Symbolics of Bach's the art of fugue

Abstract

Bach's work The Art of Fugue, which consists of 14 fugues and 4 canons, represents a specific contrapuntal cycle: all the themes it is build on are based on a transformation of a single opening theme. The work was composed as Bach's final offer for a membership in Mizler's society of artists. Historical data about the society, as well as the fact that Bach dealt with the problem area of temperament, point to his understanding of Pythagorean doctrine. This leads to the hypothesis about the symbolic content of the piece. The paper determines a parallel between this Bach's cycle and the renaissance idea of 'change' (this idea is an interpretation of a mysterious archaic text written on 13 emerald tablets24). The symbolics of this Bach's piece is recognised as a demonstration of understanding the 'secret of creativity'.