David Schulenberg

In the course of my work researching and performing the music of J. S. Bach, I have had occasion to complete a number of instrumental works that survive only in fragments. In most cases these are fragments of works that Bach probably composed in full, but he never finished making a fair copy of his working draft, or pages from his fair copy manuscript have been lost. In some cases he may have intentionally discarded portions of a work that he intended to revise and replace, but only the portion left intact remains.

I call these completions rather than reconstructions because, even where we have evidence as to how much of a work is missing or how a fragment might have continued, we cannot be sure that Bach did not intend to alter his original plan as documented by the extant fragment, or to replace a missing portion of a work by a longer or shorter one.

My book The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach contains completions of the following works for solo keyboard instrument:

    Fugue in C Minor BWV 906/2

    Chorale prelude Jesu, meine Freude BWV 753

    Prelude in E Minor BWV 932

Fuga a 3 soggetti (the fragmentary quadruple contrapunctus from the Art of Fugue) BWV 1080/19

The links below will take you to scores and midi (synthesized audio) files for the following works (by Bach unless otherwise noted):

    Fugue in C minor (pedaliter, in five parts) BWV 562
       score  midi

Fantasia pro organo in C, BWV 573
       score  midi

    Chorale prelude Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (manualiter, in four parts), BWV 764
       score  midi

    Aria with Variations BWV 991
       score  midi

    Sonata in A for flute and keyboard, BWV 1032, first movement
       score  flute part    midi

    Handel, Suite in C minor for two keyboard instruments, HWV 446
       score    midi

File updated 12/5/05