Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543

Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543 is a piece of organ music written by Johann Sebastian Bach[1] sometime around his years as court organist to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar (1708–1713).

[2] According to David Schulenberg, the main sources for BWV 543 can be traced to the Berlin circle around Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Kirnberger.

There is an additional source from the copyist Joachim Andreas Dröbs whose score for BWV 543 formed part of a collection by Johann Christian Kittel, now in the Leipzig University Library.

An additional source is the score made by the copyist Michael Gotthardt Fischer; it is now stored in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University.

The highly embellished cadence that follows—full of manual runs over sustained pedal notes—leads into a contrapuntal exploration of the opening material in sequence; this is followed by a very free peroration.

[1] In his book on the reception of Bach's organ works in nineteenth-century Germany, the musicologist Russell Stinson immediately singles out Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms.

[10][11][12] As a child, Liszt had been instructed by his father to master the keyboard works of Bach, with daily exercises on fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC).

In 1857, having attended a Bach organ recital at the Frauenkirche, Dresden, which captivated both Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim, Liszt's reaction had been, "Hm, dry as bones."

"[12] In 1847, exhausted by his years on the concert circuit, Liszt retired to Weimar, where in 1848 he was appointed to be Kapellmeister at the Grand Duchy, the same role once filled by Bach.

His new mistress was Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who lived in a country estate at Woronińce in Ukraine; their companionship continued until Liszt's death.

Stinson (2006) gives the technical details of the different stages of transcription, which started from simple notes in Haslinger's score: these are recorded in the Goethe- und Schiller-Archive in Weimar.

In his book, Stinson gives the A minor prelude of BWV 543 as the main example for how the process works, with particular attention given to how the pedal part can be filled in from the right hand.

In the published version of Peters, Liszt chose to place the B minor prelude and fugue, BWV 544 last, altering the standard order in most of the editions for organ.

As Stinson concludes, "over thirty years later Liszt commented to his piano class that it would have been “sinful” of him to add dynamic markings to the score of the A-minor fugue, since “the great Bach” had written none himself."

Even in his later years, Liszt's A minor fugue remained one of his favourites: when he was invited to play at a private evening concert, with guests of honour Prince Albert of Prussia and his wife Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg, Liszt's first choice was the fugue and in his letter of thanks disclosed that Clara Schumann now as matter of course played his transcription rather than her own.

In the 1880s, American pupils of Liszt, particularly Carl Lachmund, attested to his pleasure in hearing or speaking about the fugue, be it at a Weimar dinner party in his honour, where students sang it together, or in a masterclass discussing its performance.

The four-hand arrangement of BWV 543 comes from his collection Ausgewählte Orgelwerke, published in 1896 by Augener & Co in London and G. Schirmer in New York, contains ten pieces, with a high level of difficulty.

"[15][16] In 1905 Reger became the regular piano partner of Philipp Wolfrum, director of music at Heidelberg University and author of a two-volume monograph on Bach.

Bach's contemporary relevance (“Was ist mir Johann Sebastian Bach und was bedeutet er für unsere Zeit?”); as Anderson concludes, "The brevity of Reger’s “essay,” however, does not prevent the emergence of certain themes that are developed at greater length elsewhere in his writings: the nature of progress, the “illness” of contemporary musical culture, German nationalism, the guilt of the critics."

"[15][18][19] In 1898, before any recognition for his music, Reger had travelled to St. Paul's Church, Frankfurt am Main to hear a recital of his works by the Berlin organist Karl Straube.

[20] Straube's organ playing reflected late-romantic style: as in Reger's works, his use of the Walze and Swell roller mechanisms, pioneered by Wilhelm Sauer, permitted rapid changes of dynamics and orchestral colour.

[21] In the case of the fugue of BWV 543, this drew criticism, even amongst ardent supporters of Straube, when unorthodox registration resulted in a perceived sacrifice to clarity during brilliant passage work.

After Reger's death in 1916, a series of Straube's pupils in Leipzig helped maintain that tradition, despite the Orgelbewegung, the German organ reform movement that had started in the 1920s.

[20][22] One of Straube's Leipzig pupils, Heinrich Fleischer, was called up for service in Germany in 1941; in Russia he was injured in an automobile accident in 1943; after three days of surgery at Równo, he was informed that two fingers of his left hand would have to be amputated, one completely and the other partially.

He remarked "[a]fter reflecting further on this resemblance, I then realized that the other theme as well was derived from my own idealization of Johann Sebastian Bach's Fugue in A Minor BWV 543.