Johann Sebastian Bach's "Art of the Fugue", the "summit work of abstract, architectural compositional art" (Edwin Fischer), confronts us here in the interpretation of the Berlin Saxophone Quartet in an unusual and unexpectedly charming form Bach left behind the fugue cycle, probably begun in 1747 or only in 1749, without instrumentation instructions and, with a few exceptions, without designations. He also did not bring it to completion, probably due to two eye operations at the beginning of 1750 and his death on the 28th of the same year. The only sources we have are the parts of the score in the form of the Berlin autograph (the manuscript of the Prussian State Library and various pages of Bach's hand), various copies of the first print (presumably dated between 1750-53) and a one-page erratum list, based on Smend by Carl Philip Emanuel Bach; documents that had fallen into oblivion until rediscovery by Wolfgang Graeser in 1924 and a first performance of the work in 1927 It almost seems as if it no longer seemed important to Bach how his last coherent composition, the sum of his entire fugue art, would be rendered in sound. Not even the name of the work. added to the autograph by a foreign hand, is authentic. Nor do we know anything certain about the origin of the varied theme, the time of its emergence and possible relations to the preceding "Musical Victim". At first he was convinced that Bach had written the "Art of the Fugue" for a keyboard instrument, for harpsichord (clavichord) or organ (walcha) (see for example Leonhardt: "The Art of the Fugue, Bach's Last Harpsichord Works"), there have nevertheless been many occasions since Graeser's rediscovery for quite different instrumentations, especially in string quartet and chamber orchestra form: the catalogue also contains the most diverse interpretations, from keyboard instruments, string and woodwind instruments to brass. Bach may have meant them all or not thought of any of them. What is certain, however, is that the quartet version presented here was not in his imagination, since the wind instrument used here, after the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax "Saxophon", was only developed almost 100 years after his death and patented in Paris in 1846 The listener has the opportunity to judge for himself how suitable the saxophone or the members of the large saxophone family (soprano) - (tenor) -, alto - and baritone saxophone assembled in the quartet are for the performance of Bach's visionary music. Originally conceived by the builder as a bridge between woodwind and brass instruments, the saxophone was soon used in chamber music. An early example is Jean-Baptiste Singelee's saxophone quartet from 1857, but the instrument also found its way into military music and, in the 1920s, jazz music, where it still plays a central role. As a jazz instrument it is also known to many music listeners. Less common is the fact that the saxophone, in addition to its chamber music use, was used effectively in concert, opera and ballet literature, for example in Kastner's "Le dernier roi de Juda" (1845), Meyerbeer, Bizet, Massenet or Debussy (Rhapsodie), Glasunow (Concerto in Eb) and many others, from Prokofieff to Kodaly, Hindemith, Villa-Lobos, Gershwin and Ravel (Bolero). Richard Strauss used a saxophone quartet in his "Symphonia domestica". There are also examples for independent saxophone quartets. So there can be no doubt that the characteristic tone of the saxophones is excellently suited for illuminating the polyphonic miracle of the "art of fugue". The saxophone quartet, one will notice here, enables a "refreshing reinterpretation" (Dümling) Friedemann Graef (baritone saxophone) has arranged the work for saxophone quartet and presents it to the public with Detlef Bensmann (soprano saxophone), Christof Griese (tenor saxophone) and Klaus Kreczmarsky (alto saxophone), encouraged by successes in numerous performances of the work in Berlin, Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Bremen, Düsseldorf and Budapest. Friedemann Graef had already set parts of the "Art of the Fugue" for saxophone quartet in the early eighties. In 1986 he was commissioned by the Peterskirche in Frankfurt am Main (cantor Reinhold Finkbeiner) to arrange the complete works, which he found more suitable than almost any other for tracing the lines of the contrapuntal polyphony with the voices and special timbres of the four chosen saxophones and interpreting them in a soloistic and at the same time chamber-musical manner "The idea of arranging Bach's 'Art of the Fugue' had several sources for me 1) The late romantic literature for saxophone quartet is mostly melody-oriented and less attractive for the players of the lower instruments. But our quartet consists of four ambitious soloists. The equality of all voices in the fugues thus brings a 'social' aspect to ensemble work. It is possible that Bach also wanted to set an accent against the melody of the beginning pre-classical period with a consistently contrapuntal work - at this time this style was already out of fashion 2) For a string quartet, and thus also for a saxophone quartet, the 'Art of the Fugue' is a key work in terms of communicative articulation, balance of dynamics and rhythmic interplay. The approach to this work therefore also has an educational component 3) I have further accentuated the rhythmic structures through decompositions and distributions, provoking an intensive communication that for me represents an essential, almost necessary quality of chamber music. In some of the counterpoints there are conclusions that are more than four voices. These passages have been set up in such a way that they can be played by four saxophones. In addition, the saxophone quartet delivers a sound so rich in overtones that octave parallels become unnecessary" (Friedemann Graef) The sequence of the 14 fugues and 4 canons is idiosyncratic and deviates from that proposed by Graeser and on which his first public performance of the complete work in chamber music form was based, on 26 June 1927, in Leipzig's Thomaskirche. The order of the individual parts envisaged by J. S. Bach is not known to us with certainty; is it the order of the manuscripts, or that of the various copies of the first print, which may have been (co-)determined by the engraver of the score; what does the reference to "another ground plan" noted on the back of the last page of the quadruple fugue mean; does one of the numerous arrangements proposed later better meet Bach's intentions, did Wilhelm Friedemann Bach make corrections to the order of the estate? We don't know for sure. This gives the empathy of each individual editor the desired leeway that so many different people have made use of - and which has been particularly used in the present work. The arrangement of the joints is based on the concert situation. In order to facilitate access for the listener, a sequence was chosen that was as varied as possible but at the same time guaranteed the inner context of the work Through the subjective choice of tempi, volume and articulation, each block is given its own inner dramaturgy. Each individual counterpoint is assigned a mood by the instrumentation which supports this dramaturgy and gives the listener the opportunity to follow both the harmonic and motivic structures of the respective fugues as well as the peculiarities of the saxophone voices in the arrangement of these structures. The latter is made possible by a dynamic but nevertheless strict style of making music without legato and without vibrato. In the present version, the ductus first leads to the four simple four-part basic fugues, but in a different order, namely Contrapunctus 3 with the theme in the inversion before Contrapunctus 2 with its rhythmic change. In contrast to Graeser and Walcha, the canonical fugues 15, 16 and 17 follow, the first of which is depicted in the octave with all four instruments, the second with soprano and tenor and the third with alto and baritone saxophone. In the third block, the four polyphonic fugues are preferred; first the triple fugues Nos. 8 and 11, whereby the three parts of Contrapunctus 8 are distributed among all four instruments, which here offer a special example of soloistic ensemble playing. This is followed by the double fugues, first No. 10 with the reversal of the main theme as laid out in Contrapunctus 5, then No. 9 with a new theme and its union with the main theme. The counter fugues follow in the order of the inversion in value values in order to pass over the two-part canon set for soprano and baritone to the two four-part mirror fugues. In this block Contrapunctus 7 deserves to be emphasized; here the transmission of the enlargement of the basic form and reversal through the individual voices is condensed into ideal music-making and at the same time the presentation of the special timbres of all four instruments. The mirror fugues, especially Contrapunctus 13a and b, are particularly convincing in their musical interpretation, giving the opportunity (soprano) and alto to follow in strict dialogue with the baritone and then with the tenor. Finally, all four instruments unite to form the quadruple fugue, which breaks off in the third theme B-A-C-H, at the point on the last page of the autograph which bears the handwritten addition possibly by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: "NB Ueber diser Fuge, wo Der Nahme B A C H im Contrasubject angebracht worden, hat der Verfaßer died". Here the puzzling work seems to reveal itself in its core; the interpretation reaches its climax and breaks off Thus Bach's monumental fugue work fades away with the voice of the tenor saxophone, a work that was originally composed perhaps even in the last phase of Bach's health, between 1747 and the beginning of 1750, as an annual gift for the "Corresponding Society of Musical Sciences". Bach had been accepted into the academy founded by Mizler von Kolof in 1747 and had fulfilled the obligation to deliver at least one work per year for the first year with the composition "Einige canonische Veränderungen über Vom Himmel hoch". Thus the thought has been further spun that the present fugue work was tackled after Bach's visit to Potsdam Palace, i.e. parallel to the "Musical Sacrifice", and flourished until the eye suffering of the work came to an end.