Bach’s Magnificent C Minor 549

Music Appreciation
Written By Edward Wolfe

Bach wrote scores of pieces for the organ and the pairing of this C Minor prelude and fugue (BWV 549) probably dates from a time when he was still a relatively young man, maybe 20 or 21 years of age.

He often coupled a prelude (an introductory piece with an improvisatory feeling to it) with a fugue in the same key.

The art of creating fugues was brought to its highest form of expression under the pen of J.S. Bach. A fugue is a kind of elaborate and highly structured round or canon, with one voice introducing the subject (or main thematic idea) and other voices entering later with the same subject. BWV 549 is a four-voice fugue. Listen for the entrance of each voice on the fugue subject.

Bach’s Prelude in C Minor BWV 549 begins with an impressive pedal solo (played by the performer’s feet on the pedal board) that extends a good 8 measures. The other voices, played by the hands on the manuals enter and fill out the sound.

Note: BWV is a catalog of Bach’s works. For your information, Bach also wrote another prelude and fugue in C Minor, BWV 546. The catalog numbers are not chronological.

Edward Wolfe

Edward Wolfe has been a fan of Christian apologetics since his teenage years, when he began seriously to question the truth of the Bible and the reality of Jesus. About twenty years ago, he started noticing that Christian evidences roughly fell into five categories, the five featured on this website.
Although much of his professional life has been in Christian circles (12 years on the faculties of Pacific Christian College, now a part of Hope International University, and Manhattan Christian College and also 12 years at First Christian Church of Tempe), much of his professional life has been in public institutions (4 years at the University of Colorado and 19 years at Tempe Preparatory Academy).
His formal academic preparation has been in the field of music. His bachelor degree was in Church Music with a minor in Bible where he studied with Roger Koerner, Sue Magnusson, Russel Squire, and John Rowe; his master’s was in Choral Conducting where he studied with Howard Swan, Gordon Paine, and Roger Ardrey; and his doctorate was in Piano Performance, Pedagogy, and Literature, where he also studied group dynamics, humanistic psychology, and Gestalt theory with Guy Duckworth.
He and his wife Louise have four grown children and six grandchildren.

https://WolfeMusicEd.com
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