A tenebrous yet highly-charged fugal study on the Lutheran hymn tune "Christus, der uns selig macht". Within the first two measures, the fugal exposition establishes a florid yet concise subject subtly derived from the hymn tune, entering first in the bass voice, then in the alto, then in the soprano. Corresponding with the alto voice's entry of the subject in measure three, a "real answer " at the fourth, the soprano blares with a statement of the initial phrase of the hymn tune ((hereinafter called the "cantus firmus") in quarter notes, after which the soprano takes up the subject a minor seventh above the bass's statement (a fourth above the alto's answer). As the fugue proceeds, entries of the subject overlap contrapuntally with freely-derived subsidiary material and the progressive revelation of phrases of the cantus firmus in the soprano voice, while developmental episodes periodically appear in the guise of transitional passages which intensify fragments drawn from the fugal subject. The work concludes with the appearance of part of the cantus firmus undergoing rhythmic diminution, followed by a brief descending passage over a pedal point and a stretto combining the subject with its inverted form, cadencing on an A major triad immediately preceded by virtuosic passagework first in the lowest and then the uppermost part.
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