Bach’s Prelude in C, BWV 846 contains the B.A.C.H. Motive?

by Stephen Halloran 

Johann Sebastian Bach’s last name, has a singular quality; each letter is a musical note in German. Bach wove it into many compositions including his last work, The Art of Fugue. Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach, his son, wrote directly on the manuscript “While working on this Fugue, where the name B.A.C.H. appears in the countersubject, the composer died.”

In the first Prelude to The Well-Tempered Clavier, beginning at measure 20, did Bach cunningly sign his name in an inner voice?

            The letter B (a sounding B flat) in measure 20 enters as the initial chromatic tone tonicizing F major and alerting our ears to the inner voice that will ultimately reveal Bach’s name. In the next measure, the chord containing the letter A is out of the ordinary because of the unresolved dissonant major seventh (the tone E in the soprano) that is held over from the previous chord refusing to resolve conventionally. This dissonance of the major seventh in the outer voices then moves by half-steps symmetrically inward in both voices (E to E flat in the soprano, F to F sharp in the bass) producing a fully diminished seventh chord in measure 22 which harbors the next letter of Bach’s name, C. The tone of C in this measure is discreetly offset by a sixteenth note in the repeating pattern but can be clearly heard; serving as Bach’s “Quaerendo invenietis” (Latin for “seek and ye shall find”) moment. The H (a sounding B natural) is unusual since it is not apparent whether it is a chord tone or a lower neighbor in the repeating pattern; a peculiar situation that has not yet occurred in this Prelude. Most striking is the bass note from the minor key in measure 23 which is approached by an upward melodic dissonance (F sharp to A flat, a diminished third); truly a unique Bach moment. (To avoid this sound, Carl Czerny added a measure in his edition taking B.A.C.H. out of his own Prelude!) In fact, the bass line beginning in measure 21 (F, F sharp, A flat, G (see score)) is convincing imitative canonic counterpoint to the Bach motive (B flat, A, C, B natural) since both motives can be contained within four connecting half-steps and each has a skip of a third at its center.  

Furthermore, Bach employs the full spectrum of harmonic color by incorporating each letter with a different seventh chord type (B is dominant seventh chord, A is major seventh chord, C is a fully-diminished seventh chord and H is at least possibly a half-diminished chord) The placement of this passage within the Prelude (see score) seems fitting since it is the last phrase of the first section (measure 1-23) acting as a bridge to the dominant pedal tone in the bass of the last section.(measure 24-35)  Even without his name in it, this phrase stands out as music that only Johann Sebastian Bach could have composed.

   June 7, 2011 (all rights reserved)

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