Musical Oration: J.S. Bach’s Use of Rhetorical Devices in the Fantasia and Fugue in A minor, BWV 904, and the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903

Abstract

The study of rhetorical theory can lead to a deeper understanding of Baroque keyboard music. As Renaissance artists and philosophers rediscovered the classical culture of the Greeks, partly shaped by Greek rhetoricians, rhetorical study became a central part of the curriculum in European schools and universities. Many Baroque musicians such as Joachim Burmeister (1564-1629) and Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) related rhetorical practice to the music of their time. Thus, Baroque composers such as Bach, who were involved in education in schools or churches, considered the art of rhetoric to be linked with music study and may have purposely adopted rhetorical devices, translating them into analogous musical events and processes in their compositions. The Fantasia and Fugue in A minor BWV 904 and the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor BWV 903 by J.S. Bach are regarded as important masterpieces in their length and creativity compared with the other fantasias and fugues by many musicologists including David Schulenberg and Robert L. Marshall. The Fantasia and Fugue in A minor features a strictly contrapuntal texture in the Fantasia and two contrasting subjects in the double fugue. The Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue is distinctive in terms of the extensive improvisatory styles of the Chromatic Fantasia and the free treatment of the Chromatic Fugue. An examination of J.S. Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in A minor BWV 904 and Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor BWV 903 demonstrates the ways in which classical rhetorical principles may have influenced J.S. Bach's writing, and leads the performer to a more thorough understanding of Bach's compositional techniques and more intentional, purposeful interpretative choices in performance.