FORMAL AND TONAL ANALYSIS OF J.S.BACH?S BWV 779 TWO VOICE INVENTION

Abstract

Polyphonic forms such as fugue, canon, prelude, ricercare, inventions are important tools in terms of music education as well as they have an important place in composition and performance fields. Especially the fugue and inventions which written by J. S. Bach, the last composer of the baroque period, constitute an important resource in music education. As with all polyphonic forms, composing techniques, which are frequently used in polyphonic writing styles, are the main texture of the works of J. S. Bach. Understanding the formal and tonal structure in both polyphonic and homophonic music genres, recognition of the basic constructing devices of the compositions is an important topic in music theory education. Therefore, this study focuses on the formal and tonal analysis of J. S. Bach's two-voice invention coded BWV 779. It is aimed to contribute to the students' knowledge about the formal and tonal structures of polyphonic music forms through the analyzing an invention. This study was designed as a qualitative study and the formal and tonal structure of the work was analyzed descriptively. As a result of the analysis, it was observed that the analyzed invention was constructed in a two-part section, and contrapuntal writing techniques were used as musical material.