Bach - Prelude and Fugue in F Minor BWV 534

This Prelude and Fugue has a special place in my heart. Before I had started organ lessons (which was about 6 or 7 years ago) I was singing in a church choir at my local church and had been for a few years. My choir director, who was also organist at the church and later became my teacher, had just finished recording a CD. The last piece on the CD was this Prelude and Fugue. I got a copy from him and would listen to the disk over and over, but I was particularly fond of this Bach piece. It was my first real exposure to Bach in the organ world and I became obsessed with it. I asked if he would make me a photocopy of the score and when I got it my first thought was "I'll never be able to play this." But I would still mess around with it every now and then. I was determined to play it one day anyway.

A few years later I asked if I could learn it and my teacher said "I really don't think you're ready yet. That piece is a lot harder than it sounds." I didn't completely believe him, but I went with it.

This past May however, my current organ teacher and I were discussing new rep for this year and I asked if I could do this piece. He thought it was a good idea and I started working on it! Needless to say after about 6 years of wanting to do it, I was very excited. Previously, I had only done the Prelude and Fugue in E Minor BWV 533 and the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor BWV 549, but being that they are probably the easiest of all Bach's P&Fs (except the Eight Little Preludes and Fugues) I was excited to start my first "real" one.


Once I started, I realized my first teacher was right. It's harder than it looks. Though the first line (possibly my favorite part of the prelude) starts out easy enough.

However, I've been having a lot of fun learning it! I spent all of my summer working on it. The prelude was more difficult for me than the fugue was. That's odd for me, being that usually the fugues are what kill me. There were some particularly tricky passages to finger in the prelude. Especially near the end when the pedal line drops out for a bit. I think over all though, my biggest challenge was the pedaling. There are numerous passages where I have to jump a fifth with one foot (or do some really fast substitution!) and others where I have consecutive scale passages that I found difficult at first to keep smooth. The absolute hardest couple of measures for me are below and you can see for yourself why!

Finally, after many many many hours I finished the prelude! Then it was on to the fugue...


The fugue subject is my favorite of any Bach fugue.

Surprisingly, like I already said, I didn't find the fugue nearly as difficult as the prelude. I learned it in probably half the time. Obviously it wasn't easy or anything (it is Bach after all), but not as bad as I thought it would be. The biggest overall challenge for me was again, fingering. Thankfully all of the pedaling was pretty straightforward. Oh and trying to figure out which hand plays which voice was a pain too. I'm using the Barenreiter edition and usually they are pretty good about this, but with this fugue I was constantly having to take notes from the treble clef in the left hand and vice versa. Those were my two main issues with the piece. Then again, I think those are the two issues with any Bach piece...

Today was a wonderful day though. For the first time I was able to play straight through the entire prelude and fugue. It was so satisfying being able to complete a goal that I had set for myself 7 years ago!! Of all the Bach Preludes and Fugues for organ, the two that I always wanted to learn most was the F minor and the B minor. Now I'm halfway there! I think I'll wait a few more years though until I tackle the B minor....

Anyway, that's about all I want to say on that. If I had my own recording on YouTube of the piece I would post that, but for now I'll have to settle for someone else's. =) This is definitely a piece worth listening to!

Yours in music,

Jim