Art of the Fugue, BWV.1080
The Art of Fugue, or The Art of the Fugue (German: Die Kunst der Fuge), BWV 1080, is an incomplete musical work of unspecified instrumentation by Johann Sebastian Bach. Written in the last decade of his life, The Art of Fugue is the culmination of Bach's experimentation with monothematic instrumental works.
This work consists of fourteen fugues and four canons in D minor, each using some variation of a single principal subject, and generally ordered to increase in complexity. "The governing idea of the work", as put by Bach specialist Christoph Wolff, "was an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject." The word "contrapunctus" is often used for each fugue.
Movements
- Contrapunctus 1
- Contrapunctus 2
- Contrapunctus 3
- Contrapunctus 4
- Contrapunctus 5
- Contrapunctus 6
- Contrapunctus 7
- Contrapunctus 8
- Contrapunctus 9
- Contrapunctus 10
- Contrapunctus 11
- Contrapunctus 12
- Contrapunctus 13
- Contrapunctus 14
- Contrapunctus 15
- Contrapunctus 16
- Contrapunctus 17
- Contrapunctus 18
- Contrapunctus 19
- Contrapunctus 20
- Contrapunctus 13 A 3
- Contrapunctus XIV
- Contrapunctus a 4
Recommended recordings
- Musica Antiqua Köln · Reinhard Goebel YouTubeSpotify (subscription)
- Emerson String Quartet YouTubeSpotify (subscription)
Most recent recordings
- Johann Sebastian Bach: The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 — Johann Sebastian Bach, Michael Tsalka (2026) Spotify
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