A Schenkerian study of J. S. Bach's 'Two-part Inventions' presented in their original ordering.

摘要

This dissertation presents a Schenkerian study of the "Two-part Inventions" by J. S. Bach. The author's interest in the application of Schenkerian analytical concepts to 18th-century counterpoint resides in the very nature of the contrapuntal style, i.e., the condensed interlacing of thematic elements which constantly transfer from one voice to another unique to 18th-century imitative, canonic and fugal techniques. Accordingly, the analytical approach focuses primarily on the relationship between surface features and the unfolding of the middleground voice-leading.;The pieces are introduced in the order in which they appeared in the Clariverbuchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (ca. 1720). According to Ellwood Derr, a highly organized pedagogical plan, which divides the fifteen inventions into five groups of three pieces primarily according to similarities in compositional techniques between every piece within one group, underlies the original ordering. This thesis, evolving from a detailed examination of foreground compositional and developmental techniques, will therefore retain Derr's grouping of the inventions. Its secondary goal is to further substantiate Derr's position by showing how the similarities in surface features are still at work at the middleground level.;The discussion opens with an introduction which defines the purpose of the thesis, further examines Derr's hypothesis, and describes the methods and procedures used. The author proceeds to the musical analysis of three inventions per chapter followed by a conclusion which attempts to identify the specificity of each three-piece group. Each analysis first examines the motivic structure of the opening statement and the foreground compositional techniques. This is followed by a discussion of the middleground voice-leading, illustrated by the accompanying Schenkerian graph. After the analysis of the complete fifteen-piece cycle, the thesis concludes with a survey of the problems inherent in Schenkerian interpretation of 18th-century contrapuntal style. So as to provide the reader with examples of the possible applications of the study's results, the author analyses excerpts of Sinfonia 2 and Sinfonia 3. These two pieces were chosen for their interest as illustrations, in a three-part polyphonic setting, of the characteristics of imitative writing found in the inventions.