Subjects and Phrase Boundaries in Two Keyboard Fugues by J. S. Bach

This article addresses a common situation in music premised on the continual return of thematic content, in which a thematic statement passes through a cadence and continues into a subsequent phrase. With analyses of passages from two keyboard fugues by J. S. Bach, I demonstrate that fugue subjects disposed in this fashion may interact in complex ways with the tonal and durational structures of their surrounding phrases, assert pronounced gestural shapes across phrase boundaries, and resonate with global aspects of form and rhetoric.