that was from   a collection of pieces called Ariadne Musica and  these were for organ, Preludes and Fugues. The 20   Preludes and Fugues formed Book One of the Ariadne  Musica and then Part Two apparently consisted of  

Five ricercares, which are similar to Fugues  and those were based on chorale melodies. And   it was the Ariadne Musica that influenced Bach to  compose The Well-Tempered Clavier. This has since   come to be known as the Old Testament of piano  repertoire, right? Pardon the biblical reference,  

But this is a major work for piano repertoire,  the 48 Preludes & Fugues and their seeds are   in the Ariadne Musica. This is fascinating to me  because, as I say, this E-major Fugue of Bach is   so incredibly beautiful. I weep when I play it  sometimes, maybe not when I’m performing it (I  

Try to hold it together on stage whatnot, or in  front of the camera) but when I’m practicing it,   it brings tears to my eyes. It’s so beautiful and  I was incredibly curious to find out more about   the Fugue from which Bach gained these seeds  of inspiration. By the way, I should mention,  

I just got some notes off of Wikipedia about  Johann Fischer. There really is not a lot of   information available. Little is known. His music  is very much neglected, it’s rarely heard today   due to there simply not being very many surviving  copies of his music. Bach’s biographer, Johann  

Forkel ranked Fischer as one of the best composers  for keyboard of his day. His music shows the   influence of the French Baroque style, exemplified  by Jean Baptiste Lully, and he was responsible for   bringing the French influence to German music.  As well, he was one of the first composers to  

Apply the principles of the orchestral suite to  harpsicord music, replacing the standard French   Overture with an unmeasured Prelude. And we see  that in the suites of Bach later on, too, so the   influence is obvious, right, a big red flag on  this Johann Fischer and his influence upon Bach.  

Now let’s get into the Fugues themselves. The  Johann Fischer Fugue is, interestingly enough, is   actually longer. It’s 50 bars – I need my notes –  50 bars in length. Bach’s Fugue is only 43 bars, 7  

Bars less and yet Bach’s Fugue has more than seven  times the number of notes. And you can see it on   the page, too, just the amount of black on the  page, right, in Bach’s versus Fisher’s. So where  

Fischer’s Fugue has 97 notes in it, Bach’s Fugue  has 744. I am a pianist. I’m not a musicologist,   or a theorist, or academic in an analytical way,  I’m a pianist and so, when I find this kind of  

Information, it helps me to make sense and to try  to better understand Bach’s music and his style,   particularly for writing Fugues and how it  evolved from what came before. So when we look   at the Fischer Fugue and we see that the texture  is fairly sparse, there’s a lot of space on the  

Page. The shortest note value in the Fischer  Fugue is a quarter note. In the Bach Fugue,   it’s an eighth note. So that alone is interesting  to me, because it tells me, okay, Bach was trying   to animate and energize the voices of the Fugue,  to give them more independence, to give them more  

Sparkle, to put it in a fun kind of a way. I  should mention that Fischer’s Fugue and Bach’s   Fugue are both for four voices and, I mean, beyond  the subject itself there’s other things that Bach   maintained from this Fischer Fugue and that, for  one, is the number of voices. Four voices and the  

Order that they enter in the Fischer Fugue, they  enter in the order Bass, Tenor, Alto, Soprano,   so from the lowest up to the highest. And Bach’s  Fugue maintains that Basa, Tenor, Alto, Soprano,   so that is interesting to me. And yet, in the  Fischer Fugue I counted 13 entries of the subject,  

13 and the piece is 50 bars long. Now we said  that Bach’s Fugue was shorter, right, it had only   43 bars, but 23 entries, so nearly twice as many  entries, seven times the notes, even though it’s   shorter than the Fischer Fugue. This is obviously  evidence that Bach’s Fugues are incredibly dense,  

Much more so than his predecessors, and yet their  music greatly inspired him. Greatly. I should   play you this subject my goodness. It’s in E-major  and it’s very spacious. When I hear this subject,   and honestly, just the subject alone, you  wouldn’t know which Fugue I’m playing,  

Although the Bach Fugue, uh that subject, he  altered the rhythm just a little bit. He changed   some of the whole notes to half notes. But it’s  a very spacious subject. It reminds me of chant,   Gregorian chant, or the early organum,  early forms of polyphonic vocal music.  

I could hear it or imagine it being sung in a  very spacious cathedral. That characteristic,   that type of sonority is maintained in the Bach  Fugue, although there are quite a few moments   where it’s rather chordal in the hand, I will say.  This is the subject of the Fischer Fugue that Bach

Borrowed. [Music] And Bach’s [Music] subject. So  the exact same notes, E up to A and then down by   step back to E. We’ll never know why Bach made  the decisions he did, right, but it’s fun to   try to imagine. My guess, given all this other  evidence that we’ve uncovered of there being  

More entries of the subject, more notes in Bach’s,  the Alto being so spread out, um I think that Bach   changed those two whole notes from the Fischer  subject, into half notes, so that it would create   more motion. This Bach Fugue doesn’t have…it’s  got like one sequence in it and it’s not notey,  

We don’t have any sixteenth notes in it. It’s very  broad and spacious, but from having played a lot   of Bach’s music, it does seem that he liked energy  of the rhythm to contribute to the excitement and  

Drama and independence of the voices, and so I  think him choosing to make those whole notes into   half notes gives the subject already motion under  its belt before the other voices even come in. So   that is interesting to me. The entries, um, so we  said that both Fugues begin in the order, Bass,  

Tenor, Alto, Soprano. In the Fischer, the voices  that have the most entries are the Bass and the   Alto. In Bach’s Fugue, it’s the Bass that has  the most entries. So both of them, then, have   a a prominence, or a spotlight, on the Bass. The  register of the notes in the first entries…so  

When our Bass comes in in the Fischer, it’s the  E below middle C. Same in Bach. In the Fischer,   when our Tenor enters, it’s the B below middle  C. Same in Bach. In the Fischer, when the Alto  

First enters, it’s the E above middle C. Same in  Bach. And then, of course, in the Soprano, from   the Fischer Fugue, she first enters on the B above  middle C and that is where Bach’s subject enters,  

As well. So, the same range has been preserved.  There’s a lot of copying here and yet a lot of   Bach making this his own. One of the ways that he  does that, apart from changing the rhythm a little  

Bit and putting more entries and more notes, is  that he uses chromaticism a lot more. There’s   some very chromatic passages and I’ll play a few  of those in a moment. The Fischer Fugue – they’re   both in E-major – the Fischer Fugue uses nine out  of twelve of the chromatic pitches. Bach’s Fugue  

Uses all twelve, so it’s very chromatic and that  lends greater expressive quality and dissonance.   When I encounter dissonance or chromaticism  in Bach, it’s a cue for me, subconsciously,   to intensify my sound, to change my sound through  touch and through tone and to try to bring those  

Moments out so that the piece has an arc to it,  that the performance goes somewhere and that   not all notes are played with the same quality of  touch and tone. So, chromaticism and Bach’s music,   this Fugue has some very chromatic moments.  Of course, they’re both paired with a Prelude  

That goes without saying. I did find on the  imslp site, the Ariadne Musica by Fischer,   those 20 Preludes & Fugues. And I haven’t played  through them, but just printing them out and sort   of flipping through it I’m noticing already, wow,  yeah there’s some other influences from this piece  

Besides the E-major Fugue that Bach was inspired  by. So I look forward to getting into that. Both   of these Fugues use stretto and, on the page,  you’ll see those marked in green. The colours,   by the way, those just indicate the voices. So the  blue is the Bass part, the purple is the Tenor,  

The yellow is the Alto and the red is the Soprano.  The green, as I say, are the stretto moments and   stretto is when we get multiple entries of the  subject in close succession. And this creates   great heightened drama and intensity in the music.  So both these Fugues have stretto, but the Fischer  

Only has one instance that I could find, so about  measure 24, 25, 26, in there where we get Soprano,   Bass and Tenor overlapping in their entries. The  Bach Fugue has, you see, there’s a number of green  

Blobs on the page, those are all strettos that  I could find. So measure 9 and 10, through 11   in all four voices, measure 16 and 17 between the  alto and soprano, measure 19 and 20 between the  

Bass and Tenor, measure 27, 28, sorry, 26 and 27  [sic 28-29] between the Bass and Tenor, measure 30   between the Bass and Alto. This is stretto galore,  right, considering there’s only 43 bars. There’s   another one at 35 between the Tenor, Alto and  Bass. Each of these last a couple of bars. You  

Want to listen for those when you’re playing the  piece and know that they’re there. Mark them in. I   mentioned how the texture of the Fischer Fugue  is very spacious, as is the Bach, however the   polyphony, the imitation of the parts in the  Bach’s is much more thick, much more active.  

Perhaps the most shocking and interesting thing to  me, besides the sheer fact that Bach borrowed the   subject, is the range of the Alto. Now I compared  the range of each of the voices and for the most  

Part they’re basically the same. The range of the  Bass in both Fugues, the Tenor and the Soprano,   they’re pretty close, it’s basically the same.  But the Alto, oh my goodness, Bach must have had,   even though this, his Fugue here, reserves the  majority of the subject entries for the Bass,  

He must have had some special feelings for  the Alto. Maybe his wife, I don’t maybe,   so who knows, but the Alto in this part, in this  Fugue is twice the range of the Alto in Fischer’s   Fugue. That’s a statement. This is not top-heavy  music, this is music where all four parts are  

Equal players in the ballgame. So in Fischer’s  Fugue, the Alto ranges from the B below middle C,   to the A above middle C, not quite an octave, a  seventh. But in Bach’s Fugue, the alto ranges,  

Oh gosh, from the F-sharp below middle C, to the D  two above middle C, exactly twice the range. And I   was counting by half step there. So an enormously  wide Alto part there. Diminution is something   that we often encounter in Bach Fugues and it  is when we get the subject squished or, like,  

Occupying less space than it normally would. We  don’t get any of that in the Fischer Fugue at all,   or for that matter, augmentation and we don’t get  any augmentation in this Bach Fugue because it’s   already quite spacious. That’s my guess as to  why he doesn’t use augmentation here, how can  

You augment whole notes, right, without it really  sort of deflating on you. But the Bach Fugue here   does use diminution and I’ve marked that. I  found three instances within these 23 entries.   Not all of them are literal statements of the  subject, but to me I hear them as a subject,  

They remind me of the subject and as long  as they remind of the subject I consider   them a subject and I want to voice them and  prepare their arrival accordingly. But those   diminution sections, the first one happens in  the Soprano. This is in the Bach Fugue at her  

Entrance at the end of measure 26. So notice  the original subject begins on a whole note,   followed by four half notes and a quarter note.  In diminution, it’s like it’s cut in half,   it’s squished into a smaller box. This  subject entry at the end of 26. [Music]

So the presence of those quarter notes suggests  much activity and energy in that Soprano part and   this is happening, notice, in the back end of  the piece, in the second half of the piece. So   the piece has been working up, culminating to  this moment. There’s stretto happening there.  

Diminution happens again in the Tenor,  that’s the purple part in 28. [Music] And in the Bass, that same bar 28.  [Music] And the original. [Music] Versus [Music] is a lot more active, right, so  that lends drama and excitement to the music.  

Use of suspensions, we have some of those in both  of these Fugues, that’s to be expected. I have,   you probably had a chuckle already at some of the  little hearts that I put on the sheet music there.  

This is something I do. Of course, I don’t read  the piece from these colourful copies. I have my   Henle edition here which I am really pleased with  and I have basically the same markings in pencil  

On there with the hearts. But I wanted to make  it extra extra clear for you and so I put little   heart emojis over some of the spots that give  me great pleasure and that I find incredibly  

Beautiful or shocking in some cases, too. So I’ll  play a few of those for you in a moment. Another   thing to note in the Fischer Fugue, each of the  four voices, they mind their manners. In the Bach  

Fugue, there’s an instance where the Soprano and  Alto do not mind their manners and they cross,   the parts cross and that happens in 32 and 33.  You can see the red part in 32, the soprano, goes down as the yellow part, the  Alto, in that bar 32, is going

Up. And that’s followed by perhaps the  most chromatic moment of the piece. And so   voices crossing, that’s where colouring the  voices in like this can be really helpful,   otherwise if you’re just looking at it  and you’re not reading horizontally,  

Each part as its own line, you could  treat the Alto as becoming the Soprano,   but you’re not really following the completion  of each voice. So a crossover there of parts,   that was interesting to me. Both of these Fugues  have a fermata at the end of them. Of course,  

They’re followed by another Prelude & Fugue in  the scheme of the collections from which they   appear. Sequences. As you know, I enjoy a good  Bach sequence and usually we find a plethora of   them in Bach’s music, but this Fugue, I could only  find one. And I’m no theorist, I keep saying that  

Because it’s true, I’m a pianist with some Theory  knowledge, using it to the best of my ability to   help me perform this music, but, for my ears, I  hear the end of measure 38 into 39 of Bach as a

Sequence. [Music] Descending sequence and that’s  the only one. And there are none in the Fischer.   So that is unique. The range of the whole piece,  the lowest and highest notes of each Fugue,   are pretty similar. Bach’s Fugue is slightly  larger in range. The Fischer Fugue extends  

From the E two below middle C, to the A  two above middle C. So three and a half   octaves. And Bach’s Fugue here ranges from the  C-sharp two below middle C, to that same A two   above middle C. So three and three quarter  octaves, so just a tiny bit larger. I find,  

Too, from playing each of these voices, these  red, yellow, purple, blue parts individually   and then mixing and matching and singing them,  I find that the Fischer Fugue is a little more,   like, maybe static is a good word. There’s not  really a lot of variety happening. If we take,  

For instance, the Tenor part of the  Fischer Fugue in measure 42, let’s say. [Music] Right? It’s a lot of the same two  notes over and over, ABA. We don’t see that   kind of thing in Bach’s music so much.  We get another example in the Fischer,  

Of this rather simplistic voice  movement in the Soprano at the   end of measure 36. She goes back and  forth between D-sharp and E. [Music] So this kind of repetition of two notes, lack  of variety, is not present in Bach’s music.  

The voices are all over the place. And when you  start playing the voices, you’ll notice that.   This would be a very long video if I played each  of the four voices of each Fugue by themselves,  

So I won’t do that. I’ll let you do that for  fun at home, but I will pick one voice for you,   the Alto. That’s the yellow path on the  page and we’re going to sample Fischer’s   Alto and Bach’s Alto. Okay, so in this Fischer,  fewer notes, it covers half the range of the  

Bach and is rather static in its activity  compared to Bach. So let’s have a listen   to that. The Alto in the Fischer begins,  uh it comes in at measure 20. Here we go. [Music] And then we have a few bars of rest,  

The Alto goes on holiday here. And she  comes in at measure 34. Here we go. [Music] Another little holiday. Comes in again at 37. So a good chunk of that Alto part was the span  of a fourth, with a dip down to the dominant and   back. Not not very adventurous and bold, but you  know what Mr. B was good at? Creating juicy inner  

Parts, oh my goodness! That is the fun of playing  this music. Now let’s sample the Alto in Bach’s   Fugue. The Fischer Fugue, I think I mentioned, was  published in 1702. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier,   Book 2, from which this Fugue comes, was published  in 1744. So there’s a good four decades that Bach  

Had to digest this music and make it his own,  right? So let’s hear that Alto part, coming in   at measure 4. And this Alto, he or she does not  take a holiday, she’s just going to beat the band  

For the whole thing, and gets quite chromatic in  the second page. So let’s have a listen. [Music] I cannot resist moving my left hand, trying to  coax the sound in the air when I play Bach’s   music, because the voices have so much to  say and the use of rests and tied notes  

And suspensions and the long and short rhythm  and the chromaticism, the interplay of it all,   the abundance of the entries, it’s just  so inviting to become a participant,   almost like a fifth voice in the fugue. So  you can see, I think it’s pretty clear the  

Fisher subject served its purpose. It influenced  Bach to improve upon that already very lovely   subject from 1702. Some of the markings in  the page. Let’s just have a quick sample,   some of my little heart moments. In the  Fischer Fugue, okay so I got some hearts,  

Mostly where it creates a kind of a dissonance. So  I’ve got one there in measure 20, coming out of 18   with the Bass and Tenor. [Music] For a moment  everything is good in the world, right? That  

Moment was totally recaptured by Bach. In measure  4, the end of 3, the Alto and Bass again. [Music] It’s remarkable how similar Bach’s Fugue is to  Fischer’s. Clearly he loved this piece. That   kind of resolution and safeness created by  these sounds, is so delicious. Let’s include  

The strettos, too. There’s a stretto in the  Fischer a few bars later at the end of 24.   Here’s what a Fischer stretto sounds like  between Soprano, Bass and Tenor. [Music] Versus a Bach stretto. Let’s have a sample  to one of those, how about the one at 35,  

Between the Tenor, Alto and Bass.  So the Tenor has it first at 35. It seems to suggest more lines to me. If I  flesh the missing parts out there at 35. [Music] Then we have our sequence there at 38. [Music] This is so peaceful. It’s gorgeous, right? So  the stretto in Bach, a little bit more dense.  

Getting back to the Fischer, another little  heart moment there at the end of 40. [Music] And that arrival on 41, that’s a C-sharp  minor triad there. That minor mode,   which is the relative of our  home key, is very delicious, so

Expressive. [Music] I like to hear the Tenor  there. The next bar too. That’s the downbeat   of 42, we have an F-sharp minor triad after  that C-sharp minor. Oh it’s so beautiful,   let me hear it one more time, coming out of 40. And it’s that Bass entry in 41 that really  completes those two minor sonorities,   right because there’s no Bass  in 40 [Music] but here comes the Bass. [Music] I think Fugal playing is for people  who would like to be in a choir perhaps but are  

Too shy, right? You’ve got your own choir here.  I don’t need to play all of these heart moments,   you get the idea, right? They’re just  so delicious. And then in the Bach,   let me uncover just a few more of those,  let’s see I played you the one uh, measure 4,  

Another one I had in 5. So this is 5 here.  [Music] I love the Alto there descending by step [Music] as the Soprano begins hers. And I  think it’s really important to hear not just the   beginning of a new statement, but hear the end  of it. That’s what this piece, in particular,  

Has been teaching me because it’s easy to lose the  end of a subject, just, you’re so, you’re hearing   the entry of a new one but listen to the end  of them. Measure 6 and 7, I got a couple hearts  

And here it’s C-sharp minor again, like the  Fischer. Measure 6. [Music] The clash created   by the Alto at the end of 6 into 7, let’s hear  that, middle of 6, la there’s my Alto. [Music] And the Bass. [Music] Again. [Music] I love that Bass in measure

7 [Music] after the Alto in 6. [Music] And then the Alto or, sorry, the Soprano  in 7 has those little eighth notes there,   alternating with the eighths of the Alto  and that’s nice to hear, too, with the Bass,  

Ah gosh! End of 6. [Music] And our Bass. [Music]  Soprano. [Music] Bass. [Music] And Alto. [Music] These little echoes. And then, the Tenor [Music] it’s  like, I want to get in on it, too, right,   let me in man! Ah! And then coming out  of 10 into 11, I’ve got another little  

Heart moment there, this is middle of  10, Bass entry, stretto galore here. [Music] Ah that sounds like a soap opera here.  The D-sharp against the E, on the downbeat of 11. [Music] And when you’re practicing  it, assuming you notice the dissonance  

And have marked it in, then practice it in  a very indulgent way so your ears can taste   it. You notice, I’m not paying attention  to pulse or tempo right at this moment,   I’m just trying to luxuriate in the sound  and feel it and respond to it and let it  

Move me. You have to do that separate from  the practice with your metronome, like,   that’s a separate type of work than this.  The ears need to be practiced, not just the   fingers. It’s such a beautiful moment. I’ve got  another little heart in the middle of 21 and you  

Notice I marked in a tritone there in the Soprano,  B-sharp to E, woo! There’s another tritone, too,   between the inner voices at measure 33, C-sharp  to F double sharp, woo! That’s between the Alto   and the Tenor and that moment, 32-33, is very  chromatic. If I play those two bars, 32. [Music]

Ah! And then it finally resolves  to G-sharp minor at 35. [Music] That’s a G-sharp Minor triad, that’s a moment,   we’ve arrived. And then the rest is just  the return to the ethereal, sublime. [Music] So beautiful. Getting back  to that heart moment in 21,  

Let’s see. [Music] Oh I love the Alto going  into the Tenor in 21, the C-sharp Alto. [Music] And then the D-natural in 22 [Music] Ah, a half  step above the C-sharp, that is delicious. [Music] And then the Alto at 23. [Music] It’s like she knows something  that the rest of them don’t

Know. [Music] And then she continues [Music] and  that D-natural in the Bass, oh my God! [Music] I’m starting to cry. I never thought that would happen in a video.  Sorry. Sorry not sorry, right? If you don’t have   those kinds of experiences once in a while,  then you’re really missing something in your  

Practicing. And it’s pretty powerful to have an  experience like this. I’m just alone in my house,   there’s nobody here, you know, um, pretty special,  though. So, you get the sense. It’s taking this   music apart layer by layer, and examining it  with your ear up, close under the microscope,  

So that you can understand every little curve  of it and every little nuance and bond with it,   make friends with each part. Now I will be playing  the Fischer Fugue for you. It’s so delicious and,   even though I’ve played the Bach  Fugue a while back on the channel,  

I want to play it again in a video paired with  the Fischer. I was going to do it in this video,   but it got a little bit too long.  So, the next video I put up, I think,  

Is going to be just a performance of  each of these and so you can hear that subject and how it gets treated by each of  these composers. I’ll do my best not to cry   as I play. Alright. I do hope this was helpful.  We’re coming to the end of the year. Certainly,  

Whether you are a religious person or not,  it’s a time of year where we all kind of do   a little extra self-reflection, not only on  ourselves and our piano practice progress,   but on the world around, at large, and folks  around us and some of the difficulties that  

Other people are going through. Everyone’s  doing their best, I suppose, so be kind,   be caring to yourself and keep on practicing.  Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope   it was helpful. Leave me a comment if you thought  it was, or if you want to share your crying  

Experiences while playing Bach’s music. I’m here  for that, to. Alright and without further ado,   I will sign off and wish you happy practicing.  Stay well, stay safe and we’ll see you again   soon for more performances of Bach’s music  and practice tips. Take care. Happy holidays! Bye-bye!