Ariadne musica is a collection of organ music by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, first published in 1702. The main part of the collection is a cycle of 20 preludes and fugues in different keys, so Ariadne musica is considered an important precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier which has a similar structure. Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Modern style pipe organ at the concert hall of Aletheia University in Matou, Taiwan The organ is a keyboard instrument with one or more manuals, and usually a pedalboard. ... Music is an art, entertainment, or other human activity that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. ... Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (c. ... Events March 8 - William III died; Princess Anne Stuart becomes Queen Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland. ... A prelude is a short piece of music, usually in no particular internal form, which may serve as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that are usually longer and more complex. ... In music, a fugue is a type of piece written for counterpoint for several independent musical voices. ... In music theory, the key identifies the tonic triad, the chord, major or minor, which represents the final point of rest for a piece, or the focal point of a section. ... Bach redirects here. ... Title-page of Das wohtemperierte Clavier A flat major (As-dur) fugue from the second part of Das wohtemperierte Clavier (manuscript) The Well-Tempered Clavier (Das wohltemperierte Clavier, Clavier meaning keyboard instrument) is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. ...

The title refers to the Greek myth in which Theseus is able to find his way out of Minotaur's labyrinth using a ball of thread Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, gave him. Similarly, the music in the collection can be said to guide the listener through a labyrinth of keys. Fischer also used Greek mythology to name the pieces in another large scale music collection of his, Musikalischer Parnassus. // Greek mythology consists in part in a large collection of narratives that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines. ... Theseus (Greek ) was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aegeus (or of Poseidon) and of Aethra. ... Minotaur at the Greek pavilion at Expo 88 In Greek mythology, the Minotaur (Greek: Μινόταυρος) was a creature that was part man and part bull. ... A Roman mosaic showing Theseus and the Minotaur. ... Drinking scene with Dionysus and Ariadne on his lap. ... In Greek mythology, Minos was a semi-legendary king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. ... Crete (Greek Κρήτη Kriti; called Candia in the Venetian period) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. ...

The first edition of Ariadne musica was made in 1702 in Schlackenwerth. The work was reprinted several times during Fischer's life. The original print mentioned by Johann Gottfried Walther in Musicalisches Lexicon is now lost, but a manuscript copy survives. Events March 8 - William III died; Princess Anne Stuart becomes Queen Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland. ... This article needs to be wikified. ... A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ...

Contents

20 preludes and fugues:

• Prelude & Fugue No. 1 in C major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 2 in C-sharp minor
• Prelude & Fugue No. 3 in D minor
• Prelude & Fugue No. 4 in D major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 5 in E-flat major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 6 in E Phrygian
• Prelude & Fugue No. 7 in E Dorian
• Prelude & Fugue No. 8 in E major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 9 in F minor
• Prelude & Fugue No. 10 in F major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 11 in F-sharp minor
• Prelude & Fugue No. 12 in G minor
• Prelude & Fugue No. 13 in G major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 14 in A-flat major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 15 in A minor
• Prelude & Fugue No. 16 in A major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 17 in B-flat major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 18 in B minor
• Prelude & Fugue No. 19 in B major
• Prelude & Fugue No. 20 in C minor

5 ricercars on chorale melodies, each connected with a specific catholic event: Due to historical confusion, Phrygian mode can refer to two very different musical modes or diatonic scales. ... Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode can refer to two very different musical modes or diatonic scales. ... A ricercar (or ricercare; the terms are interchangeable) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. ... A chorale was originally a hymn of the Lutheran church sung by the entire congregation. ...

• Ricercar pro Tempore Adventus, in C major (on Ave Maria klare, for Advent)
• Ricercar pro Festis Natalitys, in C major (on Der Tag der ist so freudenreich, for Christmas)
• Ricercar pro Tempore Quadragesimae, in A minor (on Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund, for Lent)
• Ricercar pro Festis Paschalibus, in D minor (on Christ ist erstanden, for Easter)
• Ricercar pro Festis Pentecostalibus, in F major (on Komm, heiliger Geist, for Pentecost)

All pieces are quite short, including a few really brief fugues (the 7 bar A minor fugue being the shortest). Most are in common time, with a few exceptions (most notably the E Dorian fugue which is in 12/8). The preludes vary from pieces based on short simplistic toccata-like passages over long sustained chords (as in, for example, the C major and G major ones) to slightly more complex works with brief imitative passages like this one, from the end of the E-flat major prelude: Advent (from the Latin Adventus, sc. ... Christmas is a Christian holiday held on December 25 which celebrates the birth of Jesus. ... In Western Christianity, Lent is the period from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday. ... This article is about the Christian festival. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The time signature (also known as meter signature) is a notational device used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each bar and what note value constitutes one beat. ... Toccata (Italian for touched) is a piece of classical music for a keyboard instrument, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer. ...

The fugues are all in four voices, except the A-flat major one which is a five voice fugue. Some are loosely connected thematically to the accompanying preludes. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (826x180, 4 KB) Summary Musical quotation from Prelude in E-flat major by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (died 1746). ...

The ricercars all feature themes written in whole and half notes, the C major Ricercar pro Festis Natalitys being one notable exception with the theme composed mostly of quarter and eighth notes. Three are marked alla breve, Ricercar pro Festis Natalitys is in common time and the F major ricercar is in 3/2. Alla breve is an italian musical term to describe a time signature of 2/2 (small alla breve) or even 4/2 and 2/1 (large alla breve). ...

Ricercar pro Festis Paschalibus was previously attirubted to Johann Sebastian Bach and listed in the BWV catalogue as BWV 746, chorale prelude Christ ist erstanden. The BWV numbers given here for the works of Johann Sebastian Bach are from Bach-Werke Verzeichnis by Wolfgang Schmieder, a thematic catalogue of Bachs works. ... In music, a chorale prelude is a short liturgical composition for organ using a chorale tune as its basis. ...

Connection with Johann Sebastian Bach

The most obvious connection of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier with Ariadne Musica is Bach's use of Fischer's subject in one of the fugues:

The six-note subject of the E major four-voice fugue by Fischer (opening bars pictured above, subject highlighted) is used by Bach as the subject of the E major fugue from the second volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV878/2, also in four voices: Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (823x99, 3 KB) Summary Musical quotation from Fugue in E major by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (died 1746). ...

Fischer's piece is quite short (although not as short as, for instance, the 8 bar E Phrygian fugue from the same collection) and written predominantly using long note values; Bach's fugue is much more complex, with dense counterpoint and also much longer - although Fischer's subject makes it into one of the few pieces from the WTC that feature a significant amount of whole and half-notes in all voices. Image File history File links Fischer-bach-wtc2-bwv878-2. ... Counterpoint is a broad organisational feature of much music, involving the simultaneous sounding of separate musical lines. ...

The same six-note subject is found in two 17th century keyboard compositions by the famous Johann Jakob Froberger: Fantasia No. 2 and Ricercar No. 4. The latter's opening bars can be seen below (with the inverted version of the same theme shown in dark pink): (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... Piano, a well-known instance of keyboard instruments A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a musical keyboard. ... Johann Jakob Froberger (1616 – 1667) was a German Baroque composer, harpsichordist, and organist, and a pupil of Girolamo Frescobaldi. ...

Fischer might've learned the theme from Froberger. Additionally, Fischer's E-flat major fugue and Bach's G minor fugue from Book 1 share a similar structure concerning the use of countersubjects; the subject of Bach's fugue is a slightly modified version of Fischer's. Both Bach's and Fischer's C major fugues are heavily based on stretto and their subjects are somewhat similar rhythmically. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (812x97, 3 KB) Summary Musical quotation from by Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–1667). ...

Recordings

Ariadne musica is rarely performed or recorded, although individual preludes and fugues frequently appear on miscellaneous compilations of Baroque organ music. Here's a partial list of recordings that feature at least one part of Ariadne musica (preludes and fugues or ricercars) in full: Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens. ...

• German Organ Music vol. 1, Joseph Payne, 1994. Naxos 550964. (on three different organs, ricercars not included)
• Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer: Blumen-Strauss: Complete Organ Works, Serge Schoonbroodt, 2002. AEOLUS AE-10321. (complete recording)
• A Joy Forever: Opus 41 at Goshen College, Bradley Lehma, 2006. LaripS 1002. (complete recording)
• J.K.F. Fischer: Ariadne Musica (20 Preludes & Fugues); works of Caldara, Bach, Beethoven, & Sorge, Franz Haselböck. Musical Heritage Society MHS 1634.

External links

• http://www.artlevine.com/baroque.fischer.aspx?SubCategory=39 Free PDF scores of the fugues from Ariadne musica.