Peter Maxwell Davies' Arrangements III

-- Liner Notes from 'Renaissance & Baroque Realisations' --

Johann Sebastian Bach
Prelude & Fugue in C-sharp minor
Prelude & Fugue in C-sharp major
Both from 'The 48' Book I
(unconducted chamber performances)

The C-sharp minor was realised in 1972 to precede a performance of the Schoenberg/Webern Kammersymphonie, Opus 9, whose home key is the relative E major. The C-sharp major came two years later as an 'advance companion-piece' to Maxwell Davies's own Ave Maris Stella (Unicorn-Kanchana UKCD 2038), which shares the same key-centre. Subsequently the Fires began to perform the two preludes and fugues as a unit.

The choice of these preludes and fugues is in part simply a sign of affection for them and partly a function of the original concert-pairings mentioned above - but it also relates to the particular resonance created by the keys of C-sharp major and minor when transferred from the keyboard, where they are already rare, to the instrumental combination used, and above all to the two stringed instruments.

The C-sharp minor prelude is notable for the frequent hocket-like division of melodic lines, particularly between the timbrally distinct flute and clarinet. In the fugue, the marimba takes its place as an absolutely equal voice in the texture.

Anyone who enjoys musical puzzles and detective-work will have a field-day with the Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp major. The orchestration of the prelude 'X-rays' the music to reveal cross-relationships with the fugue which are anywhere from implicit to non-existent in the original, while the fugue pokes fun at Webernesque Klangfarbenmelodie by segmenting the subject into three successive instrumental colours.