[Smt-talk] Bach Quiz

[Eytan Agmon]

Olli Väisälä wrote, concerning what he perceives as parallel fifths in the
second half of bar. 22 of the B minor fugue, WTCI:

"Is there something to mitigate the effect of these fifths? First, there is
voice crossing. The listener may be likely to hear the F# as coming from E#
(even though the quarter-note countersubject should be quite familiar to
him/her by this point). Second, since the main harmonies in the latter half
of m. 22 are, locally speaking, the V and I of F# minor, the bass B is a
non-harmonic tone: an appoggiatura, or a "misplaced" (delayed) accented
passing seventh."

I rather hear the harmonies as VIIdim7-I in F# minor, with no parallel
fifths. The sixteenth-note C# in the bass is passing from D to B. The D is
then transferred to the upper voice, where it resolves to C#. The B in the
bass is an implied suspension. Although absent from the diminished-seventh
chord of beat 3, it was present on the downbeat of this measure, as well as
the second half of the second beat (in both cases as a root). It is thus
implicitly connected to the B on the fourth beat. Note the registrally
shifted chromatic line that begins in the inner-voice: E-D#-D-C#.

Eytan Agmon
Bar-Ilan University