Have you come across a music score which set the fugue in a score version?

hi binkyhk- You are in luck! I have sitting next to me an open score edition of the 48 Fugues (and four preludes) A very good friend gave it to me as a present so I am afraid I don't know where exactly you can get hold of it but here are the details:

The Well Tempered Clavier of J S Bach - open score edition by Laurette Goldberg
Music Sources, Center for Historically Informed Performance, Inc
1000 The Alamed
Berkeley, California 94707
email msources@lmi.net

Hope you manage to track it down and find it helpful. M

Confessing to a gap in my knowledge of such things, what is a "score version" ?

Open score i.e. separate staves for each of the 4 (or 3 or 5 etc.) parts.

I think.

Hi Binkyhk

I came across this website which provides open score versions in pdf form for $15 for each of the two books.

I haven't actually bought either of them, but the one he provides free looks OK.

Makes sense.

In which case, why not just get some manuscript paper and make your own? You can only study one fugue at a time, and this would be a good way of learning the structure.

I have often thought that the most useful score would be a standard keyboard arrangement (two staves) but in which each voice was done in a different colour

thanks for all your help....

Funny you should say that: When I'm starting to learning one I find an out of copyright edition and make 4 (or 3 or 5) photocopies (I would photocopy but I have such an edition on disc). I then use a different colour highlighter pen for each part, one part per copy. For the first week or two (or 3 or 4) I play from these copies, but always relating back to the edition I'm actually going to use, one part at a time, then 2 parts at a time. Only then do I go fully to the working edition for hands separately and finally together.

Oh, and score version is definitely open score - SABT or something like it.

Funnily enough, I wrote out the open score version of the most recent Bach fugue I learned. It really helps with learning the structure. And what a fantastic idea about using different colours in closed score.

I did precisely this today with the D major Fugue (Bk 2) which is just two pages long. Nevertheless, the subject of the fugue makes 23 appearances and the second subject .... well so far I've found 109! Admittedly 23 of them are included in the first subject but even so!