or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
31 used & new from £5.26

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Available to Download Now
 
Buy the MP3 album for £7.48
 
 
 
 
Bach, J.S.: The Art of Fugue - Emerson String Quartet
 
See larger image
 

Bach, J.S.: The Art of Fugue - Emerson String Quartet

~ J.S. Bach
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
Price: £7.48 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, November 24? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
26 new from £5.26 5 used from £7.94
Buy CDs and get up to £3 credit to spend on MP3s
Spend more than £5 on CDs before December 31st, and get a credit to spend on MP3s: spend £5, get £1 credit; spend £10, get £2 credit; spend £15, get £3 credit. UK customers only. Terms apply.
Buy the MP3 album for £7.48 at the Amazon MP3 Downloads store.


Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • See our Christmas gift guide for great gift ideas for your loved ones this festive season.

  • Celebrate 111 Years of Deutsche-Grammophon

    This album is in our Deutsche-Grammophon promotion, with great prices to celebrate 111 years of the legendary label.

  • Discover millions of songs and albums in our MP3 music downloads store.


Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this with Bach: The Art of the Fugue ~ Glenn Gould

Bach, J.S.: The Art of Fugue - Emerson String Quartet + Bach: The Art of the Fugue
Price For Both: £11.46

Show availability and delivery details

  • This item: Bach, J.S.: The Art of Fugue - Emerson String Quartet ~ Emerson String Quartet

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Bach: The Art of the Fugue ~ Glenn Gould

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

An Equal Music / Verwandte Stimmen - Music From the Novel

An Equal Music / Verwandte Stimmen - Music From the Novel

~ Various Artists
5.0 out of 5 stars (4)  £9.98
Bach, J.S.: Fugues

Bach, J.S.: Fugues

~ Emerson String Quartet
£13.69
Bach: The Art of the Fugue

Bach: The Art of the Fugue

~ Glenn Gould
3.3 out of 5 stars (9)  £3.98
Bach, J.S.: Art of Fugue

Bach, J.S.: Art of Fugue

~ Pierre-Laurent Aimard
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £11.98
Beethoven: String Quartets

Beethoven: String Quartets

~ Ludwig van Beethoven
5.0 out of 5 stars (5)  £7.98
Explore similar items

Product details

  • Audio CD (6 Oct 2003)
  • SPARS Code: DDD
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Decca (UMO)
  • ASIN: B00008O8B3
  • Other Editions: MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 8,042 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

    Popular in these categories:

    #10 in  Music > Classical Instrumental > Chamber Music > String Quartets
    #11 in  Music > Classical Instrumental > Chamber Music > String Ensemble

Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.

Samples
Song TitleArtist Time Price
Listen  1. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus IEmerson String Quartet 3:04£0.79
Listen  2. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 2Emerson String Quartet 2:44£0.79
Listen  3. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 3Emerson String Quartet 2:30£0.79
Listen  4. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 4Emerson String Quartet 3:30£0.79
Listen  5. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 5Emerson String Quartet 2:32£0.79
Listen  6. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 6Emerson String Quartet 4:10£0.79
Listen  7. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 7Emerson String Quartet 3:07£0.79
Listen  8. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 8Eugene Drucker 4:54£0.79
Listen  9. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 9Emerson String Quartet 2:13£0.79
Listen10. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 10Emerson String Quartet 3:02£0.79
Listen11. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 11Emerson String Quartet 4:43£0.79
Listen12. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 14a: Canon per Augmentationem in contrario motuEugene Drucker 5:18£0.79
Listen13. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 12aEmerson String Quartet 1:49£0.79
Listen14. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 12bEmerson String Quartet 1:53£0.79
Listen15. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Canon alla OttavaLawrence Dutton 4:02£0.79
Listen16. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Canona alla Decima, in Contrapunto alla TerzaEugene Drucker 3:41£0.79
Listen17. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Canon alla Duodecima in Contrapunto alla QuintaPhilip Setzer 4:12£0.79
Listen18. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 13aPhilip Setzer 2:05£0.79
Listen19. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 13bEugene Drucker 2:09£0.79
Listen20. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 14: Canon per Augmentationem in contrario motuPhilip Setzer 6:53£0.79
Listen21. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Contrapunctus 14(18): Fuga a 3 SoggettiEmerson String Quartet 8:06Album Only
Listen22. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 - Version for String Quartet - Chorale: Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten seinEmerson String Quartet 3:15£0.79


On this CD:
  1. The Art of Fugue
    Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

 

Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars BE FAIR TO BACH, 13 Jan 2004
By DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
Probably the first thing that needs saying here is that the anonymous performers are none other than the Emerson Quartet. The second thing that needs saying is that while the performance and recording are absolutely top-notch in my estimation, there are two things about this production that I quite strongly dislike. The first is that the big final fugue, believed to have been left unfinished by the dying composer, breaks off abruptly. To me, this is a completely pointless procedure. Either provide a conclusion or leave the piece unplayed altogether. Providing a conclusion here is not like trying to provide a missing last page to a symphony by Shostakovich or even by Haydn, where there would be no way of knowing what final surprises the composer might have in store. If Bach’s Art of Fugue is anything, it is some kind of ultimate in method and logical development. Bach’s own conclusion can’t be determined with complete certainty, but it can be predicted better than in most other works, and if one thing is absolutely certain it’s that Bach did not intend a sudden silence. There is a conclusion by Donald Francis Tovey, there is another used by Davitt Moroney in his eminent harpsichord rendering, and I expect there are numerous others. For anyone who cannot bear to listen to a single note not guaranteed as by Bach, an extra track could be created at the point where his manuscript leaves off, and the rest of us could ignore it and let the music play through to some coherent ending. My other problem is with a liner-note that I find utterly insufferable. Most music-lovers probably want some commentary and guidance in this abstruse and didactic score. What we are offered here is a text that tries to do incompatible things and does them both very badly. Churchill once remarked, on seeing the name Bossom in the list of his new members of parliament ‘That name is neither one thing nor the other’. This liner note is neither one thing nor the other. On the one hand it parades a pretentious ragbag of bogus, irrelevant and distracting pseudo-complexities, and on the other it attempts a talking-down-to colloquial style that I personally find intolerable. Not every music lover is likely to want as much detail as is contained in Tovey’s great Companion to the work, but there is an excellent, instructive and readable short commentary by him in the chamber music volume of his Essays in Musical Analysis.

The Emersons give the first 11 numbers in the usual sequence, then one of two versions of the canon by augmentation in contrary motion, then the first pair of mirror fugues, then the other 3 canons, then the second pair of mirror fugues, then the alternative version of the canon by augmentation, followed by the unfinished fugue and the chorale ‘Vor deinen Thron’ by way of conclusion. The style thoughout is severe and serious. The dynamic level is more or less unvarying except for some understandable build-up at the climactic #11 and, more questionably, just before the final lacuna of #14. There is little or nothing by way of ‘expressive’ phrasing, and for that relief much thanks say I. Expressiveness in any ordinary sense is as out of place here as it would be in Newton’s Pricipia Mathematica. Some fugues are as ‘expressive’ as any other kind of music, not only in the Italian tradition of improvised fugues that underlies the fugues of Handel, but sometimes even in the fully worked-out and academic German style of which this composition is the ultimate exemplar. Here I am firmly of the school that believes that any such interpretation is grotesquely out of place. The normal quartet instruments are supplemented where necessary by a tenor viola to provide some low notes below the usual instrument’s reach, the players’ seating is reversed in the mirror fugues, and the quartet members offer some of their own special thoughts on the meaning of the work to them.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime music beautifully interpreted, 17 April 2007
By Nicholas Rees (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Bach's "Art of Fugue" occupies an important position in his overall output representing his most structured exploration of counterpoint, one of Bach's key preoccupations. The collection opens with a simple fugue the theme of which is subsequently reworked again and again employing ever more sophisticated contrapuntal devices. This is deep and stiring music with much beauty which relieves the possibility of austerity.

The Art of Fugue is not scored for any stated instrument but fits well on keyboard where almost all of the pieces are playable as written; keyboard versions, therefore predominated in recording. However, the string quartet setting delivers the sense of the music very powerfully and I have to declare myself a fan of this approach though I do play these pieces at the harpsichord myself. The key advantage of the string quartet setting is that each instrument can follow the voice through with optimum phrasing and fluency - somthing that not even the best keyboard player can master given the complex fingering that fugues demand. From a listening point of view therefore I would argue that the quartet is superior. There is also a warmth in the music that is very appealing.

The Emerson Quartet delivers an inspiring and engaging rendition of this important work. Timing, phrasing and touch are exemplary thoughout and the overall impression is of a serene and confident progression through one of the most important pieces of music ever written.

Indispensable.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Top Class, 7 Feb 2004
By A Customer
The first version of this I bought was the Neville Marriner package on Phillips Duo, teamed with The Musical Offering.

In that the mixture of using harpsichord, organ and a combination of strings and woodwind on different tracks irritated me a little and had me wanting to hear all the peices played by strings.

As it turns out, I'm now very glad I have both. Hearing it all on the same combination of instruments helped me to realise the value of the variety on the Marriner version.

This version is (it goes without saying) wonderfully played and the string quartet format suits the contrapuncti well.

Personally I like the sudden end in the last peice. I've heard this music described as being like God thinking. The sudden end to this incredibly ordered but compassionate music reminds me of mortality. It seems to fit, somehow.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb
The number of reviews given here makes another from me superfluous but I should like to take issue with David Bryson's acerbic judgment on the ending of the work... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Dermot Elworthy

5.0 out of 5 stars Genuine 5.
The very best version of this I have ever heard. DG do it again. This explores all the mysticism as well as the purity of the symetry and maths of this piece. Read more
Published on 3 April 2006 by Prof Harvey Crichton

5.0 out of 5 stars A place called Heaven.
I'm not really a connoisseur of classical music and what I have to say about 'The art of Fugue' probably mean very little. But I enjoyed this music. Read more
Published on 4 Mar 2004 by Jan Dierckx

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums


What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Bach, J.S.: The Art of Fugue - Emerson String Quartet
78% buy the item featured on this page:
Bach, J.S.: The Art of Fugue - Emerson String Quartet 5.0 out of 5 stars (6)
£7.48
An Equal Music / Verwandte Stimmen - Music From the Novel
7% buy
An Equal Music / Verwandte Stimmen - Music From the Novel 5.0 out of 5 stars (4)
£9.98
Bach, J.S.: Art of Fugue
6% buy
Bach, J.S.: Art of Fugue 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£11.98
Bach, J.S.: The Art of Fugue; A Musical Offering
5% buy
Bach, J.S.: The Art of Fugue; A Musical Offering 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
£8.98

Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Look for similar items by subject





i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.