Deconstructing Johann (Bach)
J. S. Bach had a little problem.
J. S. Bach was in a fix.
J.S. Bach couldn’t find an answer.
What to do?
“I’ve written most of a rather fabulous work. Toccata… it’s in d minor… but now I’m feeling a bit of a jerk.
I can’t think of what should come after it.”
Now said his wife, who was resting up after her thirty third child….
“Johann my dear, you should just go to bed. Something always comes up.”
“Don’t be a twit. It’s a real crisis and I’m working to a deadline.
What can I fit? What’d fit after that great Toccata?
Maybe it needs to be something faster?
I haven’t got a clue, and in a week the piece is due.
I’m in a panic and I’m stuck like glue.”
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist Johann. ‘Notes are only notes’ you always said.
There’s only twelve so use your head.
How many arrangements of twelve notes can there possibly be?”
That’s a problem I don’t want to deal with.
How many permutations of C and D and E and F and G is a thing that I’ve never heard of.
You can leave that to Arnold Schoenberg.
He is the person to do that twelve-tone thing.
NO!
It isn’t the answer… I haven’t the foggiest… What am I gonna do?
I’m all in a panic… Aaah! NO! What can I do?
I’ve finished my Toccata but I have no fugue.
(Fugue plays ;-)
aaah…. And now I’ve got a fugue!”
