Lübeck to London: a much travelled fugue subject

Cummings, Graham (2007) Lübeck to London: a much travelled fugue subject. In: Händel-Jahrbuch. Bärenreiter, Kassel, pp. 331-345. ISBN 978-3-7618-1447-5

Abstract

Context:
The music of Buxtehude is rarely considered as a possible source for Handel’s musical borrowings. Yet, certainly in one
significant instance, a fugue subject by this composer (Praeludium in G minor, BuxWV 163) reappears, with slight changes, in
five works that Handel composed between c.1706 and 1741, namely the three chamber duets HWV 198, 187 and 192, the
cantata HWV 154, and in one chorus in Messiah HWV 56. In addition, it also occurs in a cantata by Telemann. This article,
which follows the ‘travels’ of this contrapuntal theme from Lübeck to Hamburg, thence to Italy, Hanover and finally to London, is
as much about Handel’s ‘habit of improvisation’ as it is about borrowings.

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