Evidence suggests that J.S. Bach completed and revised the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor for organ, BWV 542 (the “Great” G minor, as opposed to BWV 578, the “Little” G minor), as an audition for an organist position in Hamburg in 1720. Bach didn’t get the job, but, happily enough, posterity did get the piece; generations of organists since then have considered it one of their repertoire’s crown jewels. The two parts of BWV 542 (the fantasia — sometimes titled Prelude instead — and the fugue) are thought to have been composed separately: the fugue is assigned Bach’s Weimar years (1708-1717) and the fantasia to his time in Cöthen (1717-1723, but, if the audition theory is correct, not later than 1720).
The fantasia opens spaciously and in recitative-like style, but as it unfolds Bach finds room for dense passages in upper-voice imitation. There are five more or less balanced sections to this fantasy; intensely dramatic sections are interwoven with quieter, more even passages. The wide tonal scope of the fantasia has been a subject of fascination for two centuries of musicians: just when some kind of harmonic stability seems to arrive, Bach shoots off on a mock-improvised cadenza that jolts the music into a whole new pitch realm. Thus the fantasia both lives up to its name and contains quite a bit of contrapuntal rigor, and then, on top of that, more than one worthy mind has deemed the fugue to be Bach’s ultimate accomplishment in the field of organ counterpoint. The task of selecting a king from that noble crowd, however, is not an enviable one. Though it provides the sense of a stable answer to the fantasia in its predominantly even sixteenth note rhythms, it is similarly ambitious harmonically: Bach makes two revolutions through the entire circle of fifths. The fugue makes a fine contrast with the later music of the fantasia while nevertheless seeming of a piece with it.
Many of Bach’s organ works can only be dated approximately, but it is different in the case of this Fantasia and fugue. Bach performed these works in Hamburg, where the post of organist at St Jacob’s Church became vacant in 1720. During a recital lasting over two hours, he demonstrated his skills as an organist and struck his audience dumb. One member of that audience was the former organist Reincken, the eminence grise of the Hamburg music scene, who praised Bach’s improvisational art as follows: ‘I thought this skill had died out, but I see it lives on in you’. Yet Bach was not really planning to take up the vacant position. Only three years beforehand, he had accepted a position as Kapellmeister in Köthen precisely in order to stretch his wings vocally as well, and to rid himself of the too restrictive label of ‘organ virtuoso’. However, Bach probably did have an eye on the post of cantor at St John’s School in Hamburg, which was shortly to become vacant. In the end, Telemann was appointed to that post and not long afterwards Bach was given a similar appointment in Leipzig.
Whatever the case, Bach confirmed his reputation with the ambitious scope and structure of his Fantasia and fugue. The breathtaking fantasia starts off as a completely free improvisation, but then reveals itself as a rhetorical argument. Overwhelming, rather ominous passages are alternated with measured, punctual annotations. All the registers are opened, from chromatic successions to all sorts of surprising harmonic twists and turns, which are finally finished off by the pedal. The virtuoso fugue that follows appears to contain an extra tribute to old Reincken, who was born in Deventer, as its theme is derived from a cheerful Dutch song, ‘Ik ben gegroet van’, from the collection Oude en Nieuwe Hollantse Boeren Lieties. The brisk footwork required by the piece takes it to its festive climax.
Source: Allmusic (http://www.allmusic.com/composition/fantasia-and-fugue-for-organ-in-g-minor-great-bwv-542-bc-j42-57-67-mc0002358946) and AllOfBach (http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-542/).
Although originally composed for Pipe Organ, I created this arrangement of the Fantasia & Fugue in G Minor (BWV 542 for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
00:04 Fantasia
06:18 Fugue