Show description

The smaller chorales, though not necessarily easier to play than the larger, could also have served as devotional music at home. Thirdly, the music itself ranges from quasi-Palestrinian counterpoint (stile antico) to quasi-galant chamber trios, from French and Italian idioms to traditional German-Lutheran counterpoint, and as such offered a range of stylistic models or lessons for any composer. And finally, the impeccable invertible counterpoint of the four Duetti and various trios, the two big-scale canons, and at least three distinct fugue-types (fughetta, ricercar, and a Well-tempered Clavier type) provide models of contrapuntal working superior to any handbook by any theorist.

One interesting possibility emerges from the similarity between the Hurlebusch pieces and those framing Clavier¨ubung III: Hurlebusch’s are in D major, and the question arises whether this was the original key – in intention or in fact – of the great Prelude and Fugue in E . These are, after all, organo pleno or Full Organ music of a kind seldom found in such a key as this before equal temperament. The Prelude’s unlikely passage in E minor would then be in D minor, and throughout both pieces, D major or minor fits the hands better.

Var. 10 Var. 11 12/16 2 man. Var. 12 3/4 1 man. 4 voices 2 voices 3 voices ‘fughetta’ hand-crossing, duet canon inversus at the fourth Var. 13 3/4 2 man. 3 voices Var. 14 Var. 15 3/4 2/4 2 man 1 man. 2 voices 3 voices melodic, like a sarabande doubl´ee hand-crossing, duet canon inversus at the fifth, minor 3/8 3/4 1 man. 1 man. 2 man. 1 man. 2–4 voices 2–3 voices 2 voices 3 voices ‘ouverture’, followed by stretto fugue hand-crossing, duet canon at the sixth, as a trio-sonata 1 man. 2 man. 1 man.