An Analysis of Bach’s Fugue in B-flat Major (WTC I)

Sining Liu

Dr. Reiko Fueting

October 21st 2021

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of J. S. Bach’s Fugue in B-flat

Major, WTC I, BWV 866, which was composed around the year of 1722. This paper

will be centered around the form and architecture of the fugue in B-flat major by

discussing the various aspects of the fugues and the interrelationships among them:

the form and structure of the subject, the countersubject 1, the countersubject 2 and

the relationships among them, the form of the fugue suggested by the permutations of

the three subjects and the relationships among them, the form of the fugue suggested

by the thematic and non-thematic sections and the relationships among them, among

other various aspects. At the end of the paper, the way this fugue presents itself like an

organism by evolving a small motivic idea presented in the subject in the beginning of

the fugue into a universe will be perceived.

One could see the influences of the ritornello forms of Vivaldi’s concertos on the

forms of Bach’s fugues. Fugues started with the forms of stretto fugues that do not

contain non-thematic sections, with exemplary examples by Buxtehude. During the

years of 1708-17 at Weimar, Bach made arrangements of Vivaldi’s concertos for

keyboard and thereafter adopted ritornello forms of the concertos into his own

compositions, including the fugues in his Das wohltemperierte Clavier. The traces of

influences could be seen in WTC I: the C major fugue is a stretto fugue while the C

minor fugue is a ritornello fugue. The structures of the ritornello fugues resemble the

structures of the ritornello forms with the fugue subjects functioning like the

ritornellos, and the non-thematic sections functioning like the episodes.

This fugue in B-flat major is a ritornello fugue.