Activity

I may have posted this before. If so, apologies. But this nice performance of the “Wedge” fugue here by Roger Lowther (who apparently had nothing better to do on a sunny afternoon than play the Wedge fugue). This is one of the pieces I analyzed – without reference to Affektenlehre but solely in respect to transformations and permutations of the fugue subject – in Thrice Great Hermetica and the Janus Age. But if one analyzes it from the standpoint of Affektenlehre, and if one is to give the fugue a name, it would probably be something like “Michael the Archangel’s Arrows (the fugue theme itself) and the Serpent’s Coils” (all that initial busy passage work that still contains bits of the fugue subject that, no matter how hard the serpent twists and turns and coils and writhes, he still can’t escape the theme). This is a nice performance, though in my opinion, because of the presence of those musical-rhetorical gestures, it should be played with much more “fire”, i.e., louder registration. The acid test for for interpretation ala Affektenlehre comes in bars 120-135, which in this case I think Mr. Lowther has not adequately analyzed the score from the Affektenlehre perspective (archangel-in-conflict-with-serpent). The coiling and writing and the arrow are both heard here together, and in my opinion the passage should be “firey.” Ton Koopman’s performance “gets” it, and really shines in this passage and brings out the chopped-up fugue subject(the arrow) very well in the way he phrases it. In any case, this is still nice, and it’s fun to watch, because you can see, as well as hear, the “arrow:” and the “coiling and writhing” of the serpent. Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOgdsRfs-jc