BWV 574 with Fingering and Pedaling

At the end of last summer the world-famous Dutch organist Pieter van Dijk came to Vilnius, Lithuania for a few days to give master-classes on early music. As part of this event he also played an hour-long recital at the Cathedral.

One of the pieces that really stood out was J.S. Bach's fugue in C minor on the theme of Legrenzi, BWV 574. Believe it or not I've never played nor heard this beautiful fugue before.

Van Dijk's playing was so inspiring and so rhythmically strong that the pulse could be heard even in the most romantic compositions from that day's repertoire.

It's a complex double fugue - the second theme enters in the middle of page 2. It also has fascinating canonic stretto entrances which will not be very easy to learn yet I'm sure lovers of fugue genre will find them amazing.

The ending of the fugue is particularly worth mentioning. At the end of page 6 the piece sort of ends with a strong authentic cadence but Bach decided to compose one more page with an extended virtuoso plagal cadence - basically a long excursion into the subdominant key of F minor which is also extended by the authentic cadence.

Contrary to basic logic, please make sure you hold the last chord extremely short. This will help you make a strong impact on your listeners (just like Pieter van Dijk made on me).

Ever since this recital, the fugue on the theme of Legrenzi haunted me wherever I went so that I decided to create a PDF practice score for you. I hope you'll enjoy playing from my score (7 pages) with complete fingering and pedaling which will save you many hours and set you on the efficient path of mastering it.

Let me know how your practice goes.

This score is free for Total Organist students.