 Cette réalisation est étayée par un propos musicologique nouveau et radical révolutionnant les traditions d'interprétation qui prévalent. Au lieu de s'appuyer sur les 2 éditions de 1751/1752, A. Rasi soutient au contraire que la version la plus proche du définitif est celle du manuscrit autographe de Berlin considéré jusqu'ici comme un état préparatoire : il présenterait des manques par rapport aux versions imprimées. Inversant cette conception, Rasi affirme que ces manques sont une illusion rétrospective créée par des ajouts qui, dans les versions éditées résultent des « efforts conjoints des enfants et des étudiants » du Cantor. L'ordonnancement, est, en outre, beaucoup plus cohérent sur le plan logique et sur le plan esthétique dans le manuscrit : « les différentes pièces [y] progressent dans un ordre croissant de difficulté et de perfection contrapuntique ». Force est de reconnaître, en tout cas, l'extraordinaire qualité de ce que l'ensemble (1 violon + consort de violes + orgue) nous fait entendre ici. La beauté des timbres, la scansion parfaite de chaque fugue, l'élan qui confère une grande clarté au dévidement de cette polyphonie complexe — le choix d'un orgue plutôt que d'un clavecin constituant un défi à cet égard — le caractère à la fois posé et implacable des expositions du thème, le caractère irrésistible de la « course-poursuite » qui se joue dans la fuga rectus [5] le choix judicieux des registrations à l'orgue qui rendent superbement l'étagement des voix, [fuga inversus 6], le rendu de la majesté de la fugue en style français [7], le côté joueur et espiègle du premier canon et sa couleur flûtée [9] etc., tout fait de ce CD un enchantement sonore. (Bertrand Abraham) Rethinking a masterpiece. The Art of Fugue is both Johann Sebastian Bach’s opus summum and last complete work, presumably undertaken between 1740 and 1742. According to the frontispiece, the work’s original title actually read DIE KUNST DER FUGA, notably featuring the Latin (or Italian) word fuga rather than German Fuge - as found, instead, in the two printed editions of 1751 and 1752. Die Kunst der Fuga (KdF hereafter), in the form and the order presented in the Berlin Autograph, has all the appearance of a finished work featuring 14 fugues and canons, all based upon a single original theme, serving as the work’s foundation and with the individual pieces progressing in an increasing order of difficulty and contrapuntal perfection. This brief study sets out to attempt a switch in perspective, shifting from the ‘point of view’ of the First Printed Edition – through which the KdF has traditionally been examined by the vast majority of scholars – to that of the Berlin Autograph. Despite having already been studied and collated with the 1751 and 1752 editions, the autograph has always been viewed by the dominant ideology as incomplete; little more than a preparatory stage for its printed counterparts. Only in recent times have scholars (amongst whom Christoph Wolff) started to note that the KdF as found in the autograph manuscript at the time of its completion might well stand comparison with the alleged ‘final version’ of the printed editions, and thus may be elevated to the full dignity of an Alte Fassung. And this study would argue that the Berlin Autograph contains, in fact, the latest and ‘closest-to-final’ version of the KdF, whilst the First Printed Edition is entirely the result of the conjoint efforts of Bach’s children and students as there is no proof that Bach was ever involved in preparatory works concerning any other of its pieces. Furthermore, the order displayed in the Berlin Autograph appears decidedly more logical and “artistic” than that of the First Printed Edition – which, by comparison, appears less interesting (tending towards pedantic) and not without compilation errors. Far from being a merely speculative or theoretical work, Die Kunst der Fuga is a work for manualiter keyboard. But true to the spirit of an era of musica prattica, performing polyphonic keyboard repertoire with instrumental ensembles aligns with a consolidated tradition that finds it roots in an amply documented practice dating all the way back to the 16th century. The viol consort had been the “instrument” par excellence since the 16th century for its ability to render transparent even the most complex of polyphonies, and it had only just left the scene to the modern virtuoso baroque orchestra. And our choice of combining the violin (a da braccio instrument) with the members of the da gamba family falls perfectly within the German musical tradition.
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